Evans Fintube Brownfield Site

[LandArchPoke]

I hate to break the bad new to people but the enrollment numbers at OSU-Stillwater are far from stagnant. That's about 5 years in the past in thinking. I would look up the press releases from the last few years but I don't have the time. OSU has had record freshman enrollment the last 3-4 years. In the long range plan they had actually planned to tear down Kerr-Drummond (the two tall ugly dorms) and replace it with a residential parking garage for the new dorms (The Village, Stinchcomb, and others) but they had to relocate where they are building it because Kerr-Drummond is now at about 100% occupancy rate and just 3 years ago it was below 40% with several of the other dorms having lower occupancy rates. They've actually come up with plans to convert Iba Hall back into dorms because the occupancy rate on campus is nearing capacity. A lot of the leadership feel that the enrollment on the Stillwater campus will hit 30,000 before the 20 year plan is completed and the enrollment growth is on pace for that. Most of the new freshman classes have been 12-15% larger than the previous, and I believe campus enrollment is past the 22,000 mark this year. There have been proposals for 2 new apartment complexes in Stillwater which in the planning process with the city and 2 others have recently completed construction. The Links Golf Club doubled in size in the last 2 years along with Stillwater Flats right next to campus.

https://news.okstate.edu/index.php/press-releases/497-record-enrollment-at-osu
This shows the 2010-2011 enrollment info ^^  One thing that did shock me some was OSU-OKC has over 7,000 students while OSU-Tulsa has under 2,000. Sorry but that's very pathetic  and I blame this more on Tulsa leadership than Stillwater or State leadership. Where is the city leaders that should be out there talking to donors and OSU leadership about building projects in Tulsa? For pete sake we almost let OSU Medical Center close! A new building every 10 years in Vision 2025 proposals is not going to cut it. The apathy this community here has towards higher education is really sad. Like I said before in another thread the leadership in Stillwater will not really look much into expanding the programs in Tulsa they have their hands full with projects in Stillwater. They need someone in their ear constantly saying "Hey we've got someone interested in donating money to a building or program in Tulsa". The amount of money following into the Stillwater campus in this economy is nothing short of astonishing. I will say this though, what's good for Stillwater is good for Tulsa. Afterall the biggest segment of college graduates in Tulsa are from OSU.

What this city really needs to focus on is the growth of GRADUATE programs. Right now the options for that type of higher education is really bad for a city our size. Also, the idea of adding something like the film majors would be a great idea. I could see the leadership in Stillwater getting behind unique programs, and programs that don't necessarily fit well in Stillwater.

Some goals we need to have for OSU-Tulsa:
1. Build a graduate school building here and expand programs that are offered (Add Architecture, Arts, Urban Planning, Entrepreneurship, etc)
2. Build a library
3. Expand the Medical School
4. Add technology majors and programs that can encourage spin off companies
5. Add new majors like a film program (think outside of the box on programs that aren't in Stillwater but would flourish in Tulsa)
6. Student Housing (so many people on here want this so badly but at this point the student numbers downtown don't really support a student housing project that would be worth wasting energy on)


If we want to have a full service university in the heart of downtown, we need to look at a way to convert TCC-Metro into a four year university (Something like Portland State). Look at adding undergraduate programs that wouldn't leach away from OU and OSU and integrate the TCC-Metro campus into OSU-Tulsa and the new four year university. Allow TCC to operate offices out of both and use classrooms out of both campuses. This would allow a better free flow of students in Tulsa and would do wonders for our graduation rate of college graduates.

There is absolutely NO reason why there shouldn't be 20,000-30,000 students downtown between both campuses. Tulsa has the benefit of being centered between very large population centers (Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Kansas City, St Louis, Memphis, Little Rock, and Denver are all with in a pretty easy days drive). Look at Oregon for example, they have a similar population to us yet they have several much larger university than us. They have Univ of Oregon, Oregon State Univ, Portland State Univ, Portland Univ to name a few along many others. We have OSU, OU, TU, and OCU. How many large population centers are within a driving distance to Oregon? (Seattle and San Fran) Granted they still have the ability to recruit heavily out of South California, but we have equal opportunity out of Texas to have similar numbers to potential students.

