Funny thing is, this is the Grace Hopper Program, so it would be totally appropriate for them to teach COBOL. After all, they're named after its inventor. (Okay, technically, it was a committee, but still, you don't get nicknamed the (grand)mother of COBOL just by sitting on a committee.)
Nevertheless, I don't think they're serious. Which kinda makes me wonder: there are way too many lines of COBOL out there to rewrite them all before the current COBOL programmers retire. And yet no one (give or take rounding error) is learning or teaching it these days. So what happens by the time COBOL turns 100? It's not much farther away than the Y2038 bug.
Do we really need someone to teach it? Presumably old books on COBOL still exist, or at least some sort of documentation. If there is a need/demand then reasonably talent programmers could probably pick it up. I haven't learned most of my (minimal) programming from courses but from books.
Nevertheless, I don't think they're serious. Which kinda makes me wonder: there are way too many lines of COBOL out there to rewrite them all before the current COBOL programmers retire. And yet no one (give or take rounding error) is learning or teaching it these days. So what happens by the time COBOL turns 100? It's not much farther away than the Y2038 bug.