OLLI at UC Berkeley
When the platform needed a full rebuild, OLLI didn't need a new partner.
OLLI at UC Berkeley is a member-driven learning community for adults 50 and up, with courses taught by Berkeley faculty and other leading scholars, in person and online. Aero has been OLLI's web partner since 2014, supporting the staff who run the platform and rebuilding it when the programs outgrew it.
Enrollment, payments, and member records, all out of sync.
OLLI's previous site had grown harder to run than the programs it served. Registration confused the members it was meant to welcome, the design didn't hold up on mobile, and content, payments, and member records lived in systems that didn't fully talk to each other. Staff spent their days untangling signups instead of running programs, and an audience of learners 50 and up was left working around the software instead of through it.
From finding a course to replaying the class.
The site pairs a Drupal publishing layer the staff manage themselves with member records and payments that stay connected behind the scenes, with Aero training and supporting the team as programs change. Here's what runs through it:
Browse courses and programs
Members explore each term's catalog of courses, speaker events, and field trips without calling the office.
Register and pay online
Members register and pay for courses online, and their records stay current without staff re-keying data.
Join, renew, or give
Members join or renew on their own, with gift memberships and fee assistance handled in the same flow.
Replay class materials
Learners revisit session recordings and course materials after class, on any device.
Publish updates independently
Staff keep the calendar, blog, and term announcements current on their own schedule.
Built through 12 years of enrollment seasons.
OLLI and Aero have worked together since 2014, through growing programs, new formats, and a full rebuild of the platform. The rebuild started from workflows the team already knew: how members browse and enroll, how staff publish, how records stay connected. The platform is new. The team behind it isn't.
Aero Design has been an important partner to OLLI @Berkeley for many years. They have worked closely with us to build and refine a website tailored to the needs of our large and growing lifelong learning community, supporting everything from membership management and course registration to volunteer engagement and online programming. We appreciate their commitment to helping us serve our members effectively.
