In light of the February 14, 2025, Dear Colleague Letter from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the University has decided to temporarily pause the undergraduate Human Diversity (HD) requirement in the SMU Common Curriculum for students graduating between May 2025 and August 2025. This pause is intended to provide time to thoroughly review the requirement and evaluate whether revisions are necessary.
Undergraduate students whose expected graduation terms were between May 2025 and August 2025 as of Friday, February 28, who had not or were not expected to have the requirement satisfied by the end of May 2025 have been waived.
Students who meet the HD requirement via course or individual will be documented as having satisfied the condition on their Degree Progress Report (DPR). For instance, if a HD individual activity or an HD-tagged course was completed successfully, it will be reflected.
If HD is incomplete by the end of Spring 2025 and the student is expected to graduate during the pause, it will appear waived for graduation. A sample DPR below shows the explanatory text for the waived requirement.
These DPR updates went live on my.SMU on Wednesday, March 5, 2025. Students will be notified via email on Monday, March 10, 2025. If faculty and academic advisors discover errors with an affected student’s DPR, please submit a DPR Issues/Requests to the Office of the Registrar.
It is important to note that this is not a permanent change. No modifications to the Human Diversity requirement will be made without appropriate faculty approval. The pause is being enacted to ensure that faculty have the necessary time and space to deliberate on the matter fully. Therefore, academic advisors are encouraged not to modify advisement practices for students graduating after August 2025 at this time.
Should you have any questions about this guidance or student’s expected graduation has been updated to be within the pause period, please contact the Office of General Education.