Dedman College Research – Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

Is Denton a suburb? Depends on who you ask

Denton Record-Chronicle Originally Posted: August 3, 2019 When Rolling Stone magazine first wrote about Brave Combo in 1979, the reporter said the genre-bending polka band was from Austin. From there, it was repeated again and again. Almost any media outside of North Texas writing about the group credited Austin as their home, because writers couldn’t conceive that cool music came out of other cities in the state, band founder and lead singer Carl Finch said. And thus began a nearly 40-year tradition of announcing “We’re Brave Combo from Denton, Texas” during sets near and far — as the band resisted any pressure to be lumped in with Dallas or Fort Worth. “I think that we have been so long associated with Denton pride and carrying [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-19T08:39:36-07:00 August 20th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News, Sociology, Sociology (Faculty)|Comments Off

Ancient Marine Fossils Unearthed in Plano

NBC 5 Originally Posted: August 8, 2019 Construction workers in Plano unearthed ancient marine fossils from a time when the city was under the sea. Crews found the fossils while working on the future Plano police substation at McDermott Road and Robinson Road. Steve Stoler, with the city of Plano, said crews only dug about seven feet into the ground before they found the fossils in a single 50-pound rock. "I don't know how many people realize this: in ancient times, this was an ocean. When you dig into the limestone shelf, it's not uncommon to find sea creatures and sea shells," Stoler said. "At the time these rocks were deposited, about 85 million years ago, Plano was submerged under a large inland sea," said [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-08T10:35:28-07:00 August 15th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Earth Sciences, Faculty News|Comments Off

College Friendship 101

Preston Hollow People Originally Posted: August 8, 2019 When SMU senior Page Hurley transferred to SMU in 2015, she didn’t know a soul, but she soon found new friends in her classes. Along the way, the psychology major found a topic for her senior research project – college friendship. Her research won the grand prize at SMU’s Research Day Colloquium, but the crowd of students and faculty members who gathered around Hurley to ask questions made it clear her research was more than academic. “Friendship is a personal topic,” Hurley said. “People can relate to it and apply the research to their lives.” With the help of Chrystyna Kouros, SMU associate professor of psychology, and her own research, here are Hurley’s five research-based tips for [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-08T10:33:29-07:00 August 13th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Psychology, Undergraduate News|Comments Off

U.S. and China trade war, and why experts disagree on its impact

Market News Originally Posted: August 7, 2019 The ongoing trade war between the United States and China continues to make an impact on businesses even beyond the two nations’ borders. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are currently meeting with Chinese diplomats in Shanghai to find a resolution. Until an agreement is reached though, businesses and consumers will continue to deal with the uncertainty. “I don’t think there’s much optimism, or I’m pretty sure there is no optimism, that this round of talks is going to get very far,” Southern Methodist University Associate Professor of Economics James Lake said. READ MORE

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-07T14:40:22-07:00 August 12th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Economics, Faculty News|Comments Off

Heather DeShon, Dedman, study finds Fort Worth basin wastewater injection increases fault-slip potential

Journal of Petroleum Technology Originally Posted: August 7, 2019 The Barnett Shale might be a play of yesteryear for the US onshore industry, but the examination of a decade’s worth of recorded activity from the birthplace of the shale revolution yields new insight on the seismic impact of wastewater injection. Findings from researchers at the University of Texas (UT), Stanford University, and Southern Methodist University (SMU) reveal that wastewater injection in the Fort Worth Basin (FWB) of North Texas “significantly increases the likelihood for faults to slip” if not managed properly, according to a UT news release. To improve understanding of fault sensitivity, the team mapped 251 faults totaling more than 1,800 miles in combined length in the FWB. Those faults mostly extend from the [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-07T14:31:04-07:00 August 9th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Earth Sciences, Faculty News|Comments Off

What We Can Learn From the Failures of Dallas Business Leaders

D Magazine Originally Posted: August 7, 2019 Let’s start with a few discouraging statistics. The federal Small Business Administration says that about 30 percent of all new businesses fail within their first two years. Fifty percent are gone within the first five, and two-thirds don’t make it past their 10th anniversaries. Those numbers make it plain: Failure is an even more integral aspect of business than is success. Beyond that, a rise in the number of failing businesses is counter-intuitively a sign of a healthy economy. “A huge percentage of startups fail, and we should be happy about that,” says Cullum Clark, an economist at Southern Methodist University. Not for the failure of any one, he adds, but for having a system that provides for [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-07T14:25:09-07:00 August 7th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Economics, Faculty News|Comments Off

Bumble founder and SMU alumna Whitney Wolfe Herd on Master of Scale

Master of Scale Originally Poster: July 29, 2019 About this episode: Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd knows: The smallest feature can make or break your product. This is what Wolfe Herd tapped into when she founded a dating app that required a whole new way of communication. She has become a master of understanding what her users want, and then making the small changes to Bumble that help them achieve their goals. Listen

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-30T11:33:53-07:00 July 30th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research|Comments Off

Texas shouldn’t teach students that Palestinians are the bad guys [Opinion]

Houston Chronicle Originally Posted: July 25, 2019 Sanaa Ghanim is a senior in the Southern Methodist University Human Rights Program, where she is researching the role of education in shaping perceptions of the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She enters law school in August 2020, and plans to concentrate on international law. The Texas state curriculum for high school social studies leaves students with the impression that conflict in the Middle East boils down to this: The Palestinians are the bad guys, and the Israelis are the good guys. The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies used to require that public school teachers “explain how Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict.” In November, the Texas State Board of Education [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-25T07:43:59-07:00 July 25th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Embrey Human Rights Events, Undergraduate News|Comments Off

New map outlines seismic faults across DFW region

EurekaAlert Originally Posted: July 24, 2019 DALLAS (SMU) - Scientists from SMU, The University of Texas at Austin and Stanford University found that the majority of faults underlying the Fort Worth Basin are as sensitive to forces that could cause them to slip as those that have hosted earthquakes in the past. The new study, published July 23rd by the journal Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA), provides the most comprehensive fault information for the region to date. Fault slip potential modeling explores two scenarios: a model based on subsurface stress on the faults prior to high-volume wastewater injection and a model of those forces reflecting increase in fluid pressure due to injection. None of the faults shown to have the highest potential for an [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-24T08:21:46-07:00 July 24th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Earth Sciences, Faculty News|Comments Off

Listen: David J. Meltzer, Anthropology, discusses his work on the Meateater podcast

The Meateater Originally Posted: July 23, 2019 Steven Rinella talks to David J. Meltzer and Janis Putelis. Subjects discussed: Understanding radio carbon dates; crossing the Bering Land Bridge; who were the first Americans?; the early human aversion to incest; ecotones, or where a bunch of good shit comes together; glyptodons and 3-ton ground sloths; a big extinction on one fine Tuesday; Rambo; the tidy appeal of the blitzkreig hypothesis; Clovis points; cross examining. Listen

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-23T10:41:12-07:00 July 23rd, 2019|Anthropology, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News|Comments Off