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TU Points of Pride
TU Points of Pride
TU is 88th among national doctoral universities in U. S. News & World Report's 2010 edition of America's Best Colleges. Among private schools listed in the top 100, TU ranked 50th in the 2010 guidebook.
Princeton Review has named TU as one of the nation’s 50 “Best Value” private colleges and universities, saying TU is "among the lowest-priced selective, independent institutions in the nation." The publication also praised TU's high quality academics across all disciplines.
In 2009, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine has named The University of Tulsa a best value among private universities. The personal finance publication ranked TU 45th on its list, with its calculations based on tuition costs, actual costs after financial aid, average debt after graduation, graduation rate, admission rate, SAT and ACT scores, and student-faculty ratio.
Since 1995, TU students have won numerous competitive national scholarships and fellowships: 44 Goldwaters, 29 National Science Foundation, 8 Trumans, 7 Dept. of Defense, 6 Udalls, 7 Fulbrights, 4 British Marshalls (including the first received by an Oklahoma student in 27 years), and 8 Phi Kappa Phi.
TU's 2009 freshman class had a mean cumulative grade point average of 3.8 (on a 4.0 scale), and 65 percent graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. Their average ACT was 28.
Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge allows students as early as the freshman year to get involved in advanced research with faculty members as mentors.
The University of Tulsa's Cyber Corps Program trains elite squadrons of "MacGyvers," who work within the U.S. government and military to protect and defend America's critical infrastructure.
In 2008, the City of Tulsa and the University of Tulsa entered into a historic partnership to preserve and advance Gilcrease Museum. Gilcrease Museum is one of the country's best facilities for the preservation and study of American art and history. The museum houses the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of art and artifacts of the American West, including an unparalleled collection of Native American art and artifacts, as well as thousands of historical documents, maps and manuscripts.
TU is one of 150 colleges to be included in the Colleges of Distinction, a web site and guidebook that were developed by parents, educators and admissions professionals to "provide consumers with the best possible information about higher education."
TU students placed among the top five teams during the three-year Challenge X competition to reduce automobile pollution and improve energy consumption. The students transformed a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox into a diesel-electric hybrid vehicle.
Collins College of Business is one of the few private business schools in the region accredited by AACSB International -- The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Less than 15 percent of business schools worldwide have earned this accreditation.
Moot court teams from the TU College of Law perennially have strong performances at prestigious national competitions against the highest levels of competition.
The Henry Kendall College of Arts and Sciences is home to five major journals including the James Joyce Quarterly, Nimrod International Journal of Poetry and Prose, Russian Studies in History, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, and Lithic Technology.
Since joining Conference USA, TU athletic teams have won more conference championships than any other member school. Our student-athletes have earned conference championships in football, women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, softball, volleyball, men's and women's golf, and men's soccer.
TU has joined the ranks of distinguished universities named Truman Honor Institutions. The award was presented by Louis Blair, executive secretary of the Truman Scholarship Foundation at the University's 2005 convocation. Since 1995, eight TU students have received Truman Scholarships.
The College of Arts and Sciences is home to five major journals including the James Joyce Quarterly, Nimrod International Journal of Poetry and Prose, Russian Studies in History, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature and Lithic Technology.
The James Joyce Quarterly, The University of Tulsa and Brown University co-host the Modernist Journals Project, an online archive that adds past issues of various modernist texts from McFarlin Library's Special Collections and other libraries to its Web site of early 20th-century periodicals. The Project recently received additional funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
For the past 17 years, the Department of English and the Department of Languages have directed the annual NEH-funded Comparative Literature Symposium. Recent topics have included "Crossing Borders: 21st-Century Writers in the Americas in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish," "The Original Avant-Garde: Revolt, Tradition, Legacy," and " Towards a Unified Framework in Developmental Linguistics."
The Mary K. Chapman Center for Communicative Disorders serves individuals and families from all socioeconomic groups with speech, language and hearing services, including the Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Clinic, the Assistive Technology laboratory, the Aphasia Support Group, the Cochlear Implant support group, and Animal-Assisted Therapy.
Dr. Barbara Santee, TU sociology alumna, received Oklahoma ACLU's Angie Debo Civil Liberties Award, that is " . . . given annually to an individual whose actions during the year or throughout a lifetime have helped to preserve individual freedom in Oklahoma."
Titan: Tulsa Institute of Trauma, Abuse, & Neglect, a new interdisciplinary research program includes research scholars Lara Foley, sociology; Joann Davis and Elana Newman, psychology; and researchers from the College of Law and School of Nursing. For their first project, the researchers will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of SANE, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program located in the Tulsa Police Department. The evaluation will include psychological, medical, forensic, legal, professional, and community indicators.