[Weatherdemon]

This may have been posted and I missed it but I drove by yesterday and the crane is for loading and unloading the larger size temp highway barriers. Presumably for the 244 construction around 169.

[Sutton]

OSU-Stillwater enrollment:
2008- 20,756
2009- 20,831
2010- 21,763
2011- 22,441

OSU-Stillwater New Freshmen:
2008- 3,073
2009- 3,148
2010- 3,554
2011- 3,896

OSU-Tulsa enrollment:
2008- 2,012
2009- 2,014
2010- 1,759
2011- 1,820

http://vpaf.okstate.edu/IRIM/StudentProfile/2011/PDF/2011EnrollmentTrends.pdf

[DTowner]

https://news.okstate.edu/index.php/press-releases/497-record-enrollment-at-osu
This shows the 2010-2011 enrollment info ^^  One thing that did shock me some was OSU-OKC has over 7,000 students while OSU-Tulsa has under 2,000. Sorry but that's very pathetic  and I blame this more on Tulsa leadership than Stillwater or State leadership. Where is the city leaders that should be out there talking to donors and OSU leadership about building projects in Tulsa? For pete sake we almost let OSU Medical Center close! A new building every 10 years in Vision 2025 proposals is not going to cut it. The apathy this community here has towards higher education is really sad. Like I said before in another thread the leadership in Stillwater will not really look much into expanding the programs in Tulsa they have their hands full with projects in Stillwater. They need someone in their ear constantly saying "Hey we've got someone interested in donating money to a building or program in Tulsa". The amount of money following into the Stillwater campus in this economy is nothing short of astonishing. I will say this though, what's good for Stillwater is good for Tulsa. Afterall the biggest segment of college graduates in Tulsa are from OSU.

Does OSU-OKC operate under the same degree program restrictions and Langston U. situation as OSU-Tulsa?

I don't think its fair to say Tulsa leaders are apathetic.  It's my understanding that it's been the Oklahoma legislature that has been less than supportive of higher education for Tulsa over the years.  It's also not clear to me how strong OSU-Tulsa's support or plans for growth is on the Board of Regents.

[Sutton]

Some other interesting facts about the upswing in OSU-STW enrollment:
-OSU-STW is capturing a higher % of OKLA HS ACT-takers compared to recent years
-A lot of the growth in new freshman is coming from out-of-state students. First, Of course out-of-state students pay a higher tuition/fees than in-state students, helping offset costs for in-state students..  Secondly, in theory, those out-of-state students are more likely to stay and work in OK than if they attended a TX/AR/KS university. This is good news for our local companies and tax revenues.
-A large increase in minority enrollment which is fantastic on many different levels.

[DTowner]

-A lot of the growth in new freshman is coming from out-of-state students. First, Of course out-of-state students pay a higher tuition/fees than in-state students, helping offset costs for in-state students..  Secondly, in theory, those out-of-state students are more likely to stay and work in OK than if they attended a TX/AR/KS university. This is good news for our local companies and tax revenues.

Maybe.  Does OSU charge in-state tuition for areas in Texas around Dallas the same as OU?

It would be interesting to see if there is any real evidence that out-of-state Texas students paying in-state tuition at OU/OSU are staying in Okla. in significant numbers.  If not, then Oklahomans are just subsidizing the education of Texas kids who couldn't get in UT.

[LandArchPoke]

Maybe.  Does OSU charge in-state tuition for areas in Texas around Dallas the same as OU?

It would be interesting to see if there is any real evidence that out-of-state Texas students paying in-state tuition at OU/OSU are staying in Okla. in significant numbers.  If not, then Oklahomans are just subsidizing the education of Texas kids who couldn't get in UT.

I have never heard of any programs that allow out of state students to pay in state tuition at OSU. The only school I have heard that does this is Univ of Arkansas and they offer it to Oklahoma students that score above a certain ACT score and have a certain GPA (those amounts I do not remember). So the students coming in from out of state are paying out of state tuition. OSU has done a great job marketing themselves in Texas (The Brighter Orange Campaign) and they have expanded recruiting out of Kansas (there were a lot of new kids coming in from Johnson County).

Does OSU-OKC operate under the same degree program restrictions and Langston U. situation as OSU-Tulsa?

