Dallas Hall, under construction. Photo courtesy of the SMU Archives.

On a chilly Thanksgiving Day in 1912, several thousand people gathered on a hill six miles from downtown Dallas. They had traveled by car and chartered train to celebrate the laying of the cornerstone of Dallas Hall, an event The Dallas Morning News described as “a day of jubilation.”

SMU celebrated the centennial of the laying of the Dallas Hall cornerstone Nov. 28, 2012, at a ceremony for the Dallas Hall Society in the Rotunda of Dallas Hall. The Dallas Hall Society recognizes those who contribute to SMU’s future through planned gifts. In a 30-day countdown that began Homecoming weekend, alumni, students, faculty and staff signed giant Dallas Hall birthday cards and enjoyed birthday cupcakes.

• Read more from SMU News.

For nearly 100 years, SMU’s elegant first building has served as a symbol of the University, a standard of its classic collegiate Georgian style, home to intellectual discourse for generations of students, and center of SMU’s liberal arts tradition, now Dedman College. Named in honor of the Dallas citizens whose contributions funded the building, Dallas Hall also serves as a symbol of the close relationship the University shares with the city.

The crowd gathered to witness the laying of the cornerstone waited three years for the completion of the grand building, inspired by the Roman Pantheon and the library Thomas Jefferson designed for the University of Virginia. Construction was delayed by the bankruptcy of the original contractor. When Dallas Hall opened in 1915 for SMU’s first classes, it housed the complete university including classrooms, offices, a library, a hamburger grill, science labs, piano practice rooms, a chapel, an attic apartment, a barber shop, a post office and a mummy.

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SMU will work in concert with the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination with a yearlong series of public programs in 2013-14.

The series will begin with “The Politics of Memory” on President’s Day 2013 (Feb. 18, 2013) and end on President’s Day 2014 (Feb. 17, 2014) with “Coping With Crises: How Presidents Manage National Crises,” a program sponsored with the Sixth Floor Museum and the Bush Library and Museum.

Other programs examining the legacies of the Kennedy presidency and its impact on American domestic and foreign policy are planned for the months leading up to Nov. 22, 2013 – the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination while traveling by motorcade through Dallas’ Dealey Plaza.

SMU is working through a special committee of distinguished SMU faculty members and guests known as the Tower Center Working Group on Remembrance and Commemoration:  The Life and Legacy of JFK.  The John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies is part of SMU’s Dedman College of the Humanities and Sciences.

• Read more from SMU News.
• Also, SMU Journalism Division receives iconic Jack Ruby photo.

Application deadlines for SMU’s 2013 J Term are coming up fast. The initial course selection deadline for J Term courses is 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012, the day before Thanksgiving.

Late applications will be considered after the initial deadline but are subject to availability of class space. Forty different courses have been scheduled for the 2013 session, which takes place Jan. 7-16 at the SMU-in-Plano campus.

> Visit the SMU J Term course registration page

A limited number of tuition assistance scholarships are available to full-time SMU undergraduate students attending an SMU J Term course. The J Term Scholars Award can be combined with other J Term financial aid, not to exceed the cost of tuition. Interested students must send applications for the J Term Scholars Award to the SMU Financial Aid Office, 119 Blanton, by Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012.

> Download the SMU J Term Scholars Award 2012-13 application (PDF format)

The J Term (short for January Term) allows students to complete one three-credit-hour course at a discounted tuition rate before the start of the spring semester. For J Term 2013, regular undergraduate students will pay a reduced tuition rate of $1,100 per credit hour ($3,300 per course), the same rate offered during the SMU 2012 Summer School program. Parking is free on the SMU-in-Plano campus, and no decal is required.

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Goalkeeper Jaime Ibarra

The SMU Men’s Soccer team is the No. 1 seed in the Conference USA tournament, which will decide the Conference USA champion and guarenteed representative into the 2012 NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Championship.

The Conference USA tournament is being held November 7-11 at West Campus field in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, on the campus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

SMU has a bye in the first round, so the Mustangs’ will play the winner of the Kentucky-Memphis match at 5 p.m. Friday, November 9. The tournament semifinals are on November 9 and the championship match is on November 11.

SMU clinched the Conference USA regular season title in late October with a 6-2 record in conference play, and a 10-4-3 record overall.

“We are extremely proud of the players and coaches for winning the Conference USA regular season title,” head coach Tim McClements said. “One of our major goals at the start of the season was to win the conference, and we are proud to secure the title with a game in hand. We have a young team, but we have great senior leadership; the players have done a great job.”

The Mustangs are led by junior goalkeeper Jaime Ibarra and sophomore forward Tyler Engel.

Jubilee Park and Community Center
(Photo courtesy of Google)

Students in SMU’s Cultural Formations/Religious Studies course Latino/Latina Religions are conducting research on the history of the Jubilee Park, its Walt Humann and T. Boone Pickens Community Center and its surrounding neighborhood. They are blogging about their experiences on SMU Adventures.

The center, near the Fair Park area of Dallas, was founded by Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in 1997 and serves a diverse population.

Through their research, students hope to learn more about the ways religious organizations impact local communities, and about the changing landscapes that have formed Dallas over the years. At the culmination of the project in December, students will present their findings in a presentation at the Jubilee Park Center.

“By applying what we learned in class to our service learning project, my peers and I plan to do the following things,” Karen write in her blog. “We will document the history of the Jubilee Park Community Center and analyze the outcomes of the center’s programs. We will also examine the economic, social, and cultural makeup of the surrounding predominantly Latino community. Most important, we will focus on how all of these components affect Latino religious identity and the Social Gospel movement in Dallas.”

• Read the students’ blogs.