Bernard Burrola Joins APLU As Vice President for International Programs

Bernard “Bernie” Burrola joined APLU as Vice President for International Programs on February 3. He comes to APLU after nearly three years working at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an international public health advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. He served as the Director of International Grants there, overseeing a grant portfolio of more than $30 million. As director, he supervised a 10-person staff that issued over 125 grants annually to governments, universities, and civil society organizations to promote effective public health policies.

Prior to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Bernie served as the Executive Director of the U.S.-Indonesia Joint Council on Higher Education Partnership. The Joint Council was a bi-national, presidential initiative to increase higher educational ties between the United States and Indonesia around the areas of student exchange, collaborative research, and institutional partnerships. The Joint Council was the lead civil society organization connecting universities in the U.S. and Indonesia to develop pipelines and pathways for greater student exchange and faculty research.

As executive director, Bernie established 10 formal partnerships between U.S. and Indonesian universities (nine of which involved APLU-member institutions) in such areas as journalism, agricultural science, marine science, cultural preservation, and forest management. He worked with universities in both countries to develop strategies for increasing American study abroad to Indonesia and increasing Indonesian graduate study to the United States. During his tenure, the Joint Council helped send over 1,000 students for study in both directions.

Prior to the Joint Council, Bernie worked in the Office of Global Educational Programs at the U.S. Department of State where he worked on EducationUSA. He helped promote U.S. higher education abroad and worked with both the public and private sectors to ensure quality educational advising was provided for international students interested in study in the United States.

He also served as the Assistant Dean of Admission at Claremont McKenna College in California and on the admission selection committees for the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University and for the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University in China. He’s fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.