SMU will take a major step forward in serving the talent and research needs of a challenging world, thanks to a landmark $100 million commitment from the Moody Foundation that will fund the University’s eighth degree-granting school – the Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies. The Moody Foundation commitment is the largest gift in SMU history.
“We cannot overstate the power and reach of this gift,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “This is a transformational moment for SMU and Dallas, signaling that SMU is a premier institution with the means to be a full partner in commercial and global problem-solving, and a pipeline for leaders to tackle those challenges.
“As the Texas economy booms, companies and institutions look to universities like SMU for innovative ideas, data-driven research and technology that can create opportunity,” Turner said. “The Moody School will be the portal to all of our resources – the entry point for any organization with a research challenge to approach the University for partnership.”
Read more at SMU News.
Category: 2019
SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts paved the way toward the future of arts education with the kickoff of the Owen Arts Center renovation on November 8 during SMU Homecoming Weekend. The $34 million initiative will improve academic spaces in the north wing for visual arts, art history and creative computation, while creating grand, welcoming and accessible exterior entrances.
At the celebration, a $1.8 million challenge gift from Indianapolis philanthropist and former SMU Meadows parent G. Marlyne Sexton was announced, creating a new incentive for others to become part of this transformative project. Previously, Sexton had given $3.2 million toward the project, bringing her total commitment to $5 million.
With this new gift, Sexton encourages admirers of the arts to help the Meadows School reach the remaining $4 million needed for the revitalization of the arts hub, which will enrich the experiences of students and the commununity for years to come.
The renovation launched as the Meadows School of the Arts marks the 50th anniversary of its naming. Formally established at SMU in 1969 and named in honor of benefactor Algur H. Meadows, it is one of the foremost arts education institutions in the United States.
The commitment to excellence, entrepreneurial vision and devotion to community that Mr. Meadows embodied are captured in the reimagined Owen Arts Center, where creation and innovation will converge in new and exciting new ways.
“The improvements will serve as a catalyst for Meadows to attract the next generation of talented and diverse visual artists, art historians and multidisciplinary creatives and draw scholars and visitors from across the region and around the world,” SMU President R. Gerald Turner said. “We thank our donors for their generous support.”
Read more at SMU News.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson will be the guest speaker at the all-University Commencement Convocation on Saturday, December 21 at 9:30 a.m. in Moody Coliseum. Degree candidates from all SMU schools and professional programs will be recognized at the ceremony, which will be streamed smu.edu/live.
Eric Johnson is the 60th mayor of Dallas, Texas, elected in June 2019. Prior to becoming mayor, Johnson served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, where he represented the city of Dallas from April 2010 to June 2019. During his tenure in the Texas Legislature, Johnson served on 20 prominent legislative committees, including appropriations, ways and means, higher education and natural resources. He also served as chair of the Dallas Area Legislative Delegation. In addition to his service as mayor of Dallas, Johnson is an attorney and partner with the international law firm of Locke Lord LLP.
Read more about December Commencement.
Read more about December Commencement.
Men’s soccer seniors finish their SMU careers with 51 wins, three conference championships and three NCAA tournament berths.
No. 5 SMU’s season came to an end in the NCAA Elite Eight on December 6 when the Mustangs fell to No. 1 Virginia, 3-2, in overtime.
Eight-seeded SMU (18-2-1) started the match off in the right foot when it broke away from the Virginia (20-1-1) back line in the second minute, resulting in a Garrett McLaughlin chance. But the AAC First-Teamer pushed his shot just right of the post to leave the scoreboard even.
The last six minutes of regulation would be a mad dash, as both teams looked to punch their ticket to the College Cup, but neither side found a winner, and the game went to overtime.
Read more at SMU Athletics.
When it comes to giving, gifts of any size make a huge difference to our world changers. Be inspired by your fellow Mustangs, and make your donation by December 31. Thanks to all who have already made an impact!
See A Lifetime of Impact.
SMU welcomed the community to campus on December 2 to launch the holiday season. Ice skating, the story of the first Christmas and “Silent Night” sung by candlelight created a magical and memorable evening on the Hilltop.
See photos @smufacebook.
Professor Jill DeTemple teaches students how to take topics that drive people apart and reframe the conversation around personal experiences to promote understanding. Through curious questioning and thoughtful listening, students learn they don’t have to agree with their political opposites to understand where they’re coming from. Columnist Sharon Grigsby wrote about the class published for The Dallas Morning News on October 16, 2019.
EXCERPT:
Professor Jill DeTemple, in the religious studies department of SMU’s Dedman College, has developed a discussion tool, dubbed reflective structured dialogue, that she is using in her own classrooms and sharing with professors here and across the nation.
The idea is to take topics that drive people apart — gun rights, abortion, the death penalty, the existence of God — and reframe the conversation around personal experiences. Lots of weighty research underpins the technique, but at its core is curiosity about another person’s life and values.
“Tell me a story that helps me understand how you came to hold that belief,” DeTemple repeatedly says.
She uses the model throughout her teaching, but most of it is invisible to students. The exception is the occasional dialogue circle, which former students told me they approached with dread but look back on as life-altering.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Enjoy these quick links to great stories and more about the people, programs and events making an impact on the Hilltop.
Moody Magic: Get tickets for SMU vs. Georgia State on December 23
Tim Cassedy’s Figures of Speech wins national ‘First Book’ prize
Op-ed: SMU, Toyota and Dallas ISD respond to a moral imperative
SMU seeks postdoctoral researchers for new training group
See Holiday in the National Parks at the Bush Center
DeGolyer Library presents Andy Hanson: Picture Dallas, 1960–2008
Perkins celebrates three milestones with 60th Advent service
Geophysicists use sophisticated technology to unmask leak
Confetti rained and applause roared as the SMU community celebrated Carolyn L. and David B. Miller ’72, ’73 on October 18. Their historic $50 million gift to SMU will drive innovative education in SMU’s Edwin L. Cox School of Business. It also builds on the Millers’ decades-long support for academics, athletics, student scholarships and other areas to benefit generations of world changers.
