University of Tulsa: Super! Professional! College!

I've followed with great interest the decision of the University of Tulsa leadership to drop dozens of programs from their catalog.

As a Tulsan, I know TU's importance as the sole provider of accredited higher education in the city from Henry Kendall College's move from Muskogee in 1907 until the opening of Tulsa Junior College in 1970 and Oral Roberts University's accreditation in 1971. Through the city's years of growth, TU was largely a commuter college for Tulsans who wanted a degree, who could live at home and work their way through college. At the same time, TU's petroleum geology program enhanced Tulsa's status as Oil Capitol of the World and attracted students from oil-producing regions around the globe. I've got friends and family who have their degrees from TU and teach at TU, many of them in the fields that have been cut.

I also watched as TU has eaten its way into the surrounding neighborhoods, with the aid of the City's power of eminent domain to muscle out neighbors who didn't want to move.

As the father of two college-aged children, I've spent a great deal of time over the last few years surfing college websites, browsing course catalogs, and following backward-strolling campus tour guides. As an Oklahoman, I've noticed the demise of St. Gregory's University and the near-death experience of Bacone College. I know that we are approaching the bursting of the higher education bubble, and that colleges will have to find a distinctive niche in order to attract enrollment.

As someone who took eight semesters of Latin language and literature, a semester of Roman history, and two semesters of ancient Greek in college, as part of a self-designed classics and computer science dual-major program, it makes me sad that any college would drop the classical languages. At the same time, students interested in classical languages may better served if there are fewer colleges pretending to offer a comprehensive classics program in hopes of garnering a slightly higher yield rate. Many college catalogues are stuffed with courses that are offered only on the rare occasion that enough students enroll.

Given the value of finding a niche in ensuring a university's survival, it astonishes me that TU's law school would eliminate its two master's programs in tribal law, the Master of Jurisprudence in Indian Law and the LL.M. in American Indian and Indigenous Law. With dozens of tribal governments located within a short drive of Tulsa, where better to study the subject?

TU's philosophy and religion department is (or was) apparently held in high esteem in that field, a fact not widely advertised by the university. (Everyone seems to know about TU's cybersecurity program, on the other hand, and a petroleum engineering department that has historically attracted students from around the world.) Political historian Paul Rahe, now at Hillsdale College, was at TU for 24 years, until 2007. Russell Hittinger, who studies the intersection between Catholic faith, law, and politics, particularly in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, and well known to readers of First Things, has just retired from TU where he served as Warren Chair of Catholic Studies, and joined the Lumen Christi Institute. Last month, Hittinger spoke at an event sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute in Chicago, titled Humanistic Liberal Arts Education, the University, and the Catholic Tradition from the Age of Van Doren and Hutchins to Today, with this intriguing excerpt in its description:

Today with the emphasis on STEM and business education, the tradition of liberal arts education in America (and elsewhere in the world) faces a challenging environment. The recent abolition of several humanities departments at the University of Tulsa sparked protest from faculty and students who value the liberal arts tradition at that institution. Hittinger will report on the lessons to be drawn from the situation in Tulsa.

Alas, I can't find a recording or transcript online.

The headline refers to the aspect of TU's True Commitment plan to consolidate all of its professional schools into one college:

Professional Super College. President Clancy opens the strategic plan with -- jobs as central to life. TU has numerous professional programs that support the strategic plan's focus on pragmatic, professional training. Many of which have not yet reached their potential in terms of growth and relevance to today's, and tomorrow's, economy. The PPRC's data review reveals that approximately 43% of all degrees at TU come from one of TU's professional colleges, although law and health sciences account each respectively for less than 10% of degrees that TU grants in any particular year. The administrative structures supporting each of these colleges, two of which are smaller than some departments in ENS, weigh on TU's financial resources. The Professional Super College will bring our professional colleges under an umbrella, and we will explore over the next year whether the consolidation will be administrative only or whether it will also involve tighter academic consolidation. At a minimum, the professional super college will involve a tight sharing of administrative functions in the name of efficiency and effectiveness. Even more visionary, and an analog of the interdisciplinary shifts in A&S, is an academic consolidation into one autonomous unit with a sole strong leader to support academic synergies and streamline administrative functions.

tuplan.org is the website set up by opponents of the "True Commitment" plan, to explain what the plan is, why it's harmful, and the effort to stop it. The site documents reaction on the TU campus and in the broader academic world.

The faculty voted 89-4 against implementation of True Commitment.

MORE:

The College Fix: University cuts humanities program even as it employs over a dozen people 'with the title of VP or higher'

Draft started on April 20, 2019, added to on June 19, 2019, (when I intended to publish), updated with the College Fix link under "MORE" on November 8, 2019, rediscovered while assembling an article on the demotion of Jennifer Frey, the dean of its year-old Honors College, and finally published on July 16, 2025. I'm sure I intended to add links to a number of articles, particularly those written by then-philosophy professor Jacob Howland, who was outspoken in his opposition to the "True Commitment" proposal. You'll find many of those articles linked in the piece on Frey and the Honors College, and you'll want to watch Howland's February 2020 speech at Hillsdale College about TU and the influence of the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

I've got too many articles in draft that have useful information and links, but I didn't publish them at the time because I didn't have time to follow all the threads I thought needed to be followed or to provide some sort of analysis. I'm trying to get back into the spirit of blogging, which is an abbreviation of "web logging" -- making a record of interesting things encountered on the web, even if I don't have time to follow every lead, link every relevant reference, or say profound things about them.