The revolutionary combined majors degree program at Khoury College allows for the integration of computing with a legion of other disciplines across Northeastern. Instrumental to the creation of this program was Richard Rasala, Professor Emeritus at Khoury.

Built through enormous cooperation among staff and administrators across the university, the program was first developed during the 1990s at Khoury (then known as the College of Computer Science) by Rasala and then Dean Larry Finkelstein. Rasala led the effort to create a template for how students could have an interdisciplinary education that met the graduation needs of two distinct majors. Double majors already existed, but the additional time and cost needed to meet all requirements was only possible for a few students. The desire to extend this opportunity to all Khoury College students led to an innovative template that was both precise about the requirements needed to satisfy two specific majors and flexible enough to be successfully replicated. And, of course, students could complete the program without additional school time.

Combined majors (initially called “dual majors”) debuted in 2000 with three new Bachelor of Science degrees that combined computer science with cognitive psychology, mathematics, and physics. Over time, Rasala grew the program to include more departments across the university, opening avenues for students from diverse backgrounds to pursue interests outside of traditional computer science academia and industry.

In his final year at Khoury in 2017, Rasala helped to develop a record-breaking six new combined majors, more new majors than were released in any single year prior. Building on Rasala’s legacy with its commitment to interdisciplinary education, Khoury College now boasts 43 combined majors in 2022, and the total number of combined majors in all disciplines at Northeastern is an impressive 197. Student interest only grows, with combined majors representing 55% of the majors in the college.

During his time at Khoury, Rasala held many roles: professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Associate Dean for the Undergraduate Program. But any reflection on his time at Khoury has to include the fact that he helped found the College of Computer Science (CCS), later to become the Khoury School, and became one of its first professors.

“I think the best thing that ever happened to me was coming to Northeastern as a faculty member. Because I was put into this place [that] really resonated with what I felt mattered.” — Richard Rasala

As a professor, one of Rasala’s biggest goals was to “empower programmers to build the tools they need.” In his pioneering work in the use of software toolkits—essentially, programs that work around the lapses that arise in computer languages—he developed and shared tools with students, and then encouraged them to use these tools as a model to build their own. As he says, he likes to “teach them the zen of building tools.”

Rasala retired from the Khoury School in 2017, but he has not slowed down. He is now working on a tool that will allow anyone to build a web page simply by producing a structured outline. It is just one more way that he continues in his goal of empowering people through education and computer science, which first began at Northeastern. “I think the best thing that ever happened to me was coming to Northeastern as a faculty member,” Rasala says. “Because I was put into this place [that] really resonated with what I felt mattered.”