Read more at SMU News.
Dallas entrepreneur, industry leader and educator Bobby B. Lyle ’67 builds on the farsighted generosity that named the Lyle School of Engineering 11 years ago by designating $10 million to power a new strategic vision for the school. The bold future-focused model will combine innovation, agility and swift responses to shifts in technological capabilities with enduring institutional support.
“Bobby Lyle’s vision, then and now, speaks to the core needs of engineering education to prepare students to solve problems, drive the economy and change lives through problem-driven research and real-world experience,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “Today we celebrate Bobby’s leadership and commitment to the future of the Lyle School and SMU.”
The ability to react quickly to promising new ideas is essential for technological trailblazers. To take advantage of opportunities with transformative potential, Dr. Lyle’s investment will support the school’s Future Fund by establishing endowments for Accelerating Emerging Research and Accelerating High Tech Business Innovations. The fund also will support two additional strategic portfolios: Transforming the Engineering Education Experience and Transformative Technology for Social Good.
In engineering, speed is of the essence when developing groundbreaking advancements, Dr. Lyle said.
“Researching and prototyping new ideas must happen quickly to be competitive, while traditional fundraising takes time,” he said. “This transformational plan allows engineering school researchers to be nimble in the fast-changing tech landscape.”
Read more at SMU News.
The SMU Student Foundation invites all to the Hilltop for the Celebration of Lights at 7 p.m. on Monday, December 2. Cocoa, cookies, carols and the Christmas story bring the magic and meaning of this joyous season. The campus will remain aglow throughout the holidays for all to enjoy.
Read more at Student Foundation.
SMU Dedman School of Law will launch a First Amendment Clinic in fall 2020, thanks to a $900,000 gift from the Stanton Foundation. The clinic will focus on free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and petition and other First Amendment issues. This funding will cover the core operating expenses of the clinic for five years.
“SMU is incredibly honored to be the recipient of this extraordinary gift,” said Jennifer Collins, Dean of SMU Dedman School of Law. “We are extremely grateful that the Foundation recognized the talents of our constitutional law faculty and our long tradition of excellence in our clinical program by entrusting us with this opportunity.”
The Stanton Foundation was created by Dr. Frank Stanton, the long-time president of CBS and one of the founding fathers of the television industry. Dr. Stanton was a fierce defender of freedom of speech and the First Amendment and received numerous awards in recognition of his efforts to ensure the freedom of the press.
Read more at Dedman Law.
Lunch by Ruthie’s Rolling Cafe, music by the Mustang Brass Quintet, games and gratitude from all for those who serve our nation will highlight the SMU Veterans Day Celebration.
Read more from the Maguire Center.
An auction of fine and decorative arts on November 20 will benefit the programs supported by the Friends of SMU-in-Taos. View the catalog and bid online, or plan to attend the event at Dallas Auction Gallery.
Garrett McLaughlin is among 10 finalists fans can vote on for the prestigious Senior CLASS Award, given annually to the nation’s top senior student-athlete who excels on and off the field.
The 20 total NCAA men’s and women’s soccer finalists were chosen from 30 men’s and 30 women’s finalists. Nationwide fan voting begins immediately to help select the winner, and fans will be able to vote on the Senior CLASS Award website through November 18, 2019. Fan votes will be combined with media and Division I head coaches’ votes to determine the winner.
After a record-breaking five-goal performance versus Cincinnati on October 26, McLaughlin was named the United Soccer Coaches National Player of the Week. The Senior CLASS Award candidate now has a team-high 14 goals and 33 points in 2019, both marks are the most of any Mustang since 2002.
After battling back from a painful injury, McLaughlin is having a great year. So is men’s soccer. The team is ranked No. 12 nationally in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25.
Read more at SMU Athletics.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Enjoy these quick links to great stories and photos about the people, programs and events making an impact on the Hilltop.
- Photos: Family Weekend 2019
- No. 5 SMU advances to women’s soccer conference semifinals
- Game-based learning study awarded $1.5 million national grant
- Internet search: Are we substituting information for knowledge?
- Forbes: Study shows personality may be more pliable than we think
- Trevor Rees-Jones ’78: Energy industry’s pioneering disruptor
- Fall dance concert to feature two new works
- Rick Steves leads the lineup for Perkins’ Mission Quest
- Parents: Simmons School expert weighs in on gifted education
Categories
Mickey’s wild ride
Between bobsledding and winning a seat in the Oklahoma Legislature, Mickey Dollens ’11 also experienced a boom (and bust) in the oil business and a teaching job that he loved (and lost). It has been a wild ride for someone only eight years out of SMU, but as you follow the twists and turns of his story, one thing is clear: Mickey never quits.
Read the full story
Categories
Moody Magic starts Homecoming Week
The magic of Mustang basketball returns to Moody Coliseum on November 5 when the men’s team plays Jacksonville State and the women’s team takes on McNeese State.
Check out the men’s schedule and buy tickets; see the women’s schedule and buy tickets.
Read more at SMU Athletics.
For Ian Perkins-Smith ’20, music has always been a part of life. After taking piano lessons in elementary school, he joined the band in sixth grade and took up the saxophone. He stayed with the band all through high school and advanced to the role of drum major. Now an SMU senior, he’s repeating that success as drum major of the Mustang Band.
“When I first got on campus — I moved in early because I was in band — but I think because of that, I really gained my first family on campus,” Ian says. “That was big for me because it held me together here my first year. It was pretty awesome. I love that community that I get from it.”
For those who love music and want the community that it provides, Ian recommends joining the Mustang Band.
“Try out, even if you’re unsure, because it’s a great experience to have,” Ian said. “It’s a community like no other.”
Read the full story at SMU Daily Campus.
A recent $2 million gift expands the profile of SMU’s Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation as a leading academic platform for multidisciplinary research and scholarly debate surrounding new technologies.
