Higher Learning ~ Higher Calling: The campaign for Oklahoma Christian University
Bricks and Mortar Capital Needs

Oklahoma Christian’s faculty and staff are outstanding, and the university has earned well-deserved recognition as a national leader with its mobile computing program and its use of technology to enhance the learning experience. That commitment to excellence blankets our university and extends to the construction and development of more first-class facilities for our students. With more students attending Oklahoma Christian than ever before, we must increase our capacity and improve the facilities where our students live and learn. Toward this end, opportunities abound for important brick and mortar projects that will enhance the campus environment. The projects include:

Science and Research Center

One of Oklahoma Christian’s marks of distinction is its well-established and growing emphasis on undergraduate scientific research. OC students are annual winners for their original research presentations at the Oklahoma Academy of Science meetings, continuing the university’s tradition of excellence in the sciences. Each year, OC students enter the finest graduate programs and medical schools.

This success comes in spite of insufficient science facilities scattered across the campus. The new science and research center will expand the university’s capacity for growth in the sciences, providing needed research laboratories, classrooms, equipment rooms, lecture halls, staff and faculty offices, and areas for study and faculty/student interaction.

With centralized laboratories, core curriculum classes will have easy access to the equipment currently restricted to classes for majors, improving the quality of instruction all students receive. The new facility will alleviate the challenges caused by the current inadequate laboratory space, providing better academic instruction, hands-on experimentation, and research opportunities to majors and non-majors alike.

The science and research center not only will enhance OC’s academic work; it will serve as the hub for both undergraduate research and community involvement in the sciences, increasing the potential for collaborative educational programs and research with leading organizations.

The science and research center will be a transformational structure on the OC campus. It will provide a distinct advantage for recruiting and retaining quality students and faculty, and it will advance the competitive advantage of the university’s science students and researchers.

Freede Administration Facility

Designed to bring many of the university’s support operations under one roof in the Mabee Learning Center, this expanded and renovated administrative facility will increase efficiency and open up needed space on campus for academic and general use. Students will have the opportunity to handle many of their needs related to enrollment, financial services and other aspects of student life in a “one-stop shop.” Staff members and administrators also will benefit from the consolidation of services through increased accessibility and personal interaction.

Campus-Wide Classroom and Laboratory Upgrades

Active. Engaged. Involved. Those words describe OC’s students – how they live and how they learn. Today’s students learn best when they interact with their professors, their academic disciplines and their world.

The university’s classrooms and laboratories must be facilities that promote that kind of lively interaction. Students must have ready access to learning resources that will engage them, along with their faculty mentors, in the discovery of knowledge and the application of it in the professional world they will enter when they graduate.

To prepare our students for that world, the university needs upgrades and additions to virtually all of its laboratories. The current laboratory space is inadequate to serve the number of students in several disciplines, particularly in the sciences. Students need access to modern science laboratory equipment and facilities that promote hands-on learning. Nearly 1 in 5 entering students at OC declares a major in a science field. We must improve and expand our science laboratories to accommodate this student interest and need.

Teacher education students also need hands-on opportunities. They need to develop their teaching skills in laboratory settings that are similar to the classrooms in which they will teach. Ideally, our early childhood education students need daily opportunities to interact with young children right on our campus. An early childhood laboratory school will engage our students and will, in turn, allow us to engage and serve our local community.

Art and design students are by their very nature hands-on students! Our art and design programs are growing rapidly, and we must respond to this growth by adding studio spaces and equipment that will prepare even more students to move directly into the leading ad agencies and design companies that seek our graduates.

Broadcast media students need access to laboratories that will prepare them to engage immediately in a professional world in which audio, video and print media are converging. We must equip our students to acquire accurate information, prepare it for broadcast and distribute it through a variety of media. We need the most up-to-date laboratories to prepare them to be capable and ethical media leaders for our community and our world.

We must provide excellent facilities and hands-on learning opportunities for all students – from our freshmen to our graduate students – to improve their writing skills. Our Writing Center, with enhanced facilities and staffing, will offer all our students the one-on-one tutoring that provides optimal improvement in written communication skills.

As the university’s primary academic hub, the Beam Library must provide our students ready access to the information they need to engage their academic disciplines. Planned enhancements to the library will make it a “learning commons,” an ideal center for group study and collaboration suitable for today’s students and the way they learn.

Oklahoma Christian is a national leader in using computer technology to enhance and extend learning. We have an excellent faculty. We must continue to support faculty members in their professional development efforts, and we must continue to find ways to allow them to engage effectively with more and more students. Through expansion and enhancement of the North Institute for Teaching and Learning, our faculty will be able to offer more online courses and more effectively serve our graduate students, our undergraduate students, and even high school students seeking to begin college-level work. Through online courses, we will be able to extend our campus and to meet the needs of more individuals who seek learning opportunities for a lifetime.

University Commons

A new university commons is planned that will connect the Gaylord University Center, the Payne Athletic Center and the main residential area, enhancing the grounds between the most trafficked facilities on the west side of campus. The commons will complement the striking exteriors of the new and refurbished residence halls and will feature a park-like atmosphere with gardens, streams, ponds and a belltower.


Comprehensive Student Housing Initiative

The landscape of the Oklahoma Christian campus has changed dramatically as a result of a comprehensive student housing initiative launched in spring 2004. With the construction of two new residence halls and new apartment complexes, and the refurbishment of all existing student housing, the housing initiative expands capacity to accommodate OC’s growing enrollment while improving the college experience and quality of life for our students.

The largest capital project in the university’s history also features a new central plant that supplies air conditioning and heating to the residence halls and several larger buildings on campus. This central plant will allow students to have complete temperature control in the new and renovated residence halls while also helping the university operate more efficiently.

Enhanced Athletic Facilities

Oklahoma Christian has a long athletic tradition, with many conference championships, numerous national tournament appearances, many All-Americans and Scholar-Athletes, two Olympians, and a national championship. But, most of all, the program has influenced the lives of countless athletes for good and has provided a platform to showcase the university to thousands who attend sporting events both on and off campus.

As part of the strategic plan to continue and enhance this tradition, the university will address the vital need to upgrade facilities to reflect and to serve its athletic program. The initial phase of this endeavor will feature the construction of a new baseball stadium and improvements to the soccer, softball, tennis, and track and field complexes – adding needed locker rooms, restrooms, concessions and parking. This phase also will include a state-of-the-art training facility to benefit our athletes and serve the community.

The second phase will feature the construction of a new arena/events center, expanding capacity to accommodate larger crowds for games, tournaments and other events such as the spring commencement exercise, which has outgrown the Payne Athletic Center.