Plans to more than double TU’s student body raise questions about livable space.
On Thursday, September 10, University President Stacy Leeds sat down for an interview with Managing and Copy Editor Ally Jones and myself. The meeting occurred one day after Leeds published a staff-wide email announcing that the University of Tulsa had accrued $130 million of debt over the past 30 or so years. In the face of such challenges, TU’s new leader detailed her plans to rescue the school from decline.
Aiden Hoogstra: “I guess the first question I would have for you is what drew you to this position at this school?”
President Leeds: “Well, I was a student on this campus for three years in the ’90s, and my brother was also a student here. We are the only two people in our family who have degrees, and we both have a degree from this institution. So, you know, there’s a lot of love in our family for this institution … it was always a hope that I could come back home. [I] grew up about 60 miles from here. For generations, my family has made their home here in northeastern Oklahoma. So there were a lot of strings, both personally and professionally, that pulled me back here.”
Hoogstra: “You said you learned a lot, and you saw a lot of potential at other schools … what are some things that you see at other universities and institutions that you see potential for growth for here?”
Leeds: “Part of it is how other universities very publicly celebrate their successes. I have watched all the amazing students graduate from this school and go out and make a big impact in the community. But sometimes we say Tulsa is a best kept secret, and, you know, one of the ways that I think that we can continue to amplify our impact nationally and internationally is to tell these stories very, very loudly … so, you know, part of it is just letting the whole world know what a great place this is and not keeping it to ourselves.”
Hoogstra: “What are some particular goals — aside from, you know, getting the word out about TU and all it has to offer — that you have for your time here as president?”
Leeds: “…I think that there’s always this question … [of] what our destiny in the arts and humanities are. … I don’t see another university in the country that is more situated to be a place where you come study in that space, but then have guaranteed intern and externships and all of those [artistic] organizations while you’re here … and I think that the city and the people here and the creatives are looking for that.
“You know, we have always been a school that is globally known for energy. And I think that Oklahoma has really struggled to keep energy companies in the state, and that there’s always been this boom or bust. I think this university could be very instrumental in creating pipelines that allow for the talent that keep some of these companies here … and then, right now, we see drone companies and other technology companies that are coming here to Tulsa because of the combination of our strengths and cybersecurity and aerospace. And so, you know, those are strong areas on our campus right there. But there’s many others, but those are the three that sort of bubble up immediately for me as to where our largest impact in the short term could be.”
Hoogstra: “While you talk about these things that we can do to improve, there’s also this thing coming to mind for me, which is that we are in a rough position right now. You came into a school with a pretty significant deficit — if I’m correct, the number is around 131 million. That’s a big challenge. How do you foresee us addressing that given the improvements that you want to make while also having such a big obstacle in our way?”
Leeds: “Sure. Well, you know, we’re certainly not alone. Hundreds of universities across the country right now are running a structural deficit. And we all know that higher ed, as an industry, is in crisis mode … Without a doubt, we have to have growth in our student body. Our freshman class right now is as small as it’s been for a very long time. Getting us back to the enrollment numbers that we were [at] even as a short amount of time of, say, 12 to 15 years ago, that has to be a clear direction … My goal for this place is 10,000 students 10 years from now.
“… But also, one of the things that makes us great is the intimacy and the small nature of our student body. And so you want to keep that somewhat small in scale, but we could grow from 3,000 undergraduate students to 6,000, and we would never even have to build another dorm or another building on this campus, because we have that much extra capacity … but I think that our more substantial growth is on the graduate and professional school side of things.”
Hoogstra: “[One] thing I hear a lot is that we don’t have enough housing … is that something that you think is driven more so by students’ perception of not getting the thing they very much wanted, or do you think that it’s something that is actually a real threat?”
Leeds: “So, you know, our apartments fill up quickly. Our dorm spaces are where the extra capacity is.”
Jones: ‘I would like to add that … I have heard from other people that, like Lottie Jane specifically, has mold issues and infestations. Even if there are spaces in the dorms, is there actually enough livable space with clean conditions?”
Leeds: “Yeah, and there are plans for capital improvements across campus, right? Housing is top of that list. We don’t have any plans in the future to build any more classroom spaces or any more performing arts or athletic spaces … some of the dorms are older dorms, … so, certainly upgrades on the inside of those dorms are on the list of things that will come first. I did the move-in day at Lottie Jane, and so I’ve been in those buildings. I’ve been in the John as well. There are some upgrades that are needed internally in those. But a lot of universities of our size and of our peer set have insufficient space to where you can’t even all fit on campus freshman or sophomore year. And so when I say that we have room on campus in terms of capacity, if we had all of our dorm spaces completely filled up … that would be a much bigger class than what we have right now. So when I say there’s capacity, I’m not necessarily talking about a particular apartment building that is very popular, but just in terms of ‘can we house more students on this campus?’ We can. But I hear you.”
Hoogstra: “The second part of my question about the student increase is … if we already have been [attempting to attract students], and we are at a pretty low enrollment rate, and we probably don’t have the money for another national merit stipend attempt, what is the plan for being in this kind of disadvantaged situation, and then also … leaping back to a very big student body?”
Leeds: “Well, number one, I don’t see us as being in a disadvantaged situation. I see us as being in a driver’s seat in terms of opportunities. Our tuition was not priced where it needed to be priced. Without a doubt, the different mentality about tuition is going to make a difference, and it’s already making a difference in our recruitment for freshmen for next year.
“I don’t think that we’ve ever had a wholesale approach to growing graduate and professional programs, in talking to these companies and nonprofits and really looking at it in terms of what we can do to plug into the community. I think that we’ve lived very clearly in traditional graduate and professional school approaches, and I think that what we’ve done in many respects is very solid, and it has recruited, you know, lots of students to this campus. But we’ve certainly never had a trajectory where we said it is our mission to more than double our size.”
How attracting and accepting this new influx of students will go is still uncertain, but one thing is not: big changes are coming to the University of Tulsa.