Linda Roark-Strummer, an internationally renowned soprano, is an associate professor of voice and director of opera workshop at The University of Tulsa. She has conquered many of the most demanding roles in the dramatic soprano repertoire at the world's greatest opera houses and operatic venues to both popular and critical acclaim throughout North American and Europe.
Noted Russian poet and activist Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a member of the TU English faculty, had his childhood home in Siberia restored as a museum of poetry in July 2001. Yevtushenko has toured in more than 90 countries, and his works have been translated into 72 languages.
More than 25,000 artifacts are being analyzed at The University of Tulsa under the direction of Anthropology Professor Donald Henry, who received a National Science Foundation grant for archaeological research in Jordan to test current theories of the earliest domestication of animals. Henry, several TU students and collaborating researchers mapped the 8,500-year-old site of Ayn Abu Nukhayla in 1999 and conducted large-scale excavations in 2000 and 2001. The analysis of artifacts - ranging from pollen to bone fragments - involves more than 20 scientists from 13 institutions and five countries.
Garrick Bailey finalized editing Indians in Contemporary Society, vol. 2. of the Handbook of North American Indians published by the Smithsonian Institution. This is the final volume to be completed in the 20-volume series.
Robert Hansson's book, Bereavement in Late Life, was published by the American Psychological Association.
During the past year, the Department of Psychology has been awarded research grants totaling $655,979.00.
Arts and Sciences students provide graphic design services to Tulsa-area nonprofit organizations through Third Floor Design, a student-run graphic design agency. The students serve real-world clients while acquiring a professional portfolio.
Each year, The J. Donald Feagin Distinguished Visiting Artist program helps TU create a dialogue between high-profile visiting artists, TU students and Tulsa's public by bringing noted writers and artists to campus. Guests have included Nobel Prize winning novelist J. M. Coetzee, actor and film director Tim Blake Nelson, and composer David Amram.
The Ruth Mayo Distinguished Visiting Artist Program allows internationally recognized artists to provide classroom and individual instruction to undergraduate and graduate art students. The 2006 Mayo Visiting Artist was William Bailey.
The TU Collins College of Business is one of the few private business schools in the region accredited by AACSB International - The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Less than 15 percent of business schools worldwide have earned this accreditation. TU is the only private, AACSB-accredited business school in the state of Oklahoma to offer an MBA program both on campus and online.
The Collins College of Business offers a fully online Master of Taxation (MTAX) program that prepares professionals for careers in the private and public sectors. TU's MTAX program, which enrolls students from as far away as Alaska, Maine, Florida and California, is the only program of its kind at an AACSB-accredited college of business.
Since 1947, the Collins College of Business has hosted the annual Conference of Accountants, which provides lectures, seminars and continuing education credit for accounting professionals. About 350 attended the 2007 conference.
The Collins College of Business is the home of the Family-Owned Business Institute, the only resource center of its kind in the region. The Institute offers educational programs to meet the needs of multigenerational family-operated businesses. Since 1998, the college has offered specialized courses focused on the issues faced by family-owned businesses. Students in the family business classes are encouraged to participate in the Institute programs, and family business owners are invited to serve as student mentors.
The college's networking and communications lab provides a full-featured environment where students gain experience designing, installing and administering networks, as well as developing business applications and using them to complete assignments. The lab puts student teams into the same kinds of end-to-end provider-client relationships they will face in the working world.
The Genave King Rogers Business Law Center supports the business law specialization within the management major and provides students with resources and guidance in business law issues. An informal survey of professionals in the Academy of Legal Studies in Business revealed that The University of Tulsa is the only institution with a center devoted entirely to business law education.
The Athletic Training Program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE); TU had the first accredited athletic training program in Oklahoma.
The Exercise and Sports Science Program is recognized by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), which identifies qualified college and university programs with an emphasis on anaerobic conditioning.
The Collins College of Business established several new programs in 2007: the Energy Management major; the joint Master of Science in Finance and Master of Business Administration; the joint Master of Science in Finance and Applied Mathematics; and the joint Master of Science in Finance and Juris Doctor.
The International Business and Entrepreneurship Institute (IBEI) was established in fall 2007. The IBEI is a gateway to the "real world" of international and entrepreneurial ventures for graduate and undergraduate students.
For the second time in three years, a TU team has earned a first place finish in the Governor's Cup competition. In 2007, TU took first place at the undergraduate level and second place at the graduate level. In 2005, TU took first place at the graduate level. The Donald W. Reynolds Governor's Cup competition is the premier statewide business plan competition for students in Oklahoma universities and colleges.
