Tarleton State expands in Fort Worth with new construction and first freshman class | Fort Worth Report (2024)

Tarleton State Fort Worth’s 80-acre location off Chisholm Trail Parkway in southwest Fort Worth seems fitting for a campus that is expanding on a new frontier. Standing outside the rear entrance of its Central Administration Building, there’s new construction next door. After that, there’s nothing but land and a small body of water as far as the eye can see.

“I see possibility, potential and growth,” said Rachael Capua, dean and vice president of external operations of Tarleton State University Fort Worth.

Capua, who has been in her job for a little more than a year, has been running the existing campus, expanding programs and recruiting new students.

This August, the school will welcome its inaugural freshman class. Their arrival will coincide with the completion of the $66 million four-story Interprofessional Education Building, which will house 10 classrooms along with 20 labs and simulation suites. A large community center that can be used for university and community events will also be housed within the building that primarily supports the university’s College of Health Sciences and the College of Education. As funding becomes available, the public university will continue to expand.

Tuition is around $10,000 a year for a full-time student taking 15 credits worth of classes in both the fall and spring semesters. Scholarships are available to eligible students who graduated in the top 50% of their high school class and have a family adjusted gross income of $85,000 or less.

The main campus for Tarleton State University, which is a member of the Texas A&M University System, is in Stephenville, about 80 miles southwest of downtown Fort Worth.

While the first campus building in Fort Worth opened in fall 2019, Tarleton State has had a presence in Fort Worth since it began offering classes in the city in the late 1970s.

The southwest Fort Worth campus has over 60 academic programs, with classes ranging from kinesiology to management information systems. In the years ahead, the school wants to grow its 2,300 enrollment, but that growth needs to happen in the right way, Capua said.

“One face of the coin is enrollment, access and opportunity. However, the other face of the coin is ensuring that we retain (students); they persist; and they graduate,” said Capua, who knows, both personally and professionally, what it means to start off as a community college student and complete education at a four-year university.

Capua was a transfer student. She graduated from Collin College, a community college in the northern Dallas suburbs, and then transferred to Texas Christian University, where she found her calling when she walked into the office of the dean of transfer students — uninvited — with some ideas. She left that meeting with a job.

“That was the beginning of my journey in higher education,” Capua said.

She went on to get a doctorate in education with a concentration in educational leadership and policy at Southern Methodist University. She was one of the first staff members at Tarrant To & Through Partnership, an organization that focuses on getting students on college and career pathways. Her academic research focuses on transfer, persistence and retention, and it translates directly into leading a campus where transfer students are the bulk of the student body.

And the majority of students — 65% — come from Tarrant County, according to university officials. Tarleton is creating opportunities for students who want a four-year college experience close to home, said Fort Worth City Council member Jared Williams, who represents the district where the university is located.

“For the area, it creates job opportunities, of course, through the campus. But also by nature of the campus being in the district, it also scores opportunities for other commercial development in the area,” said Williams, who grew up in the district, graduated from North Crowley High School and went on to get his doctorate in environmental science from the University of North Texas.

Students in the college’s counseling program have already begun working with Fort Worth ISD and Crowley ISD schools.

“We have a lot of nontraditional students who are working 40 hours a week and then coming to class in the evening,” said Beck Munsey, a faculty member and department chair of the counseling department. “It’s really neat to see the blending of that, where you have students with lots of work experience and life experience and then others that are really young. They kind of naturally mentor each other.”

For Capua, space is important, especially in learning. Many of the classrooms have floor-to- ceiling windows, where you can see the learning taking place. Hallways display student and faculty work, along with quotes from Tarleton State Fort Worth students. Outside there is a sustainable garden where students can grow fruits and vegetables.

Most of all, she wants to ensure students feel heard and supported.

“I think that creates the culture and the community, where people feel valued and they feel seen,” said Capua. “That has to be the base that is the foundation of building a campus like this.”

Edit note: This story has been updated June 3, 2024, to reflect number of academic programs.

Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open Campus. Contact her at shomial.ahmad@fortworthreport.org.

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