Dean Rick Russo

In December 2014, we announced the creation of the Dean's Circle for OLLI supporters who made Annual Fund gifts of $1,000 and above. Dean's Circle donors will be recognized at a spring event with Rick Russo, Dean of Summer Sessions, Study Abroad and Lifelong Learning (SSALL). OLLI is part of the SSALL unit at UC Berkeley; the administrative support that SSALL provides helps us keep our overhead low so we can channel funding towards our programs and member services.

Under Rick Russo's leadership, SSALL's programs have grown in innovative directions. Rick  arrived at Cal in 2005 as Director of Summer Sessions and became Dean of SSALL when the unit was formed in 2011. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, he worked at Boston University for 12 years, first as Director of Finance and Administration for BU's Study Abroad program, then as Executive Director of Administration for its Division of Extended Education.

We asked Rick a few questions about SSALL and the programs he oversees.

RR: The vast majority of what we offer in Summer Sessions is pretty typical. We offer all the big survey courses like Chemistry 1A, History 5, beginning language course, etc.

What's not typical is the size of our programs. We offer 1,000 sections of 600 courses to 16,000 students, which makes our summer session one of the largest in the nation. When it comes to international enrollment, we're the largest in the country: we have 3,000 international students. UCLA has the second-largest international enrollment for summer sessions, with about 1,000 students. So we're a leader, and other programs look to us for guidance.

It's also unusual to have Summer Sessions and Study Abroad under the same umbrella. We have a very robust Summer Study Abroad program, with about 500 students per year and a lineup of courses that goes well beyond "travel study."

Our global internship program is unique; we're actually up for an award for that program.

RR: When I arrived in 2005, the goal was to get more students enrolled in Summer Sessions. We discovered that one of the reasons Cal students didn't enroll during summer was because they wanted to travel or pursue internships... so we created a program to let them do both.

Our first summer internship classes were local, and  we quickly expanded the program to include international internships. We currently offer global internship programs in ten locations worldwide. Each internship is accompanied by an online course that allows students to reflect on their experiences. By collaborating with other internship participants, our students can also gain more of an understanding of larger-picture, global issues like the intercultural or gender issues in the workforce.

For each of these global internship programs, we partner with a local university. Students live on campus, and they take classes with local faculty about the history and culture of the place they are studying. I like to call it the ultimate hybrid program.

We're also working to expand Study Abroad to include more majors. Why should the language and history majors have all the fun? There has been a shift nationwide towards making study abroad programs compatible with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) majors. With most of these majors, students have to take the required classes in sequence. Some of those classes aren't offered every semester, so if they miss a step in the sequence it can hold them back for a semester or more--but a lot of students can't afford to spend extra time in school. So we're working with departments to help us identify programs and classes that will meet their students' major requirements. (If some of our Math faculty hold degrees from the University of Singapore, for instance, then the University of Singapore obviously has a good math program.)

Another area that we're tackling is the affordability of study abroad programs. Forty percent of Cal students pay no tuition, 80 percent receive financial aid, and 20 percent pay full tuition. I want that same pattern of students to be able to study abroad, and I have made it my mission to fundraise in support of of that. When Study Abroad came under the umbrella of SSALL three years ago, we distributed a few hundred thousand dollars in scholarships. Now we're up to $1.7 million. This helps us make study abroad accessible to low-income and underserved students.

We're also taking steps to bring the Study Abroad program within reach for middle-income students. We recently founded a loan program for Study Abroad. It's the first program of its kind in the nation. Basically, we take our surplus and invest it in students. They pay the loan back with very low interest, which then allows us to help the next student. Everybody wins!

RR: Overall, I'm most proud of the access that SSALL provides to various communities.

During the school year, Cal classes are only open to Cal students. In summer, they're open to everyone, which means that 4,000 students from all over the world get to experience UC Berkeley's campus and classes. Since I've been here, we have worked to expand access to Summer Sessions for underserved communities [and transfer students]. We work with the Transfer Alliance Program, the Early Academic Outreach Program, and Pathways to Four-Year Universities.

For the Study Abroad programs, we're increasing access for STEM majors, for low- and middle-income students, and for the underserved. We're also working on programs to increase access for students with disabilities and for student parents, and we're looking into options for AB540 ("Dream Act") students. Study in Puerto Rico would give students contact with another culture, but it doesn't require a passport.

For OLLI, Susan has done wonderful work in increasing access. She has expanded OLLI @Berkeley geographically with classes in Lafayette, expanded the programs vertically with the Fourth Age salon, improved access for the hearing-impaired, enlarged the fee-assistance program, and made sure that OLLI is LGBT-inclusive.