MBA student Haden Snyder and Finance Professor J. Markham Collins both received Fulbright fellowships in 2007. Snyder taught English language and conversation to high school students in Germany during the 2007-08 academic year. Collins was a guest lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Economic Science at Eszterhazy Karoly College in Eger, Hungary, during the spring of 2008.
The TU team was awarded 4th place at the District 10 competition of the American Advertising Federation. The team of nine TU Business students and nine Arts & Sciences students created a campaign for Coke Classic.
Professor of Operations Management Wen Chiang is the editor of a new journal, the International Journal of Revenue Management.
In the spring 2006 ETS Major Field Test, TU bsuiness students scored at the 90th percentile of all test takers at 513 participating institutions. Students majoring in accounting, finance, management information systems, and international business scored at the 95th percentile.
The EBI Undergraduate Business Exit Assessment involved test takers from 162 participating institutions. TU business students ranked second among the Select 6 Comparison Group, 3rd among the 22 universities in the same Carnegie Classification, and 18th among the 162 participating institutions.
TU is ranked among the top four petroleum engineering graduate programs in the U.S. News & World Report's 2008 rankings of America's best graduate schools. Students from all over the globe seek the faculty expertise and unmatched facilities for petroleum engineering at TU; in fact, the department hosts students and faculty from 25 countries.
TU has one of the country’s most recognized institutions for information security in the fight against cyber crime and has been designated by the NSA as one of its Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education. TU is also one of a handful of institutions qualified to participate in the federal Cyber Corps Program, which trains elite squadrons of computer security experts to form the country's first line of defense against global cyber threats.
TU operates the world's largest research flow-loop, which simulates the drilling of a well at any angle.
Electrical engineering students volunteered countless hours from 2005–08 to build a customized wheelchair for Abigail Laipple, a local girl with cerebral palsy. Abigail's chair features a microprocessor to drive the chair, safety sensors that detect obstacles or sudden drop-offs, and a specially programmed laptop that allows Abigail to communicate her needs through a programmed voice.
The 37,000-acre Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, a refuge for American bison, serves as a living laboratory for students and faculty in chemistry, chemical engineering, geosciences and biological sciences. Research topics at the preserve, located about 65 miles north of TU, include the impact of brine spills and crude oil contamination on soil and pond ecosystems.
Every year, students at The University of Tulsa have the opportunity to work on summer projects at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the world's leading scientific research facilities. A special agreement with TU created a research and educational program, including internships, that enables students to gain research experience early in their academic careers. Each student who is accepted is assigned a Los Alamos scientist or engineer as a mentor.
TU pre-med students are prepared to take on the challenges of medical school; in fact, 78 percent of TU students who applied to medical school in 2007 were accepted.
Several specialty undergraduate research programs are available in the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences including the Chemistry Summer Undergraduate Research Program (CSURP), the Geosciences Summer Undergraduate Research Program (GSURP) and the Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Physics (SURPP). These programs also offer pre-freshman and undergraduates the involvement in research needed to jumpstart their academic and professional careers.
TU computer science professors John Hale and Gavin Manes developed a patented system for closely imitating digital media files on peer-to-peer networks. In 2005, the University sold its rights to the digital anti-piracy method to Overpeer, Inc., a leading provider of anti-piracy services to major record labels, film studios, game publishers and software companies.
TU's Petroleum Abstracts is the world's leading source of information about published knowledge related to oil and gas exploration, production, transportation and storage. Petroleum Abstracts began publishing in 1961 and its publications continue to represent significant scholarly and research contributions for the petroleum industry.
TU's Indoor Air Quality Program, which investigates the health effects of indoor air pollution, has worked with school districts from 13 states and 25 counties for solutions to schools' air quality problems, including a district in Mississippi hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since 2003, more than 1.5 million students and school staff have been a part of TU’s research on indoor air quality.
TU was one of only 17 universities invited to compete in the prestigious Challenge X engineering competition, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors. Each team received a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox and a $10,000 grant to develop a crossover SUV that increases fuel economy while retaining consumer-friendly and fun amenities. In 2007, the TU team earned National Instruments Most Innovative Use of Graphical System Design Award for their programming of the vehicle's computers that monitor the team's hybrid auto design.
The College of Engineering and Natural Sciences supports four of TU's interdisciplinary institutes: The Institute of Nanotechnology, The Institute of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The Institute for Biochemical and Psychological Study of Individual Differences, and The Institute of Alternative Energy.
TU's North Campus facility is like no other university research facility in the nation. Its field-scale petroleum facilities allow students to better perform experiments and practice new technologies in an accurate testing environment. Research projects at North Campus have generated millions of dollars and hundreds of innovative solutions to problems faced by the industry.
