This summer, a team of 10 students are working on a big research topic: housing supply and affordability in our metro area. These students are participating in a larger University of Tulsa initiative known as TURC (Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge) which connects current undergraduate students and rising high school seniors (Junior TURC scholars) to opportunities to conduct research under the supervision of TU Professors. This year we have 6 current Collins College of Business students participating: rising sophomores Katrina Henderson, Shawnda Henderson, Michael Brobst, rising junior Selina Jiang, and rising seniors Silas Hughes and John Dalby. They are joined by 4 bright local rising high school seniors Seeme Tiwana, Lauren Muret, Truett Meier, and Rojina Adhikari.
We’ve reached the halfway point of our summer together, and the students have made great strides in their work- many started the summer knowing very little about real estate and they’ve accepted the challenge of getting up to speed very quickly on the housing issues facing Tulsa and surrounding communities today. So far, students have learned the basics of GIS mapping, working with geographic data in Python, and finding and using Census and local housing data. They’ve also worked on finding relevant peer cities and conducting literature reviews to understand better what strategies other cities have undertaken around similar issues. Building our analytical skills as well as foundational knowledge in housing and real estate have enabled students to start to build detailed research questions and testable hypotheses. The second half of our summer together we’ll use this knowledge to conduct empirical analyses to make recommendations around housing supply and affordability in the Tulsa MSA. Stay tuned here for the results and some entries by TURC students about their experiences!