As the spring semester kicked off, the OU Polytechnic Institute (OUPI) hosted the second annual State of OUPI at the Perkins Auditorium on the OU-Tulsa campus. In the audience were industry partners, community college representatives, and the OUPI Family. During the State of OUPI, Teri K. Reed, Ph.D., OUPI’s inaugural director, outlined where OUPI has been, where it currently is, and where it is going.
“Often it is colleges looking for students ready for college,” said Reed. “Instead, OUPI wants to be ready for students. We’re trying to understand where our students are, meet our students where they need, and move them into being industry-ready graduates needed in the field.”
Since its beginning in 2022, OUPI has grown to include 10 faculty members, four staff members, and one university affiliate. Fall of 2024 welcomed the inaugural class of cybersecurity students to the OU-Tulsa campus, with 44% of its students being first-generation students. This past spring, four of the members were accepted into the McNair Scholars program, a federal TRIO undergraduate research program.
In Fall 2025, OUPI will bring two new degree completion programs, applied artificial intelligence and software development and integration, to the OU-Tulsa campus, and the first four-year OUPI programs on OU’s main Norman campus, applied artificial intelligence and software development and integration. The institute will also welcome its first master’s degrees in Fall 2025, pending approval by the Oklahoma State Regents of Higher Education.
OUPI’s future is bright as more industry certifications plan to be incorporated into the curriculum and work continues on more articulation agreements with partner institutes. On the horizon is the Center for Translational Research, the Center for Cybersecurity Leadership, and Tulsa’s Accelerated Composable Computing System (TACCS), a composable AI system designed by OUPI’s on-campus Google affiliate.
Reed closed the State of OUPI by encouraging the audience to support and engage with OUPI, whether that means reaching out to be part of the guest speaker series, the Colloquia Series, collaborating through on-campus research, or encouraging prospective students to attend recruitment events like the Polytechnic Preview Day to discover the possibilities of OUPI.
