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Thirty-seven SMU students – some of them pictured here – will pursue 2012-13 Unbridled Projects through the University's Office of Engaged Learning. Photo credit: Hillsman S. Jackson.

In the coming academic year, 37 SMU students from throughout the University will take on special projects of their own design in research, civic engagement, creative work and internships.

They are all part of the 2012-13 Unbridled Project, part of the SMU Engaged Learning initiative. Of the 37 participating students, 32 requested and received grants to complete their projects.

> Visit SMU’s Engaged Learning homepage

Three students conducted Unbridled Projects during the program’s first year in 2011-12. As the initiative begins its second year, “we are right where we hoped to be,” says Director of Engaged Learning Susan Kress.

“We’re very excited for the students,” Kress adds. “The University has invested a lot of effort in raising awareness of the opportunities available through this initiative, and those efforts have paid off.”

The students are especially gratified to know that faculty members are interested in their work and support their efforts, Kress adds. “And at the same time, faculty members are excited that this ties in to the ‘engaged teaching and learning’ happening in their classrooms.”

Junior Kimberly Mendoza (left), a double major in biological sciences and chemistry in SMU’s Dedman College, can attest to the importance and inspiration of engaged faculty. For her Unbridled Project, she will research health-related traditions, beliefs and practices in the indigenous Mayan community in Guatemala and evaluate how these values and beliefs occasionally clash with Western medicine. Nia Parson of the Department of Anthropology will serve as her faculty mentor.

During her first year at SMU, Mendoza took Parson’s course “Health, Healing and Ethics,” which examines cross-cultural perspectives on sickness and society. “It was one of the best classes I have taken at SMU,” she says. “Dr. Parson gave me so much insight into health as viewed from different perspectives. She also was very passionate about her anthropological work and health in a global perspective.”

When Mendoza decided to pursue an Unbridled Project, “I immediately thought of Dr. Parson, and she was so helpful to me throughout the application process.”

Mendoza’s mother is of indigenous Maya origin, but fled her native Guatemala during the civil war in the 1970s. “As a result, she did not grow up learning the traditions, culture, values and language that bind this group of people together,” Mendoza says. When her maternal grandmother, also an indigenous Maya, received medical treatment in the United States for a malignant brain tumor, Mendoza experienced first-hand how strongly those traditions and values are upheld. “I also witnessed the dichotomy between my grandmother’s spiritual and traditional beliefs and the Western medical system,” she says.

Through her Unbridled Project, Mendoza seeks to understand how to better relate to those who hold such traditional values and beliefs, she says. She plans to become a physician with an emphasis in global health and hopes to work with Doctors Without Borders.

“It is an intellectual treat for me to mentor Kimberly,” Parson says. “As a medical anthropologist, specializing in Latin America, I know how important and interesting her project is – not only because it illuminates the different ways people experience and think about health in Guatemala, but also because of the implications of this knowledge for our own health care systems.”

Mendoza’s research could help in providing better care for Guatemalan and other immigrants here in Dallas, Parson adds. “It is very gratifying to see Kimberly bringing together her family’s ties to Guatemala and her educational experience here at SMU.”

The Office of Engaged Learning provides institutional support for SMU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), created as part of the University’s reaccreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). “Engaged Learning Beyond the Classroom” allows all SMU undergraduate students to participate in at least one extensive experiential learning activity prior to graduation.

A full list of students who will pursue 2012-13 Unbridled Projects appears below the link.

To commemorate the anniversary of its founding 100 years ago with the support of Dallas, SMU has prepared a report detailing the impact of the University on the city as a return on investment. Titled “Dallas and SMU: The Power of Partnership,” the report was summarized at a noon presentation Tuesday, April 17, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Attendees  included nearly 400 area business and civic leaders.

Richard Fisher, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, made welcoming remarks. SMU President R. Gerald Turner presented the report. The event included remarks by SMU Board Chair Caren Prothro and trustees Carl Sewell, Ray L. Hunt, and Michael Boone, vice chair of the SMU Board and chair of the Community Relations Committee of SMU’s Centennial commemoration, which will culminate in 2015, the centennial of the University’s opening.

Information in the report ranges from the regional economic impact of SMU to changes in the student profile, along with research, cultural resources, public service and integration of community service into coursework.

“As part of our Centennial commemoration, we felt it was important to evaluate and highlight the return on investment Dallas has received by supporting the establishment of SMU 100 years ago,” said President Turner. “We hope the report provides a meaningful snapshot of our contributions, measured not only in financial terms but also in intellectual capital. Our goal is to continue to give back to the region that has helped to make SMU a national university worthy of this great city. We celebrate this productive partnership.”

Read more from SMU News.
Read “Dallas and SMU: The Power of Partnership.”

The Living Village is back for its second year at SMU, serving as an interactive display and teaching tool for 2012 Engineering & Humanity Week. Through Friday, April 20, students will live, cook and sleep in temporary shelters designed for international refugees and rapidly expanding urban populations.

