It’s easy to see that Cory Sales is driven to succeed – both in his career but also in being there for his family. Since 2014, the 40-year-old has earned two associate’s degrees and a bachelor’s degree while working full time and being a husband, dad and grandfather. Though he attended Oklahoma State University-Tulsa a little later in life, his drive to graduate led to his recently being offered the position of senior IT security analyst for all of the Creek Nation casinos in Oklahoma.

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.