I don't think its fair to say Tulsa leaders are apathetic.  It's my understanding that it's been the Oklahoma legislature that has been less than supportive of higher education for Tulsa over the years.  It's also not clear to me how strong OSU-Tulsa's support or plans for growth is on the Board of Regents.

Where has the voice been at in Tulsa to grow programs and campuses here? Exactly, there has been NONE. It's like a kid that is told you can't have anything then proceeds to sit in the corner and pout instead of annoying the hell out of people and yelling until it gets what it wants. Not only has the past leadership in the city failed in promoting our campuses here in Tulsa, our state representatives have as well. OSU-OKC is basically a glorified TCC it only grants associate degrees so it is still limited in scope but has a significantly larger enrollment than OSU-Tulsa. Do the degree restrictions still exist now that Langston has it's own building? I thought that lifted a lot of what was hampering the OSU campus. I won't even begin my rant about Langston, but to make it short they have the same opportunity to recruit African American students out of the large population centers around us that OSU has. There is more than enough of a market that Tulsa can support OSU-Tulsa, Langston-Tulsa, OU-Tulsa, Univ of Tulsa, NSU-BA, and another full service public university. The only way we are going to grow our population is by grabbing kids in college from the surrounding region and allowing them to fall in love with the city and the state.

I believe I've said this before, but Oklahoma obsesses with trying to keep kids here. This is looking at the issue wrong and a very short sited solution. We need to be more concerned about out of the state recruitment. If we can make Tulsa and Oklahoma in general attractive to people outside of the state this will in turn solve our retention problem of losing talented Oklahomans. Only focusing on retaining Oklahomans in the state limits our growth opportunities by at least half of what we could gain. Anymore it's natural for the younger generation to move away from home to experience something new but a lot of my friends plan to return to Tulsa eventually. They see what the city is becoming and I hear a lot "In 5-8 years the city will be pretty awesome".

[rdj]

I would assert that the "leadership" of Tulsa has been much more proactive about higher ed and OSU-Tulsa in the last 3-4 years.  In my opinion, thru the 90's and early 00's many of Tulsa's appointed leaders were very much sit at your desk and hope business comes in.  From my experience that changed in 2006 when Tulsa's largest locally owned corporations made a concerted effort to step into leadership roles in the legislative, economic development and quality of life arenas.  This is most evident in the leadership at the Tulsa Metro Chamber, Tulsa Riverparks, Tulsa Zoo & Tulsa Public Schools.  The attitude of the Chamber staff and executive volunteer leadership has drastically changed in the last ten years.  It's been an uphill fight in getting state funded allocated equitably to NE OK, but I believe they are starting to win key battles and we'll see a change in the next few years.  The item to watch IMO is what will happen with state funding for the OK Pop Museum.

[DowntownDan]

Does OSU-OKC operate under the same degree program restrictions and Langston U. situation as OSU-Tulsa?

I don't think its fair to say Tulsa leaders are apathetic.  It's my understanding that it's been the Oklahoma legislature that has been less than supportive of higher education for Tulsa over the years.  It's also not clear to me how strong OSU-Tulsa's support or plans for growth is on the Board of Regents.

OSU-OKC is weird and I've never really understood it.  While we were in school at Stillwater, my wife left to go back home in OKC for a semester and took some classes at OSU-OKC.  They only offer undergraduate courses and can only grant associates degrees.  What is really strange is that there are lots of classes at OSU-OKC that don't transfer to Stillwater and can't be applied towards a bachelors.  On the other side, it's my understanding that most TCC classes will transfer to OSU-Stillwater towards a bachelors.  I found it extraordinarily odd that OSU-OKC had fewer transferrable offerings.  Very bizarre.  I have no idea why it's like that.  I kind of wish OSU-OKC and Okmulgee were spun off.  Having a jr. college and a technical school as part of a major university system just strikes me as fodder for those inclinded to project OSU as a lower tier of higher education.   