Students, faculty and members of the North Texas community began building the village on the lawn just west of the Engineering Quad on Wednesday, April 11, preparing to showcase a variety of shelter technologies with applications for people displaced by war and natural disasters, as well as impoverished urban dwellers in the developing world. The village’s temporary residents – student volunteers from disciplines all over campus – will be without electricity and running water in the shelters, as is frequently the case for refugee populations.

Many of this year’s shelters are designed for longer-term habitation than last year’s, and two are student projects. Harvey Lacey is back with his popular recycled plastic Ubuntu Blox House, fresh from exhaustive earthquake testing that proved his house to be a potential fit for quake-prone places like Haiti. And bcWORKSHOP’s Brent Brown has brought his Rapido Prototype, the largest structure in the village, developed as part of the state of Texas’ Natural Disaster Housing Reconstruction Plan. During Engineering & Humanity Week, bcWORKSHOP designers will seek feedback from SMU students and visitors to help them improve the project’s design, construction process, deployment method and performance.

Read more about the innovative structures that will make up the Living Village. The public is welcome to tour the village and speak with student participants, who also will be blogging their experiences.

The Living Village also will host a special event at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 19, designed to spotlight approaches to preserve culture among populations that are housed long-term in refugee camps.

Written by Kimberly Cobb

> Learn more about the Living Village and the week’s events from SMU News
> Follow the Living Village students at their SMU Adventures blog
> Visit the Engineering & Humanity Week website

More than 1,000 SMU community members walked all night April 13-14 to raise money and awareness for cancer research during the 9th annual Relay For Life cancer fundraiser.

Kathryn Schaible

SMU’s 2012 Relay For Life had raised more than $123,000, as of Monday (April 16), and donations continue to come it. Funds raised by the event, which took place on the University’s Bishop Boulevard, will benefit the American Cancer Society.

In just two months before the relay, SMU first-year student Kathryn Schaible, whose father died of melanoma when she was 14, raised $20,000 in pledges for the cause.

“I know how cancer can break a family down and change your life,” Schaible said prior to the relay. “The Relay For Life fundraising experience has been much more than raising money. It has given me the opportunity to spread awareness, and talk about treatment and prevention. Educating people and sharing my story has kept me committed to this project.”

Visit www.relayforlife.org/smutx for details on donations and participation.

Stewart Copeland, founding member of The Police and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honoree, will conduct a mini-residency at the Meadows School of the Arts April 11-13, 2012.

Copeland’s residency will focus on his work as a composer. He will give guest lectures to music composition and film and media arts students about composing for orchestra, opera and ballet, as well as scoring for film and TV.

He also will work with the Meadows Percussion Ensemble, which will perform four of Copeland’s compositions during its spring concert at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 11. Copeland will not perform with the group but will be in the audience.

On the last day of his visit, Copeland will give a public talk about his career, including his experiences with The Police.

Copeland was in Dallas a year ago when the group D’Drum — which includes Meadows faculty — presented the world premiere of his work Gamelan D’Drum with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

> Find a list of public events and related links at the SMU News homepage
> Listen to Stewart Copeland’s interview with KXT Public Radio: Tune in to 91.7 FM at 8:30 a.m. Friday, April 13, to listen to the first broadcast of the interview – or listen to the station’s live online stream at kxt.org/listen.

Application deadlines are approaching for summer and fall 2012 courses at SMU’s 300-acre campus near Taos, New Mexico.

• Click here for summer and fall 2012 applications to SMU-in-Taos.

“No other university has a campus like SMU-in-Taos,” says Mike Adler, professor of archaeology and SMU-in-Taos executive director. “It is special in a number of ways. The place infuses everyone with a sense of calm and beauty. We have carefully preserved the natural beauty of the mountains, a place where students and faculty can work together unencumbered by distractions.”

SMU-in-Taos has offered summer education programs tailored to the region’s unique cultural and natural resources since 1973. In 2009, the campus launched a fall term thanks to new and renovated casitas and other improvements that made the facilities usable in all seasons.

The three summer programs are May 9-27, May 31-June 29, and July 31-August 17. The fall program is Aug. 21 through Dec. 12. Click here for summer and fall course offerings.

Students in the fall program will take 15 to 18 hours of courses that meet core undergraduate requirements in the arts, sciences, business and other disciplines. The fall program is open to students with a minimum 2.70 G.P.A. who have completed a full year at SMU.

The courses place a unique emphasis on experiential learning and hands-on interaction with their subject matter, Adler says. “As I tell our faculty, if you can only talk about it, don’t teach it in Taos. If you can see it, visit it, feel it, or hike it … that is how we teach our classes here.”

Additionally, the faculty and their families live on campus, so “students get to see them as individuals with outside lives, interests and hobbies, and faculty interact with students both in and out of the classroom,” he says.

And the location creates its own educational context. “Taos is a fascinating community of artists, activists, tourists, Native American tribal members and a number of other interesting groups and identities,” Adler says. “The diversity of the community makes for a very interesting mix of attitudes, political leanings and belief systems.”

For most students, a fall term in Taos costs the same as one taken on the main campus. Existing financial aid applies to study at the New Mexico campus, and SMU-in-Taos offers its own scholarships to students.  Learn more at the Taos financial aid site.

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