Before Jesse Guardiola was an OSU-Tulsa graduate, a Tulsa Police senior officer, and a winner of the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in Policing, he was a fresh Tulsa Police Department recruit who saw an issue and wanted to make a difference.

“Early on, I saw a divide between Tulsa’s Hispanic community and law enforcement,” Guardiola said.

Three Tulsa-area teachers are convinced OSU-Tulsa’s undergraduate elementary education program has some kind of “special sauce.”

Not long after graduating, each of the former college classmates was named Teacher of the Year at her respective school.