The Tulsa Police Academy is partnering with several universities to accredit academy hours into college credit, creating a faster pathway for recruits to join the force while earning their degrees.
The partnership enables cadets to attend the academy while still in college and utilize their training as college credit toward graduation.
"We are now partnered with several different universities that are now accrediting our police academy with up to 45 credit hours," said Ana Parga, a recruiter for the Tulsa Police Department. "This means that someone could potentially achieve their bachelor's degree in just two to three years by going through our academy."
The colleges include:
-Northeastern State University,
-Oklahoma State University, Tulsa Campus,
- Oklahoma Wesleyan University
- Southern Nazarene University
- New Mexico State University
Officer Jessica Salazar became the first person to graduate from the partnership program. She has always had a mission to serve, graduating from Fort Benning as a military officer in 2023.
"It's more of a just being able to serve a country that's helped my family out so much, and then kind of bring it out from just like helping more in, like a smaller, smaller part of that," Salazar said.
That smaller part meant getting into the police force. When she learned of the Tulsa Police Department's academy, she knew she wanted to join.
"And after that, it was more of a no-brainer as to like, this is one of the best departments, and it has one of the best training academies as well," Salazar said.
TPD requires a bachelor's degree, something Salazar was still finishing when she applied. The new college partnership changed the game for her and other recruits.
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"So, going through the program, I had a lot of help. It wasn't just an individual effort; I had a lot of help, especially once I was here in the pre-hire program as well, and had a lot of help with doing assignments, and then, like, it wasn't easy; however, it's very much doable," Salazar said.
With endless hours of academy training and classes online at New Mexico State, Salazar finished both her degree and earned her badge in April with the recruitment class 130.
"So, it was a while, at least half a year, going through training, and now just the day of graduation, like it was all worth it," Salazar said.
She has returned to military training and has just begun field training with TPD. As a new class from the academy started on Sept. 22, Salazar wants everyone to know that it is possible to answer the call to serve.
"So it was really nice being able to have that option there, because that's the only reason I'm here, is through the program and through TPD, having that partnership together," Salazar said.
In October, five more cadets will graduate from the academy within the same partnership that Salazar went through.
If you want to learn more about the program, click here.
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