Located within SMU Dedman School of Law, the academic center brings together experts from the legal, scientific and business communities to explore the complex challenges presented by the evolving innovation ecosystem. Such topics as artificial intelligence, digital currency, intellectual property and data privacy have been explored through faculty research, educational programming and student engagement opportunities since the Tsai Center was launched in 2015.
The new gift was made by the same anonymous Dedman Law alumnus who generously provided the $3.125 million gift to establish the center. It will be split between endowment and current operational funding, and provides additional resources for research grants, programs and curricula.
Read more at SMU News.
Rehearsing and performing in the Meadows Symphony Orchestra was a revelatory, life-changing experience for Michelle Merrill ’06, ’12.
In 2002, Merrill was a freshman saxophone performance student who had never performed in an orchestra. Growing up in the small East Texas town of Canton, her pre-college musical experiences were limited to private piano and saxophone lessons and playing in the high school band.
“But at SMU I got to play some of the big orchestral repertoire, like Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suite,” she says. “I remember that first rehearsal with Dr. Phillips. I was completely in awe of sitting in the middle of this huge orchestra. I’d been in band and wind ensembles, but nothing as massive as an orchestra, and I just remember loving it and thinking it was one of the greatest things I’d ever been a part of.”
Read more at Meadows School of the Arts.
For the past few years, Brett Story, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at SMU, and students at Garland High School have used the Briarwood Bridge in Garland as a testing ground. By gathering information collected by smartphones in passing cars, Story and the students aim to check the bridge’s structural health.
The information Story needs is collected by the smartphone’s accelerometer. An accelerometer is generally used to measure how quickly something is moving. Its inclusion in smartphones is to help determine the phone’s orientation. Smartphone sensors are sensitive enough, though, that they can also sense a bridge’s vibrations as we drive over it.
Read more at The Dallas Morning News.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Enjoy these quick links to great photos and stories making news on the Hilltop.
- Photos: Welcoming a Boulevard game changer
- Find out who Mayor Eric Johnson calls ‘Dallas’ college athletics program’
- Perfect soccer: No. 8 Mustangs continue winning streak
- Bridge Builder Authors Circle: Malcolm Gladwell on October 7
- October 10: Elizabeth Wheaton on the economics of child abuse
- Get tickets for the Distinguished Alumni Awards on November 7
- Lyle alumni on giving back and coming back for their 30th reunion
- Duncan MacFarlane named first director of Hart Institute
- Elementary school named for Trustee Michael M. Boone ’63, ’67
- Peter Lodwick ’77, ’80 elected 100th president of Salesmanship Club
- Community comes together for 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony
- Hispanic Heritage Month starts with ‘Viva, America’
- SMU remembers legendary T. Boone Pickens
Opening Convocation formally welcomed new students to the Hilltop on August 25. Incoming first-year and transfer students hail from 49 states and 25 countries. They include 295 students with at least one Mustang in their families, and 87 students who are the first in their families to attend college. Find out how some of these new Mustangs are already changing our world.
Fresh off a 37-30 victory on the road last week against Arkansas State, the Mustangs will host UNT on September 7. Kickoff is at 6 p.m. in Ford Stadium.
CJ Sanders was named the AAC Special Teams Player of the Week after a 98-yard kickoff return TD against Arkansas State, while Xavier Jones earned an honor roll nod for a three-TD performance in the opener.
Read more at SMU Athletics.
Sociopolitical comedian W. Kamau Bell and author Malcolm Gladwell are among the speakers bringing their unique perspectives on building bridges across the cultural divide to SMU.
Bell is the Emmy-award winning host of the CNN original series United Shades of America, which explores such topics as the emerging Sikh culture in California, the South Carolina Gullah culture, the new Klu Klux Klan and the people of Appalachia in an effort to bring a deeper understanding of the rich cultural shades that are the fabric of America. He will speak about “The Bridge of Racial Difference” on Thursday, September 19.
In his new book, Talking with Strangers, Gladwell takes a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology and scandals taken straight from the news to illustrate how and probe the reasons why interactions with strangers often go terribly wrong. He will discuss his book on Monday, October 7.
Read more and purchase tickets.
Australian Gillian Triggs ’72 brings decades of experience as an academic, lawyer, advocate and public policy expert to her new role as assistant high commissioner for protection in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Triggs recently served a five-year term as president of the Australian Human Rights Commission. An expert in international law, she has an extensive history of dedicated service to human rights and the refugee cause in Australia, the Asia-Pacific Region and globally.
She holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in law from the University of Melbourne and a master’s degree in law from SMU.
Read more at Dedman Law.
Stirling Barrett’s sunglasses have been spotted on Beyoncé, Kristen Bell and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. But before hestarted KREWE, a multimillion-dollar eyewear brand that was named the runner-up in the 2016 Vogue Fashion Fund, he learned his “radical attention to detail” at the Temerlin Advertising Institute.“My time at SMU Meadows was extremely positive,” Barrett said. “It helped me develop a dedicated work ethic. And it taught me that traditional art forms were not the only form of creativity.”
Read more at SMU Meadows.
Cross-border venture capital investments play an important role in the scaling up of high growth companies, according to Wendy Bradley, strategy professor in the Cox School of Business. Foreign capital, expertise and the networks that accompany cross-border investments are welcome by startup ventures. However, a concern is that they transfer the majority of economic activity to the investor country. In new research, Bradley and her co-authors develop a framework to help policymakers develop a coherent set of policies for cross-border venture capital investments
Read more at SMU Cox.
Math is omnipresent — found in video games, participatory sports and even on walks to the park, writes Candace Walkington in a recent posting about education for Inside Sources. Walkington, associate professor in SMU’s Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development, suggests ways of seizing opportunities to connect math to everyday activities to make learning more interesting and relevant – more personal – for math students.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
A new academic year has started, and the campus is buzzing with activity. Enjoy these links to fun photos, interesting stories and great events.
