News Updates

Third Educare Center Opens. One of Tulsa's claims-to-fame involves investment in early childhood education, much of which stems from funding provided by the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

One bricks-and-mortar result has been centers known as Educare facilities, partnerships that involve Tulsa Public Schools and the philanthropy community to develop best practices for educating so-called "at risk" children, as determined by federal poverty guidelines.

The third such center held a grand opening ceremony Oct. 24. Such centers have brought national attention to Tulsa, which now is the only city to have three such centers offering care for infants as well as children up to about age five.

The latest facility to open is at 2190 S. 67th E. Ave, near a several schools operated by Tulsa Public Schools.

Tulsa Educare, Inc. formed in 2004, and the first such Educare center opened in 2006 in the Kendall-Whittier neighborhood. Tulsa Educare relies on funding from the Oklahoma State Early Childhood Pilot Program, which allocates a combination of $15 million in private-sector funding and $10 million in state dollars.

TU Football Improving Where It Counts: Grad Rates. University of Tulsa football stood alone in first place in the West Division of Conference USA after playing eight games.

But the university can also be proud of success in improving its graduation rate for football players, with a 70 percent Graduation Success Rate as measured by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The association released the GSR data on all schools Oct. 25. The data differs from the federal graduation rate, which measures the number of full-time freshman students who earn degrees within six years of starting school. The GSR factors in if a student-athlete transfers or leaves the school in good academic standing, and such students do not count against the Graduation Success Rate.

Online data only goes back to include freshman who entered TU in 1998. But among these eight cohorts of student-athletes, the 2005 cohort had the highest GSR and also the highest federal graduation rate (60 percent).

Tulsa's numbers easily bested those of state's public schools who play football at the highest level. The University of Oklahoma had a GSR of only 47 percent, while Oklahoma State University had a GSR of 62 percent.

In TU's 12-team conference, Conference USA, Rice University topped all schools with a GSR of 93 percent. Six other schools also had a higher GSR than TU: University of Central Florida (81 percent), Tulane University (75 percent), University of Memphis (74 percent), Southern Methodist University (74 percent), University of Southern Mississippi (71 percent) and Marshall University (70 percent).