Texas Woman's University in Denton is adding a school of aeronautical sciences, hoping to give more women the opportunity to join the aviation industry.
TWU's Board of Regents formally approved the new school and will begin enrolling students in the 2024 fall semester. The university expects to have cohorts of about 25 students per year and 160 students enrolled by the program's fifth year.
The university said the school was made possible in part by a $15 million gift from the Doswell Foundation. After accepting the gift, regents named the school the Doswell School of Aeronautical Sciences.
The program will offer a Bachelor of Science in Aviation Sciences degree with two tracks: one in professional pilot training and the other in aviation management.
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Graduations of the pilot track would earn a commercial pilot's license, something not always offered at public universities and rarely offered at schools like TWU where 89% of the student body is made up of women.
"In the last couple of years, we have researched, sort of, the pilot shortage. We knew that TWU is perfectly positioned being a primarily focused university for women and also very diverse," said Kimberly Russell, vice president of university advancement at Texas Woman's University.
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Russell said many women face significant barriers to becoming a pilot, including cost and time, and that they hope that combining a baccalaureate degree with a commercial pilot's license would help alleviate some of those barriers.
Final approvals are still pending, including from the Federal Aviation Administration. Campus leaders are also looking for an airport partner to serve as a flight training ground school and for ways to address one of the biggest hurdles -- cost.
"It's very expensive, not just to obtain a bachelor's degree but also to obtain that flight training that can run anywhere from $60,000 to $80,000, to upwards of $100,000 in addition to tuition and fees," Russell said. "So, partnering with our airlines, partnering with companies that are interested in helping us fill that gap, we're hoping that we can overcome those barriers for women for sure."
If things take off, the Denton campus could one day even have its own aircraft.
