University of Tulsa Informations

The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. TU has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic.

The University of Tulsa manages the Gilcrease Museum, which includes one of the largest collections of American Western art and indigenous American artifacts in the world. In 2016, Tulsa acquired The Bob Dylan Archive and is developing a museum nearby in downtown Tulsa to display pieces from this collection. TU also hosts the Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, founded by former TU professor and noted feminist critic Germaine Greer (now at the University of Cambridge).

TU's athletic teams are collectively known as the Tulsa Golden Hurricane and compete in Division I of the NCAA as members of the American Athletic Conference (The American). TU has won six national championships (three NCAA) (four in women's golf and two in men's basketball).

The Presbyterian School for Girls (also known as "Minerva Home") was founded in Muskogee, Indian Territory, in 1882 to offer a primary education to young women of the Creek Nation.

In 1894, the young school expanded to become Henry Kendall College, named in honor of Reverend Henry Kendall, secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions. The first president was William A. Caldwell, who served a brief, two-year term ending in 1896.

Caldwell was succeeded by William Robert King, a Presbyterian minister and co-founder of the college, who had come to Oklahoma from Tennessee, by way of the Union Theological Seminary in New York City (affiliated with Columbia University). Kendall College, while still in Muskogee, granted the first post-secondary degree in Oklahoma in June 1898. Under King, the college was moved from its original location in downtown Muskogee to a larger campus on lands donated by Creek Nation Chief Pleasant Porter.

Kendall College students, faculty and administrators were instrumental in efforts to get the State of Sequoyah recognized; they wrote most of the proposed constitution and designed the seal among other things.

The opening of the new campus coincided with the start of the tenure of the third president, A. Grant Evans. Over the next ten years, Evans oversaw the struggling school's growth. In most years, class sizes remained small and although the Academy, the attached elementary, middle, and high school was more successful; by the end of the 1906/07 year Kendall College had had only 27 collegiate graduates. At the request of the administration, the Synod of Indian Territory assumed control as trustees and began to look at alternatives for the future of the school. When the administration was approached by the comparatively smaller town of Tulsa and offered a chance to move, the decision was made to relocate.

The Tulsa Commercial Club (a forerunner of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce) decided to bid for the college. Club members who packaged a bid in 1907 to move the college to Tulsa included: B. Betters, H. O. McClure, L. N. Butts, W. L. North, James H. Hall (sic), Grant C. Stebbins, Rev. Charles W. Kerr, C. H. Nicholson. The offer included $100,000, 20 acres of real estate and a guarantee for utilities and street car service.

The college opened to thirty-five students in September 1907, two months before Oklahoma became a state. These first students attended classes at the First Presbyterian Church until permanent buildings could be erected on the new campus. This became the start of higher education in Tulsa. Kendall Hall, the first building of the new school, was completed in 1908 and was quickly followed by two other buildings. All three buildings have since been demolished, with Kendall the last to be razed in 1972. The bell that once hung in the Kendall Building tower was saved and displayed in Bayless Plaza.

The Kendall College presidents during 1907–1919 were Arthur Grant Evans, Levi Harrison Beeler, Seth Reed Gordon, Frederick William Hawley, Ralph J. Lamb, Charles Evans, James G. McMurtry and Arthur L. Odell.

In 1918, the Methodist Church proposed building a college in Tulsa, using money donated by Tulsa oilman Robert M. McFarlin. The proposed college was to be named McFarlin College. However, it was soon apparent that Tulsa could not yet support two competing schools. In 1920, Henry Kendall College merged with the proposed McFarlin College to become The University of Tulsa. The McFarlin Library of TU was named for the principal donor of the proposed college. The name of Henry Kendall has lived on to the present as the Henry Kendall College of Arts and Sciences.

The University of Tulsa opened its School of Petroleum Engineering in 1928.

The Great Depression hit the university hard. By 1935, the school was about to close because of its poor financial condition. It had a debt of $250,000, enrollment had fallen to 300 students (including many who could not pay their own tuition), the faculty was poorly paid and morale was low. It was then that the oil tycoon and TU-patron Waite Phillips offered the school presidency to Clarence Isaiah ("Cy") Pontius, a former investment banker. His primary focus would be to rescue the school's finances. A deans' council would take charge of academic issues.

However, Pontius' accomplishments went beyond raising money. During his tenure the following events occurred:

After William G. Skelly died, his widow donated the Skelly Mansion, at the corner of 21st Street and Madison Avenue, to the University of Tulsa. The school sold the mansion and its furnishings to private owners in 1959. On July 5, 2012, the university announced that it would repurchase the house as a residence for its president, who would live on the second floor. The ground floor will be used by the university for special events. After closing the purchase on July 13, 2012, the structure will be officially known as Skelly House.

In 1958, Ben Graf Henneke, a scholar of theater and communications, became the first alumnus to hold the Presidency of the University of Tulsa. During his tenure the university established new doctoral programs, increased the proportion of faculty with doctorates, started new publications including Petroleum Abstracts and the James Joyce Quarterly, developed a North Campus center for petroleum engineering research, and expanded many main campus facilities. He was succeeded by Dr. Eugene L. Swearingen, a Stanford University-trained economist and Oklahoma native who served on the National Finance Committee for the Jimmy Carter Presidential Campaign. Swearingen increased TU's endowment and expanded the footprint of its campus.

In 2004, anthropologist Steadman Upham joined the University of Tulsa as President, having served in faculty and leadership positions at the University of Oregon and Arizona State University. Within five years of his arrival, TU saw thirteen major construction projects and renovations on campus, ranging from the construction of the Roxana Rozsa and Robert Eugene Lorton Performance Center to the overhaul of Keplinger Hall, and plans for seven more major projects finalized (despite the nationwide recession).

The University also launched the Oxley College of Health Sciences, in downtown Tulsa, named in recognition of a major gift from Tulsa's Oxley Foundation. The University also partnered with the George Kaiser Family Foundation to permanently house The Bob Dylan Archive at TU in 2016. Under Upham's leadership, the University of Tulsa assumed management of the famous Gilcrease Museum in northwest Tulsa.

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