SMU welcomes the community to celebrate the dedication of the Indoor Performance Center, featuring Armstrong Fieldhouse, at 7 p.m. on Friday, September 6. An open house will follow, providing an opportunity for everyone who attends to tour the newest facility resource for the entire campus. A transformative presence on Bishop Boulevard, it features an indoor turf field and training, fitness and special event spaces.
Read more about the Indoor Performance Center.
Inspiring speeches. Faculty in full regalia. The Rotunda Passage. Memories for a lifetime. The newest members of the Mustang community will take part in one of our most treasured traditions on Sunday, August 25, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Click here to watch live.Read about Opening Convocation.
Jennifer Burr Altabef ’78, ’81, Martin L. Flanagan ’82 and Scott J. McLean ’78 will be honored with Distinguished Alumni Awards, and Whitney Wolfe Herd ’11 will receive the Emerging Leader Award at the 2019 Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony and dinner on November 7, which will be hosted in the new Indoor Performance Center at SMU.
Each year, SMU honors four outstanding leaders in philanthropy, business and civic life with the highest honor the University can bestow upon its graduates. The Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony recognizes extraordinary achievement, outstanding character and good citizenship in an event hosted by President R. Gerald Turner and the SMU Alumni Board.
Registration begins at 6 p.m. Alumni and guests will have an opportunity to socialize at the reception preceeding the ceremony and dinner, which start at 7 p.m.
Find more information and purchase tickets.
Fall isn’t in the air yet, but football sure is. Mustang fans are invited to Football Fan Day on Saturday, August 17, at the Pettus Practice Field. Come out and watch the team practice, while enjoying food trucks and other family-friendly activities. The event begins at 7 p.m. and admission and parking are free.
The Mustangs will hit the road for the season-opener against Arkansas State on August 31. Check out ticket options, and get those pony ears in shape.
Read more at SMU Athletics.
SMU researchers could help determine if Saturn’s icy moon – Titan – has ever been home to life long before NASA completes an exploratory visit to its surface by a drone helicopter.
NASA announced in late June that its Dragonfly mission would launch toward Saturn’s largest moon in 2026, expecting to arrive in 2034. The goal of the mission is to use a rotorcraft to visit dozens of promising locations on Titan to investigate the chemistry, atmospheric and surface properties that could lead to life.
SMU was awarded a $195,000 grant, also in June, to reproduce what is happening on Titan in a laboratory setting. The project, funded by the Houston-based Welch Foundation, will be led by Tom Runčevski, an assistant professor of chemistry in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. SMU graduate student Christina McConville also was awarded a fellowship by the Texas Space Grant Consortium to help with the project.
Before the rotorcraft lands on Titan, chemists from SMU will be recreating the conditions on Titan in multiple glass cylinders — each the size of a needle top — so they can learn about what kind of chemical structures could form on Titan’s surface. The knowledge on these structures can ultimately help assess the possibility of life on Titan — whether in the past, present or future.
Read more at SMU Research.
Scientists from SMU, The University of Texas at Austin and Stanford University found that the majority of faults under the Fort Worth Basin are sensitive to changes in stress, which could cause them to slip. The good new is: None of the faults shown to have the highest potential for an earthquake are located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.
Though the majority of the faults identified on this map have not produced an earthquake, understanding why some faults have slipped and others with similar fault slip potential have not continues to be researched, says Heather DeShon, SMU seismologist and study co-author who has been the lead investigator of a series of other studies exploring the cause of the North Texas earthquakes.
“The SMU earthquake catalog and the Texas Seismic Network catalog provide necessary earthquake data for understanding faults active in Texas right now,” she says. “This study provides key information to allow the public, cities, state and federal governments and industry to understand potential hazard and design effective public policies, regulations and mitigation strategies.”
Read more at SMU Research.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Click on the links below to find more information about the interesting people and events making news on the Hilltop and beyond.
- Don’t miss SMU Day with the Texas Rangers on August 18
- Listen: Whitney Wolfe Herd ’11 reads the room on a global scale
- SMU GO: Enhance your career, enrich your life
- Register for The Art of Resilience on September 19
- World changers speak here: Tate season starts on September 24
- Men’s golf earns special recognition from coaches association
- Ignite/Arts Dallas collaboration nurtures promising arts enterprises
- Advantage Mustangs: Tennis players score All-Academic Team honors
Stejara Dinulescu ’19 came to SMU as a pre-med student, but fell in love with her art classes. She found her passion for coding and neuroscience research when she added psychology and creative computation to her fine arts major. Her unique interdisciplinary interests led to her acceptance to three Ph.D. programs.
Watch the video.
Young athletes with the grit, determination and heart of Mustangs made lasting impressions on the SMU football staff when they teamed up with basketball star Ejike Ugboaja’s foundation to teach some gridiron fundamentals to youth in Lagos, Nigeria.
Watch the video at SMU Athletics.
Firms with strong corporate governance are like democracies, according to Nickolay Gantchev, a finance professor in SMU’s Cox School of Business.
Through their proposals and votes, shareholders can determine the broad direction of a company. In new research, Nickolay Gantchev of SMU Cox and Mariassunta Giannetti study the effectiveness of this low-cost form of shareholder activism. As in a democracy, informed shareholders, as voters, can better vet good or bad proposals.
In exploring this form of shareholder governance, Gantchev goes beyond his recognized expertise in hedge fund activism. Hedge fund activism has been found to improve governance and firm performance, but it is costly. Shareholder activism by proposals is a less costly form of external corporate governance but has been shown to have mixed effectiveness. Shareholders can put forward proposals regarding any governance topic, such as demanding more finance experts to serve on a firm’s board.
Read more at SMU Cox.
Ian Derrer ’96 remembers fetching coffee and chauffeuring visiting talent as a vocal performance student with an internship at The Dallas Opera. Now, as general director and chief executive officer, his responsibilities include overseeing the company’s fiscal health and steering its artistic direction.
In his new position, Derrer says he still relies on skills he picked up as a TDO intern and as a vocal performance student at SMU all those years ago.