I wish the OSU system would be Stillwater and Tulsa and focus on expanding graduate programs, especially in Tulsa, and try to engrain themselves more into the downtown fabric with all of the development taking off on the north end of downtown.  I never understood why the medical college built a new building on their west bank campus.  If they had the money for construction, I really don't understand why they didn't just move the whole medical college to the greenwood campus.  I hate that it is seperated from the greenwood campus, is honestly not in a great part of town, across from oil refineries, and feels very isolated.  I also used to think the greenwood campus would be a good location to start a public law school, but this state already has three law schools, and the legal profession is becoming saturated.  Lots of new law grads struggling to find work and pay the massive debts. 

[TheArtist]

OSU-Stillwater enrollment:
2008- 20,756
2009- 20,831
2010- 21,763
2011- 22,441

OSU-Stillwater New Freshmen:
2008- 3,073
2009- 3,148
2010- 3,554
2011- 3,896

OSU-Tulsa enrollment:
2008- 2,012
2009- 2,014
2010- 1,759
2011- 1,820

http://vpaf.okstate.edu/IRIM/StudentProfile/2011/PDF/2011EnrollmentTrends.pdf

Well I will eat humble pie and say I was wrong.  It probably has been a while since I have looked at the stats.  Things are better here in Tulsa.  When I graduated in 1985 you pretty much HAD to leave the city or go to TU or ORU in order to get a graduate degree. 

It's still the case that not having a publicly funded graduate university in Tulsa hurts us, and whatever potential university that would otherwise grow here.   I look at Austin and hear about how the synergies with the companies that exist there work with the university and how the students there, because they are in a city, often start businesses there and stay in that city.  They keep lots of young talent around and grow lots of businesses that way.  Not so much that in Stillwater which hurts OSU imo, and of course hurts Tulsa when you consider that OSU would be the logical choice to be the university that grows here. 

  But I do like seeing the OU campus near my house growing and offering more, and I know a lot of people who go to NSU BA as well.  Still lacking in some higher graduate degree offerings in the city though.  Had a friend just a while back who was considering moving to Tulsa, but was working on his graduate degree and couldn't.  He had a good paying job, and could have got a comparable one here, but with his career needed that higher degree to move up.  Shame that you can't do that in Tulsa for a lot of things. That hurts our companies here.   

[nathanm]

  But I do like seeing the OU campus near my house growing and offering more, and I know a lot of people who go to NSU BA as well.  Still lacking in some higher graduate degree offerings in the city though.  Had a friend just a while back who was considering moving to Tulsa, but was working on his graduate degree and couldn't.  He had a good paying job, and could have got a comparable one here, but with his career needed that higher degree to move up.  Shame that you can't do that in Tulsa for a lot of things. That hurts our companies here.   

I've known many people who drive to Stillwater or Norman a twice a week to take classes they can't/couldn't take here. It's completely ridiculous they should have to do that in the 54th most populous MSA in the country.

[jacobi]

So everyone knows btw that commute is not cheap.  If you ride the bus it is $14 round trip.  If you do that three times a week for a whole semester it becomes very exPensive.  That's the reason why I live in Stillwater this semester.  I'm finishing my masters and the cost of commuting is just stupid.

[TheArtist]

So everyone knows btw that commute is not cheap.  If you ride the bus it is $14 round trip.  If you do that three times a week for a whole semester it becomes very exPensive.  That's the reason why I live in Stillwater this semester.  I'm finishing my masters and the cost of commuting is just stupid.

  Yea, imagine if you have a family or already have a good job you don't want to or can't afford to leave, a home to take care of, etc.   It's ok for the traditional, just out of high school or early 20s person, but once your already established some and want to move up and improve your lot, or just finish what you may have started earlier in life,,, kind of absurd a city our size can't take care of you.  Heck, I know a lot of companies REQUIRE that you take continuing education courses and or require higher degrees in order for you to move up the ladder.   You try to attract some high tech companies here and they find out we aren't competitive on the education front... just makes it a harder, if not an impossible sell, to get them here. 

[Weatherdemon]

They are removing everything west of the fence on the west side of the building and east of the tracks.

[jacobi]

Yea, imagine if you have a family or already have a good job you don't want to or can't afford to leave, a home to take care of, etc. 

I'm 29 and I have a wife and child in Tulsa.   

They are removing everything west of the fence on the west side of the building and east of the tracks.

Yeah I saw this.  I guess they are finishing up whatever it is they are doing these days.