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OLLI CSUF Collaboration

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The OLLI Collaboration Program matches well-qualified volunteers with academic opportunities.

OLLI members are an invaluable resource with expertise and skills honed over decades of life and career experiences.  As volunteers, they are eager to help enrich CSUF academic programs and students' education and career preparation.  The OLLI presence across disciplines underscores the university's deep commitment to teaching and learning throughout one's lifespan.

For the volunteer, collaboration provides an outlet for continued involvement that research studies have shown to have a positive impact on health, well-being, and even long life.  For the university, collaboration broadens students’ educational experience and helps prepare them for successful careers and life challenges.

Begun in 2010, the OLLI Collaboration Program is guided by a Steering Committee of Associate/Assistant Deans and is led by a Working Committee of OLLI members.  During the last two academic years, OLLI members have responded to almost 1000 volunteer opportunities, requiring a few hours, a one-time effort, or an ongoing commitment.

Learn More About OLLI–CSUF Collaboration

Individuals interested in learning more about collaboration opportunities with OLLI at CSU Fullerton may submit an inquiry through the OLLI–CSUF Collaboration Information Request Page , or contact Sue Mullaly at smullaly@csu.fullerton.edu

Collaboration Participants

Current participants may access the Collaboration Resource Page, which includes:

  1. The Collaboration Master Calendar
  2. A library of articles for mentors
  3. Forms for submitting collaboration activity reports

Additional background about the program is available in an article on OLLI Collaboration published in the Center for Internships and Community Engagement Report.

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Recent and Ongoing Collaborations:

Consulting

Consulting collaborations take on many forms and may be with university administrators, faculty, or students.  OLLI members are often called upon to lend their career expertise to educational situations .

  • EDUCATION:  OLLI members reviewed the resumes of teaching credential
    candidates.  One of the OLLI reviewers (a former school principal) was so impressed with one of the students that he called his old school district to tell them that she was an excellent candidate.
  • ENGINEERING: A former executive in bio-engineering is helping develop plans for a new bio-engineering department.
  • BUSINESS:  A former marketing director helped a graduate student develop a statistical analysis plan for a class in the Marketing Department.
  • NATURAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS: OLLI members with science backgrounds served as judges at an exhibit of student science projects.
  • COMMUNICATIONS:  A former professor in the College of Communications advised tenured professors on how to reach full professorship.

Lecturing

Lectures are one means for OLLI members to share their expertise; however, the collaboration may not end with the lecture.  Students often seek out the lecturer for career advice.

  • ENGINEERING and BUSINESS:  One OLLI collaborator had just completed his term as president of the CSUF Toastmasters club when he was invited to discuss presentation skills with students in a computer engineering class who were preparing their capstone project presentations.  He gave this presentation to four engineering classes and a business college class.  One of the students commented that this was the best lecture he’s heard all semester.
  • ENGINEERING:  Another OLLI lecture topic was "System Engineering Processes for Multi-Billion Dollar Projects."
  • ENGINEERING:  A holder of 16 U.S. patents shared "The Patent Process."
  • BUSINESS:  A retired Chief Compliance Officer in a large insurance company spoke on "Compliance with Government Regulations."
  • EDUCATION:  A former school principal presented her perspective on "Getting Your First Teaching Job."

Mentoring

The OLLI mentoring program is designed to give our members opportunities to share their lifetime of knowledge and make a real difference in the lives of CSUF students. We support the University’s goals of helping students graduate on time and launch rewarding careers, serving diverse student populations, and integrating with the community at large. You may choose one-on-one mentoring for one semester or more or you may choose to mentor a team of students dedicated to a semester project that is guided by a faculty member.

Mentoring is a rewarding opportunity to engage with young people, form valuable relationships, and give back.

One to One Mentors

  • OLLI Mentors coach our Mentees in “soft skills” such as time management, working within teams, leadership, navigating a large campus, networking, presenting yourself well in a job interview, and so on. These are skills that are rarely taught, that many students lack, and that we have all developed in our careers. We are not subject-matter tutors; CSUF has many excellent resources to provide tutors and we can help our Mentees find them. For example, you don’t have to know a thing about engineering to teach these types of skills to an eager engineering student!

  • Your Mentee may be a traditional student who is just starting at CSUF, a student transferring from a Community College, or a student who is near graduation and looking to begin their career.

Group Mentors

OLLI mentors have generally been invited to work with advanced or graduate student teams and may work from 2 to 10 hours a week over a semester.

  • BUSINESS: OLLI mentors work with student teams who identify and recommend improvements to local small businesses (the businesses pay the University a consulting fee for the students’ work). One OLLI mentor worked with his team of students on their presentation for 5 hours on the Sunday before the team gave the presentation. The presentation went very well - the business owner accepted all the recommendations and asked if any of the students were interested in a part-time job.

  • BUSINESS: Other OLLI mentors helped students develop a business plan and start a small business based on that plan.

  • ENGINEERING: Over the course of a year, a student team with guidance from an OLLI mentor, developed a computer engineering product.

Tutoring

Tutoring is a one-on-one collaboration between OLLI tutors and students.  Tutors work with a student for one or two sessions a week and spend 2 to 4 hours per session. 

  • EDUCATION: A student attempting to pass a standard test required for entry into the graduate program had failed the test six times.  She worked with an OLLI tutor and passed on her next try.
  • NATURAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS:  A chemistry student was struggling.  She received some tutoring and raised her grade to a “B.”
  • NURSING:  A nursing student was fearful that she was going to fail her class.  After working with an OLLI tutor she raised her grade to an “A.”   Nursing students rated all seven OLLI tutors with the highest score attainable. 
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Sharing Life Experiences

Sharing life experience collaborations range from a one-time talk about some aspect of their lives that is relevant to what the class is learning to full time participation with the students for an entire semester.  Students are moved by some of the stories they hear and are impressed by the OLLI members giving the talks.  We often hear students say things like “I want to be like you when I’m retired,” or I’m going to get my parents/grandparents to join OLLI."

  • Ten OLLI members participated in a guided autobiography class.  They attended all the class meetings, did the homework, helped the students plan their interviews, were the subjects of the interviews and helped the students improve their reports of the interviews.
  • Two OLLI members discussed their experiences growinLife Experience 2g up in the segregated South with a Sociology class studying effects of racism and socioeconomic differences on life and career success.
  • Sixteen OLLI members were focus group subjects for students in a class on marketing to the 50+ market.
  • Geriatric nursing students attended OLLI classes and interviewed OLLI members to gain an appreciation of the capabilities of active older adults. In the report of his experience, one student wrote that he now realizes there is life after 60!
  • Other OLLI members read books in the university’s preschool for the children of faculty, staff and students.

Sharing Career Experiences

OLLI members on career panels discuss their experience in industry segments and jobs that the students are interested in within those segments. They also suggest actions that may lead to jobs. One professor commented that these panels are excellent because they enable the students to validate what they are learning in class against real life experience.

Career areas have included:

  • Insurance
  • Counseling
  • Software Project Management
  • Real Estate
  • Information Technology
  • Teaching

Serving as Research Test Subjects

OLLI members are ideal research test subjects, particularly for studies related to aging. Most studies require little time by participants.

Research topics have included: 

  • Advance Directives
  • Exposure to New Technology
  • Walking While Talking
  • Fraud Among the Aging
  • Women Aging Well.  
    This study examined linkages among childhood relations with parents, childhood abuse, family dysfunction, depression, unresolved grief, subjective well being, social involvement, current health, and eating habits. The data revealed that the OLLI women who participated in the study ranked higher than the national average in most every measure of "successful aging." 
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