To provide student-athletes with the opportunity to compete at the highest level while making progress toward completion of a degree
of their choice in an environment consistent with high academic standards, a commitment to equity and diversity, sportsmanship,
personal growth and development, and ethical conduct.
The University of Tulsa's educational tradition began even before Oklahoma became a state. On September 1, 1894, William Robert King, a Presbyterian minister, opened the doors of Henry Kendall College in Muskogee, Indian Territory. Previously a small boarding school dedicated to the education of Native American girls, the college was founded under the auspices of the Presbyterian Women's Board of Home Missions and named in honor of the board's former longtime corresponding secretary.
The campus consisted of a dormitory, church, and classroom building until the school's operation was turned over to the Presbyterian Synod of Indian Territory in 1907 and moved to Tulsa. The University was housed in the old First Presbyterian Church downtown before moving to the first buildings on a 20-acre site east of town in 1908.
Faced with competition from a proposed Methodist college and realizing that Tulsa couldn't support two competing schools, trustees and administrators proposed that the two institutions affiliate under the common name of The University of Tulsa. On November 9, 1920, the state charter was approved, and Henry Kendall College became The University of Tulsa. A total of 632 students were enrolled at the time. In the spring of 1921, five graduates received the first degrees conferred by The University of Tulsa.
Today, TU's approximately 4,200 students are engaged in 89 major fields of study and graduate programs in 25 disciplines, 10 of which lead to doctoral degrees. Administratively, the University is divided into a graduate school and four colleges: arts and sciences, business administration, engineering and natural sciences, and law. The average class size is 20, and the student to faculty ratio is 11 to 1.