The college has strong partnerships with the energy industry and manages 14 research consortia and joint industry projects with companies like Chevron, Shell, Halliburton, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
TU’s Hurricane Motorworks has a long history of producing award-winning alternative fuel and efficient vehicles:
- In 2008 TU students built a vehicle that gets 337 miles per gallon and won first place at the Supermileage fuel economy competition for best design proposal.
- TU's Challenge X team won 13 medals at the 2008 competition. The reengineered SUV runs off of a biodiesel motor and a removable hydrogen fuel cell.
- From 1998–2002, TU has won the American Tour de Sol contest twice and come in second three times with its hybrid-electric vehicle – known as the "Paradyne."
TU professors and students have developed a patented process that creates batteries so small that 240 of them can fit across a human hair. At this tiny scale, improvements are possible to greatly increase battery capacity for use in anything from cell phones and laptop computers to fuel cells that can generate electricity in remote locations.
The College of Law received a transformative gift from the estate of John Rogers Jr., honoring his father who was one of the founding fathers of the college. The multimillion dollar endowment will fund more than 20 scholarships annually.
Students who entered the college in fall 2006 posted the best LSAT scores and g.p.a average for the college in 10 years.
Graduates of the College of Law had the highest overall bar passage rate at 97 percent on the February 2006 bar examination for first-time takers in Oklahoma, continuing an upward trend that began in February 2005.
Job placement for TU law graduates is as good as it has been in 12 years - 90 percent are employed nine months after graduation.
The Boesche Legal Clinic provides legal services through its three programs: the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Legal Services Clinic, which provides direct legal representation to tribal members in the Oklahoma Area; the Immigrant Rights Project; and the new Transactional Clinic, which will be taught by Wellspring Professor Patience Crowder. Boesche has provided pro bono services to more than 4,000 indigent or elderly clients since its inception in 1993, and was awarded the Outstanding Pro Bono Legal Service Award from the Oklahoma Bar Association in 2002.
Two law student interns from the Boesche Legal Clinic Immigrant Rights Project helped secure asylum in the U.S. for one of their clients, a young man from Eritrea (where the majority are Muslim) who suffered torture and imprisonment in his home country for his refusal to renounce his Christianity.
The TU Black Law Students Association moot court team was invited to the Thurgood Marshall National Moot Court Competition based upon its placement in the Rocky Mountain Regional competition. The team placed 5th in the nation.
The Jessup International Moot Court competition, which is the largest in the world, draws students from all over the U.S. and 80 countries. The TU Law Jessup Trial team won 2nd Place for best brief, defeating several powerhouse teams in the preliminary rounds. The Native American Law Student Association Moot Court team participated in the Twin Cities competition. One team was recognized as 3rd Best overall, and one student recognized as Best Oralist.
The University of Tulsa National Energy-Environment Law and Policy Institute (NELPI) is a key publisher in defining energy and environmental issues internationally. The College of Law co-publishes the Energy Law Journal with the Energy Bar Association. NELPI also offers an innovative certificate program.
Students have the opportunity to serve on three law journals: the Tulsa Law Review, the official publication of the College of Law; Tulsa Journal of Comparative & International Law; and the Energy Law Journal, a joint project of NELPI and the Federal Energy Bar.
The Mabee Legal Information Center (MLIC), continues to improve and expand its $10.4 million, 28,000-square-foot addition to the College of Law. The MLIC, which features high-tech research resources and electronic classrooms, is ranked 33rd in the nation among law libraries.
The Wm. Stuart Price and Michael C. Turpen Courtroom is a modern, technologically advanced environment that boasts a state-of-the-art sound system, broadcast and recording capabilities, as well as videoconferencing technology and wireless network access.
The Native American Law Center (NALC) is a leading research hub for Native American law and history, offering both a certificate program and an LL.M. (Masters in Law) in American Indian and Indigenous Law. Tulsa's proximity to major tribal headquarters creates unique opportunities for student externships. The NALC is supported with an extensive library collection.
The College of Law offers the Masters in American Law for Foreign Law Graduates Program, which allows students who hold or expect to receive a law degree from an institution outside of the United States to receive their LL.M. in American Law. The program is accredited by the American Bar Association. The college also offers study abroad in Geneva in a program that focuses on Indigenous Peoples.
An additional first year section was added to create smaller class sizes for first year students. No first year class has more than 45 students.
Recent lecturers at the college have enriched the campus and larger community. They include Laurence H. Tribe, David Barron, Frank I. Michelman, Sanford V. Levinson, Erwin Chermerinsky, Akhil Reed Amar and the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor visited in summer 2007. The law school also sponsors conferences on the Warren, Burger and Rehnquist Courts, which have been updated by the College's Annual Supreme Court Review.