Leading the Charge
President Brad Carson has a bold vision for The University of Tulsa
“Every great city in America, if not the world, has a great university that is part of it,” says University of Tulsa President Brad R. Carson. “It helps drive the culture while giving back to the community. The city of Tulsa needs The University of Tulsa to be that kind of university.”
Carson’s plan is to transform TU into a leading research university, attracting world-renowned academics and companies, and to contribute to Tulsa’s growing civic and cultural landscape.
As a Rhodes scholar, lawyer, businessman, and public servant – a two-time Oklahoma congressman and a former U.S. Department of Defense under secretary – Carson has the expertise to execute his vision. He also has the funds, thanks in part to a hefty
$1+ billion university endowment that is one of the largest in the country, and a mission to further boost TU’s fundraising profile to support academic scholarships and attract highly regarded researchers.
TU’s 21st president is leading a recruiting drive to bring in world-class scholars and research dollars that will attract young people and create jobs for them, too.
As an expert in national defense, energy policy, Tribal issues and American politics, Carson is further developing TU’s prestigious programs in fields like cybersecurity. U.S. News & World Report placed TU’s cybersecurity program on par with Harvard’s, while Money magazine named TU’s engineering programs seventh best in the country.
Carson comes to the job with a unique perspective. Raised on Native American reservations, he understands the importance and practice of what he calls “radical empathy” for those across political, economic, and socio-economic divides.
“I’ve always believed that the most important jobs are ones where you can impact the lives of other people, whether it’s in politics, teaching, or now in higher education administration. I became president of The University of Tulsa because I believe that I can have a big impact on the future of our students and also on the region, which I’ve called home for a very long time,” he said.
TU’s fall 2022 incoming class was almost 40% larger than two years ago, and it’s the most diverse group of first-year students in school history.
As the university attracts more students and researchers, it’s also enriching the city.
“The city has transformed itself over the past decade,” Carson said. “At the same time, TU must be a catalyst for still further change. We need to create businesses that bring young people to work in them. Our faculty needs to spin out intellectual property to robotics or cyberspace companies that bring investment. We’re in a symbiotic relationship with the city. When it grows, we benefit, and when we grow, the city benefits. I think that combination means that the next 10 or 20 years are going to be the best times that this city and this university have ever seen.”
Carson previously worked as a senior adviser with Boston Consulting Group and as a former president and CEO of Cherokee Nation Businesses. That expertise – along with his years of teaching at storied places like the University of Virginia – fuels his understanding of TU’s particular needs, like raising its profile.
It’s not enough to create world-class programs and bring in top researchers if people don’t know the programs exist. “The University of Tulsa is one of the great schools in the entire nation, maybe even the world when it comes to particular programs like petroleum, engineering, energy, cyberspace, and computer science,” Carson says.
At the same time, he stresses the importance of a liberal arts education and hopes that his story inspires others. The best universities, Carson says, “expand the imagination of what the students can do” with their lives. “That’s what I hope to do mostly at The University of Tulsa: to expand the imagination of what people can do in their lives and what the city of Tulsa can be,” he says.
Carson studied history and political science and earned a graduate degree in philosophy. “To be successful, you should understand poetry as well as you do computer science, programing, and economics. These are all things that are critical. We are a great cyber school. We are a great engineering school. We are very proud of those programs, but we’re about more than that. We are about teaching people to be wise, and you do that by reading the great authors, understanding literature and history, and reading philosophy.”
This mindset is leading to a renaissance at TU and attracting faculty like Jennifer Frey, Ph.D., as the inaugural dean of the Honors College, and Boris Dralyuk, Presidential Professor of English and Creative Writing, who was recently awarded the National Book Critics Circle’s Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize for his translation of Grey Bees by Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov.
It is a bright day for the arts and humanities at TU and in Tulsa. Learn more about Carson's luminous vision at utulsa.edu.
This content was paid for and created by The University of Tulsa. The editorial staff of The Chronicle had no role in its preparation. Find out more about paid content.
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