TU students enjoy the opportunity to build their leadership skills beginning their first year of college. The Presidential Leaders Fellowship, Early Careers in Community Medicine, Global Scholars and Jumpstart TU each equip students with the complex set of traits, skills and behaviors required for effective leadership.
Presidential Leaders Fellowship
The Presidential Leaders Fellowship is a yearlong program that prepares 125 first and second-year students to maximize their TU experience through unique educational opportunities including the new College Philanthropy Immersion program, the Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge, faculty-assisted research, global education internships, True Blue Neighbors volunteer services and Neuro-Corps. Students accepted to the program are required to complete various assignments and programs as developed by TU President Gerard Clancy and Visiting Assistant Professors Terrie Shipley and Adam Seaman.
“The Presidential Leaders Fellowship has allowed me to look at leadership from a completely different perspective. We learned how to break down large projects into manageable pieces. We also learned the importance of playing to our strengths and discovering more about ourselves in the process. I learned how to better delegate tasks to others based on their strengths and how to make projects run more efficiently. This class made me a better leader and taught me to view life from perspectives other than my own.”
– James Smith Williams, Finance & Pre-Med Major
Early Careers in Community Medicine
The Early Careers in Community Medicine program gives undergraduate students in any major a unique opportunity to pursue early provisional acceptance into the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine program leading to an M.D. degree. Participating students must minor in one of the areas considered essential to community medicine including anthropology, sociology, health informatics, biomedical engineering or law, policy and society. Students in this program have access to scholarships from an endowed fund through the generosity of the William K. Warren Foundation and Saint Francis Health System.
“This program has been a defining part of my college experience. Not only has it connected me with the faculty at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine, but it has connected me to Tulsa. Now I see health care from the physician-patient as well as the physician-community view. ECCM orients future physicians to be mindful of social conditions that cause detriments to health on individual and communal basis, and thus facilitates the development of well-rounded and social-minded doctors.”
– Magera Shaw, Computer Science & Pre-Med
Global Scholars
TU Global Scholars is an interdisciplinary, four-year program that creates global citizens by teaching students about challenges faced around the world and emphasizing how they affect communities. As part of the program, students travel as a group to Panama to study economic, environmental, and social sustainability and participate in community projects. This spring, a group worked with OTEIMA university’s teak farm, BATIPA, to find innovative ways to utilize debris after harvest. The group came up with the idea to distill essential oils from the debris, creating a sustainable business model and opportunities for future internships.
Global Scholars also study, research, or intern abroad; become proficient in a foreign language and become leaders of their communities. Global Scholars have also gone on to be Rhodes Scholars, State Department interns and create small local businesses.
“Global Scholars challenges us to think more innovatively, sets the stage for us to implement our ideas globally, and fosters entrepreneurship beyond the classroom.”
– Layla Mortadha, Political Science and French Major and a freshman representative for the Global Scholars Executive Committee
Jumpstart TU
Introduced in 2017, JumpstartTU took a contingent of incoming first-year students to Panama to learn about biodiversity, global trade and world consumption. During the trip, students discussed what to expect in university life and had the chance to develop new friendships prior to beginning their classes in the fall.
During their stay in Panama, some students worked with Wetlands International to learn how water reservoirs should be maintained. They listened to community leaders including Vice Mayor Raisa Banfield who explained how Panama works to maintain water reservoirs, grow commercial trade and protect residents. The students also worked with residents to clear water canals of overgrown vegetation to help prevent future flooding. When asked about the benefits of this program for incoming students, Kyla Sloan, a graduate student working toward her master’s degree in speech-language pathology, said, “What I saw from JumpstartTU bolstered my already high hopes for the growth and the intellectual capacity I expect to see from this incoming class.”
“Watching the students transition to college-level learning while studying abroad was incredibly rewarding for me after working with the students for over a year during the admission process to TU. Their field experiences provided opportunities to examine critical global challenges at a micro level and exposed the students to interdisciplinary group work. The students developed meaningful friendships quickly and grew more and more excited about their upcoming college transition each day.”
– Casey Reed, Dean of Admission
“Jumpstart TU created quality connections with other students and faculty in just a little over a week that could have otherwise taken years. Getting the opportunity to meet and grow closer to the faculty on the trip not only helped me to feel more comfortable at the university once I returned but also has been advantageous when looking for people to turn to for questions or assistance. The coolest part about the group of students who went on the trip was the diversity. It felt like almost every major available had at least one representative in the group, which was really cool coming into the first few weeks of TU with a really good chance of having someone you know and have memories with in each of your classes.”
– Roman Bandy, Freshman