“Certainly because of the voice teachers I had at SMU, I really have a great appreciation and keenness to be able to listen for technique in singers,” he says. “But in addition to those musical proficiencies and skills, Meadows really gave me a robust picture of the arts. I loved my history classes. I was able to take orchestral conducting. I loved art history classes, too. My education there helped expand my mind. All of that is enormously helpful in this role.”
Read more at SMU Meadows.
Perkins’ Center for the Study of Latino/a Christianity and Religions, in collaboration with Meadows School of the Arts, will present “The Art of Resilience: Latinx Public Witness in Troubled Times,” an experiential event on September 21–22. The event is free and open to the public.
The work of theologians, scholars, artists and community members will come together to address the current social climate and public policies affecting the Latinx community
Participants may attend the entire two-day event, or segments of it, depending on their schedules and interests. The first day will focus on how current events on the U.S. – Mexico border impact women and will be led by Daisy Machado, professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, James B. Duke Professor of Sociology at Duke University, will lead the second day, which will focus on racism and the rising nativism in the U.S. as it’s shaping faith, culture, politics and economics.
As part of the program, the Meadows School of the Arts will host an art exhibit and a performance by New York Latina playwright Jessica Carmona of her original work Elvira: The Immigration Play.
Registration is required.
Read more at SMU Perkins.
Enjoy these great videos and stories about the people and events making news on the Hilltop.
Photos from July 4: Patriotism and Peruna on parade
Watch: Angolans talk about the impact of SMU fossil research
Exploring of-the-moment fashion’s long-lasting impact
Shake Milton ’20 signs four-year deal with Philadelphia 76ers
Redefining art: Sofia Bastidas’ global vision
Swimming and diving programs named Scholar All-America teams
Visit Presidential Retreats: Away from the White House
The SMU Cox School of Business honored four alumni at the school’s annual Distinguished Alumni and Outstanding Young Alumni Awards Luncheon on May 10. Two Distinguished Alumni Awards and two Outstanding Young Alumni Awards were presented at the luncheon ceremony in the Collins Executive Center on the SMU campus. Award nominations are submitted to the SMU Cox Alumni Association for consideration by a selection committee.
In alphabetical order, this year’s SMU Cox Distinguished Alumni Award winners are Steven J. Lindley and Bruce Robson, both BBA ’74. The Cox School’s 2019 Outstanding Young Alumni honorees, also alphabetically, are Courtney Caldwell, BBA ’00, and Ryan Dalton, BBA ’01.
Read more at SMU Cox.
Thomas Hodges ’20 is a full-time student majoring in journalism with a sport management minor. He stays close to his family to help his mom, who is battling cancer. And he has a rigorous practice schedule as the emergency goalie for the Dallas Stars professional ice hockey team.
On the other end of the line was the assistant general manager for the Dallas Stars. Thomas Hodges, a junior at SMU, couldn’t believe the news he had just received. He was going to be the emergency goalie for the Stars.
“I was excited, maybe a little nervous too, but it didn’t sink in until my first practice a few weeks later,” Hodges said.
This has been a dream of his ever since he attended his first Stars game when he was 11 years old.
Read more at the SMU Daily Campus.
Fans streaming a recent video game tournament that raised funds for kids with cancer had a chance to help SMU researchers by playing Omega Cluster, an interactive game designed to pinpoint promising compounds to add to the chemotherapy arsenal.
Three-time Super Bowl winner and NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin and two-time Madden NFL champion Drini Gjoka competed in a video gaming tournament alongside patients and families at Children’s Medical Center Dallas. The tournament consisted of a live Madden NFL 19 streaming game via Twitch and ExtraLife.
A Twitch interactive gamed called Omega Cluster also allowed people watching the gaming tournament to help SMU researchers.
In the Omega Cluster game, each player acted as a spaceship pilot who must warp from location to location gathering energy crystals before enemies’ lock onto their position and destroy their ship. The process of collecting and sorting crystals was actually sorting by proxy a set of chemotherapeutic co-medications compounds that have been tested in the SMU Center for Drug Discovery, Design and Delivery’s laboratory. The game let players explore these compounds and identify what has allowed some to be successful in lab testing while others have not.
Read more at SMU Research.
Senior Meredith Burke ’19 is a third-generation Mustang who thrives on taking on challenges like juggling a hectic academic and extracurricular schedule. She is triple-majoring to earn bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering (ME), art and math and working toward her master’s degree in ME. “Fusing these majors cultivates my creativity and ingenuity from a fresh interdisciplinary perspective,” Burke explains. “The way I see it, engineering and art have a yin-yang relationship. There’s a crossover between a ceramics in technology class and an engineering materials class because they both involve hands-on learning with similar materials.”
Burke has frequently been recognized as an up and coming engineer during her time as an undergraduate. In 2018, she was named the ASME North Texas Section Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Student of the Year and received an honorable mention for the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, based on her summer brain tumor research at UT Southwestern. In 2017, Burke was one of only 11 students to be selected for DiscoverE’s sixth annual New Faces of Engineering College Edition. Students selected for this honor exemplify the vision, innovation and leadership skills necessary for a successful engineering career.
Burke sharpens her soft skills through the Hart Center for Engineering Leadership by attending a variety of seminars, workshops, mock interviews and career fairs. “For me, the Hart Center solidifies SMU’s slogan, ‘World Changers Shaped Here.’ With the Hart Center’s support, students learn essential leadership skills, foster those skills, and then apply them outside of the university,” she shares.
An aspect Burke particularly values about the center is the Hart Leadership Assessment, which gauges a student’s strengths and identifies areas for improvement. “I found ways to apply this knowledge, not only in my engineering and other academic classes but also in a broader sense—it has changed the way I work and connect with people,” Burke says.
