Happy December everyone! It’s hard to be believe are almost through the fall semester at the University of Tulsa, but we are just one week away from the last day of classes. This has been our busiest semester yet and I wanted to share with you several exciting updates!
The student real estate club has held bi-weekly meetings here in Helmerich Hall with guest speakers including Michael Stokes and Sergio Baena Romero (BSBA ’23) of Cityscape Home Mortgage, Phillip Boykin of IQLand, and Paul Wheeler of Accent Realtors. Additionally, students participated in mock closing with Kimberly Lewis at Apex Title & Closing and took development tours to a new surgical center developed by Ashton Gray, the new Tulsa Scheel’s Location, and to the Tulsa International Airport to see the new customs center under construction. Thanks to partnerships with local professional organizations, we were able to support students’ attendance at BOMA, CREW, NAIOP, and ULI meetings and events. For more updates on our students and faculty, please join us on LinkedIn.
Spring 2025– and beyond!
We have several exciting opportunities for students planned in Spring 2025. In February, we will take a group of students on an overnight trip to OKC to attend the Oklahoma ULI Impact Awards as well as visit different real estate companies and conduct site visits. Additionally, we plan to take a team of students to Las Vegas in May 18-20, 2025 to the annual ICSC meetings and case study competition. Finally, we are starting to recruit a team of students for Summer 2025 to be a part of our Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge Project focused on housing supply and demand in the Tulsa MSA. If you’d like to be involved our project this summer, please let me know!
Mark your calendars for the evening of March 27th. We are hosting our fourth annual Real Estate Career Networking Event on campus and want you to be a part of it! Registration will open in February. Please contact me at meagan-mccollum@utulsa.edu for event sponsorship opportunities.
Hello and Farewell
We have a few new faces this fall working in the Center. First semester MBA student Cat Thomason is our new graduate assistant for operations at TU-CRES. You may have already seen some of Cat’s work this fall, she has taken over managing our LinkedIn page; she is also taking a leading role in coordinating our guest speakers, student activities, and event planning. First semester MSBA student Marcella Gonzaga is our new graduate assistant for research at TU-CRES. Marcella works on both academic and industry focuses real estate research topics. She has quickly become a key part of our efforts to expand our research impact; she made her first presentation at the Fall American Real Estate Society Research Conference in November at the University of Denver.
The end of the semester also means we are saying goodbye to two excellent graduate assistants Farid Babayev, who is in his final semester of the MSBA program and Theresa Lam, who is in her final semester of the MBA program. We wish Farid and Theresa all the best in their next chapters!
Want to get involved?
We are seeking more volunteers for our informational interview project in FIN 3053 Principles of Real Estate next spring. If you are willing to spend 30 minutes-1 hour talking with one or more TU students about your role in the RE industry, please fill out this short interest form and we’ll be in touch at the end in the new year with information on the student(s) you’ll be speaking with.
Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who has played a part in making this our best year yet! The work we do and the support we are able to provide our students is only possible with your generous support. If you would like to help us continue to grow in 2025, I’d invite you to consider an end-of-the-year gift to the University of Tulsa Center for Real Estate Studies: utulsa.edu/give/giving-opportunities/business-giving/center-for-real-estate-studies/.
Thank you and Happy Holidays!
Meagan McCollum
Director TU-CRES
meagan-mccollum@utulsa.edu