Burke is actively involved in many clubs and activities across campus. Her long list of accomplishments includes being a Hunt Scholar, an honors mentor in Armstrong Residential Commons, an ambassador for both Lyle and Meadows School of the Arts, the treasurer for SMU’s Ballroom Dance Team, and the incoming president of Mustang Rocketry Club. As a member of the “Hub of SMU Spirit,” Burke plays the piccolo and is a section leader in the Mustang Band.
“What sets SMU apart from other schools is the ability to pursue multiple majors and experience a strong academic program while exploring various interests. I’ve found SMU is the perfect sized school where undergraduate students feel supported and encouraged to have a multidimensional college education,“ she states.
Burke used her Engaged Learning Fellowship, in which select undergraduate students receive funding to engage in capstone-level scholarly research, to design and build a toaster that can launch a piece of toast greater than 20 feet. She is currently building a circuit to heat the bread. This summer, Burke interned at Raytheon and hopes to use her knowledge of materials and heat to work in the defense industry. Meanwhile, she expects to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest popping toaster and use that experience encouraging young women to consider an engineering career.
“If I am successful in breaking the world record, I would like to visit local schools and Girl Scout troops to show them the fun, inventive power of engineering.”
This story was originally published in the fall 2018 issue of LyleNow, a publication of the Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering at SMU.
“Bionic solutions for those with missing limbs often look and move, well, like a robot,” says mechanical engineering graduate student Ophelie Herve ’19. She recently received a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to continue research on technology to make prosthetic limbs move more fluidly and naturally.
Military veterans aspiring to SMU’s innovative graduate education in engineering and business have a new scholarship opportunity with The Milledge A. Hart, III Scholarship Fund for Veterans of the United States Marine Corps. The endowed fund was established in January by prominent Dallas business leader Linda Wertheimer Hart ’65 to honor her husband, SMU Trustee Emeritus Milledge (Mitch) A. Hart, III, on his 85th birthday. The Harts are among SMU’s most generous donors.
“We thank the Harts for their generous and wide-ranging support of visionary initiatives at SMU,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “Having Mitch Hart, a Marine Corps veteran who served our country with distinction, associated with this scholarship will hold special meaning and be a point of pride for the military veterans on our campus who will benefit from it as they pursue advanced degrees.”
Each year, in perpetuity, the scholarship will support one or two graduate students who are U.S. Marine Corps veterans and enrolled in the Lyle School of Engineering or the Cox School of Business – and may be applied to tuition, fees, housing, meals, books or supplies.
“Providing learning environments and new opportunities at SMU for students to pursue bold ideas has brought both Linda and me such joy,” said Mitch Hart, a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who served five years as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. “A scholarship in my name that opens doors for military veterans heading toward boundless achievement is a wonderful tribute.”
Graduate programs in the Cox School and the Lyle School have the highest enrollments of military veterans, and both schools offer additional financial aid options as well as transitional and educational support.
“The Marine Corps values have guided Mitch’s life. Ethical leadership, service, determination and integrity are qualities that we should be fostering in leaders who will inspire others to take on the world’s challenges,” Linda Hart said. “Mitch has always led by example, and I can think of no better way to pay tribute to him than a scholarship that supports Marine Corps veterans as they prepare to change the world in innovative ways.”
Read more at SMU News.
Five Dedman School of Law alumni were recognized for their leadership, achievements and contributions to their profession with Distinguished Alumni Awards, the highest honor the law school bestows upon its alumni and friends.
The law alumni honored and the awards they received on April 10 include:
- The Emerging Leader Award – Christa Brown-Sanford ’04, partner, deputy department chair, intellectual property (firmwide), Baker Botts
- The Distinguished Alumni Award for Corporate Service – Joseph Wm. Foran ’77, founder, chairman of the board and chief executive officer, Matador Resources Company
- The Distinguished Alumni Award for Private Practice – Michael P. Lynn ’75, partner, Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst, LLP
- The Distinguished Alumni Award for Judicial Service – Irma C. Ramirez ’91, magistrate judge. U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas
- The Distinguished Alumni Award for Public Service – Kelly Rentzel ’02, general counsel, Texas Capital Bank
The Maguire Energy Institute at SMU Cox School of Business presented Tim Leach, chairman and chief Executive officer of Concho Resources Inc., with the L. Frank Pitts Energy Leadership Award at a luncheon on April 9 on the SMU campus. At the same event, two iconic oil industry entrepreneurs and longtime supporters of SMU, Bobby B. Lyle ’67 and Cary M. Maguire, were honored with the Maguire Energy Institute Pioneer Award.
The Maguire Institute’s Energy Leadership Award Committee considers long-term impact to the energy industry as a key factor when it selects oil and gas leaders for both awards. The Pitts Energy Leadership Award is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies a spirit of ethical industry leadership. The committee identifies industry trailblazers as Pioneer Award recipients.
The annual Pitts Energy Leadership Award event raises funds to support the Maguire Energy Institute, named in honor of oilman and co-founder Cary M. Maguire, as well as BBA and MBA scholarships for students with degree concentrations in energy. A portion of the proceeds raised by this year’s event will help support the educational goals of two SMU Cox students. The BBA Scholarship recipient is Southern California native Johnny Blumberg, a senior BBA finance major, concentrating in energy. A past president of the SMU Cox BBA Energy Club, Blumberg participates in the SMU Spindletop Student Managed Energy Investment Fund. Upon graduation, he’ll be going to work for Concho Resources in Midland, Texas. MBA recipient and SMU MBA Energy Club President Will Zach Hodge is a second year MBA concentrating in energy finance. He is also a Kyle D. Miller Energy Scholar recipient at the Cox School. Upon completion of his MBA, Hodge will work for Caiman Energy in Dallas.
Read more at SMU Cox.
Sophomore Mac Meissner ’21 set a conference record on the way to claiming the individual title at the 2019 American Athletic Conference Men’s Golf Championship at the Copperhead Course in Florida. Meissner won the 13th individual conference title for the Mustangs, joining the ranks of Payne Stewart ’78 and Bryson DeChambeau.
Meissner (66-66-68–200) set a conference record with the lowest round in conference championship history in the first two rounds. He wrapped up the tournament setting the three-round record 13- under finish, breaking the 7-under record set by SMU’s Bryson DeChambeau at the inaugural AAC Championship in 2014. The sophomore finished five strokes ahead of Austin Squires of Cincinnati.
Read more at SMU Athletics.
Jerry Bywaters Cochran, daughter of renowned Texas artist Jerry Bywaters ’27, has donated more than two dozen works of art, including four paintings by her father, to SMU. The late artist served on the SMU faculty for 40 years and played a major role in the Texas Regionalism art movement in the 1930s and 1940s.
“The importance of the art of teaching runs deep in our family,” Cochran says. “We believe the arts are essential to our lives and culture.”
This is the second gift from Cochran and her late husband, Calloway. In 2011, she donated 65 works of art from the couple’s personal collection that included 49 pieces by Bywaters and 16 works by other members of the Dallas Nine, a group of influential local artists of which Bywaters was a leading figure.
Together with works previously given by Cochran, the donation represents one of the largest gifts of art presented to SMU and has become part of the University Art Collection, which is overseen by the Meadows Museum.
“Jerry Bywaters is one of Texas’ most important artists, and this gift makes the Meadows Museum the largest repository of his works,” says Mark A. Roglán, Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum and Centennial Chair in Meadows School of the Arts. “We are grateful for Mrs. Cochran’s thoughtful generosity and her trust in us to preserve the art of this region.”
Additional materials expand the Jerry Bywaters Collection on Art of the Southwest housed in SMU’s Hamon Arts Library. The collection was established in 1980 when Bywaters, who taught fine arts and art history at SMU from 1936 to 1976, began giving his papers, letters, prints and other ephemera to SMU.
Bywaters was a progressive influence on artistic subject matter, accessibility and regional art in the 1930s and 1940s, according to Ellen Buie Niewyk, curator of the Bywaters Special Collections.
“He demonstrated through his own art, and advocated through his role as a teacher, museum administrator and writer, that artists could focus on local scenes and subjects to portray universal themes,” Niewyk says. “Together, the works of art and archived materials create a comprehensive view of the artist’s life and legacy and the regionalist art movement in the American Southwest.”
Enjoy these great videos and stories about the people and events making news on the Hilltop.
- Watch: Fabulous at 50, Meadows School of the Arts
- What did scientists learn from the first black hole photo?
- SMU remembers NFL Hall-of-Famer Forrest Gregg ’56
- Perkins students prepare for alternative ‘pulpits’
- Poets & Quants: Cox seniors among ‘Best and Brightest’
- Goya’s Visions in Ink: The Centerpiece of the Meadows Drawings Collection
Haley Taylor Schlitz was accepted to multiple law schools but opted to enroll at SMU Dedman School of Law. In an interview on Good Morning America, she says a “nice scholarship” and proximity to her family’s home made the choice easy.
The future Mustang has already attended a few law school events and can’t wait to explore her interests in educational policy and intellectual property, according to an interview with her in Texas Lawyer magazine, published on March 14.
EXCERPT:
Most 16-year-olds spend the summer break working, going to camp, or hanging out with their friends. Not so for Haley Taylor Schlitz, who’s on track to graduate with both an associate’s and bachelor’s degree in May. She’ll spend the upcoming summer preparing to start law school and attending a six-day program with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington for incoming law students.
SMU could not say whether she’s the youngest ever to enroll at the Dallas campus, though admissions officials said she’s the youngest they know of. We caught up with Schlitz this week to discuss her law school plans, what inspired her to seek a J.D., and what she thinks her new classmates will make of a teenager in their midst. Her answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Meet Chris ’75 and Connie ’77 O’Neill, co-chairs of the SMU Parent Leadership Council. They met as B.B.A. students and have maintained close ties to their alma mater. Connie serves as an SMU Trustee and is a past chair of the SMU Alumni Board. Their son, Jack ’19, is a double major in engineering and mathematics. As they prepare for his graduation in May, the O’Neills reflect on the past four years and look forward to the future in this Q-and-A with SMU.
Why have you remained involved with SMU?
There is an energy on the campus you don’t want to miss. Interacting with current students is inspirational and makes you feel young. We have thoroughly enjoyed the wide variety of opportunities to become involved through the impressive programming on campus for alumni and the community. As parents, it is exciting to be able to see our son have the same phenomenal college experience that we had.
What are some of the traditions you enjoyed as students that you are pleased to see continue today?
SMU is rich in traditions that bring the Mustang family together across generations. Every year we look forward to Homecoming festivities, including Pigskin Revue and the parade, and the Celebration of Lights, where SMU lights the trees and welcomes the community to enjoy the holiday season. It’s magical! We honestly believe SMU’s Commencement ceremonies are among the most special in the country. They are rich is tradition and represent the pride we all feel in our students’ accomplishment.
What are some of the aspects of today’s SMU that you have appreciated most as parents?
SMU strikes a healthy balance between maintaining important traditions while adapting to meet the needs of current students. We’re very excited about the Residential Commons. Having students living on campus their first two years builds a strong community that energizes the entire Hilltop. Attracting high-achieving students continues to be one of SMU’s top goals, and we’re incredibly impressed by today’s students. Their talents, their leadership skills, their intellect and their expectations for a unique and quality education push SMU to reach new heights.
What are some of the opportunities your son has enjoyed that you have most appreciated as parents?
Jack attended SMU-in-Taos for J-Term in 2018. He took an engineering course and was able to take a skiing course that satisfied an academic requirement. He enjoyed it so much that he went back in August 2018. Being there in the summer was an entirely different, but equally fulfilling, experience. He has given tours to prospective engineering students and likes sharing his experiences and insights about the things that make SMU so special. He also had an amazing internship last summer through an SMU connection. What makes SMU unique are the personal relationships Jack has been able to forge with his professors and the close friendships he has formed with students from all over the country.
Why did you choose to become active in the Parent Leadership Council?
We both feel so strongly that SMU is THE perfect place to attend college. It is one of a kind in so many ways, and it is an honor to be able to share and explain why to other parents. We also want to encourage parents to get involved on campus. There is really nothing better than connecting with your student’s university. It gives parents a rare glimpse inside the student experience. And we have loved meeting people and making friends from all over the country.
Why is current-use giving by parents so important?
This flexible support immediately impacts all of our students by funding programs and initiatives that are not covered by tuition. It also enables the University to support strategic priorities and new opportunities as they emerge. This not only contributes to great experiences for our students, but also improves the value of their degrees.
What are some of the things that are most exciting about SMU’s future?
Everything excites us about SMU’s future! We’re proud of the quality and diversity of our students, and there’s such vision among leadership to ensure the University stays ahead of the curve on meeting the needs of all students. Decisions are made thoughtfully, and the long-range planning for all aspects of the University, from faculty to facilities, means SMU will be educating bright students to be world changers for generations to come.
This article originally appeared in the February 2019 issue of the Shaping SMU newsletter.
The Lettermen’s Association will honor four new members of the SMU Athletics Hall of Fame at the induction ceremony and dinner on Friday, May 3. The celebration of excellence and achievement also will honor photographer Brad Bradley, 2019 Legends Award recipient.
The 2019 Hall of Fame inductees are Colt Knost ’07, men’s golf; Bryan Robbins ’68, men’s diving; John Simmons ’81, football; and Teri Steer ’98, women’s track and field.
Legends recipient Bradley has been photographing sports at SMU since 1947. He is also a photographer for the SMU Tate Lecture Series and SMU Athletic Forum.
Buy tickets here.
The SMU Athletics Hall of Fame celebrates the many extraordinary individuals in all sports who have played a role in developing the tradition and prestige of SMU Athletics, and seeks to provide future generations with a greater appreciation for the rich heritage of the Mustangs.
Read more at SMU Athletics.
SMU’s data-empowered faculty and students deploy research as a force for good in a relentless quest for solutions with lasting impact. They aren’t waiting for the future; they’re making it.
According to SMU Cox Management Professor Sal Mistry, most companies engage in some form of multi-teaming, where employees are on multiple teams at the same time. In new research, Mistry and his co-authors unpack the challenges for those employees and offer ideas for creating better multi-teaming environments.
In today’s workplace, employees often wear many hats, whether in an academic, corporate or non-profit environment. Through multi-teaming, organizations are attempting to extract and share knowledge, says Mistry, bringing expertise to the benefit of the whole organization. Mistry references a Dallas-based tech company with 30 employees that are on multiple teams simultaneously: “In high tech, rapidly changing circumstances and a fluid environment have different requirements than say, a credit union, which has a more stable operating environment.” In a senior management team, one could be a member of an executive team and lead the marketing team, which is considered multi-team membership (MTM).
In their research, Mistry and his colleagues examine the effect of identification with one’s primary team as it relates to identity strain. “We show that the number of teams impacts employees’ identification,” says Mistry. “Many times people gain identity from being on a team, but the more teams you stack onto a person, they may not recognize who they are.”
Read more at SMU Cox.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Enjoy these great stories and videos highlighting the people and events making news on the Hilltop.
- Thank you for making SMU Giving Day a huge success
- Remembering the lives and legacies of two distinguished scholars
- What the city of Dallas can do to go green
- Next stop is Broadway for winners of monologue competition
- April 9: Economics alums to share career insights with students
- There’s a new Texas dinosaur on the books
SMU took a giant leap forward in the rapidly shifting digital frontier with the groundbreaking of the Gerald J. Ford Hall for Research and Innovation on February 22. SMU Trustee Gerald J. Ford ’66, ’69, his wife, Kelli O. Ford, and The Gerald J. Ford Family Foundation provided a $15 million lead gift to help fund construction of the new 50,000-square-foot interdisciplinary research hub, which will equip faculty, students and industry partners with tools and resources to collaborate, solve complex problems and power new enterprises.
“With this gift Gerald Ford is continuing his extraordinary legacy as a catalyst for excellence and growth for the University,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “His earlier vision and lead gift for the Ford Stadium has attracted tens of thousands of visitors to SMU each year and energized the campus and wider communities. Now, with the construction of the Gerald J. Ford Hall for Research and Innovation, SMU’s student and faculty research initiatives will be transformed, pushing the boundaries of knowledge and innovation.”
SMU Trustee Gerald J. Ford ’66, ’69 and his wife, Kelli O. Ford, with their daughters, Kelli and Electra, at the groundbreaking of the Gerald J. Ford Hall for Research and Innovation at SMU.
Researchers at SMU already are working with industry and community partners on diverse projects such as cloud computing and internet security, adult literacy and cancer research. With recent investments in computing capacity, the recruitment of specialized faculty expertise and investments in facilities such as Ford Hall, SMU plans more collaborative research projects like these in the next decade and beyond.
“This is a critical step in SMU’s journey to strengthen its research capabilities,” Ford said. “The University is creating an exciting space for bold doers and collaborators. It’s the next step in SMU’s ascendancy as a premier research and teaching university, and my family and I are honored to play a role in this process.”
Read more at SMU News.
Thanks to all who made SMU Giving Day a tremendous succes!
Within 24 hours on March 5, more than 3,200 world changers gave over $1.3 million, fueling research, athletics, learning and service opportunities across the University. The impact of this day will not only be felt at SMU, but around the globe.
Enjoy this video celebrating the Mustang community’s generosity, and if you haven’t already, find your cause at SMU Giving Day.
A treasure-hunting smartphone app developed by SMU and Literacy Instruction for Texas (LIFT) to help low-literate adults learn to read tied for the grand prize in the competition hosted by the Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE.
The SMU-LIFT team, PeopleforWords, won $1.5 million as a grand prize winner and an additional $1 million achievement award for most effective app to help adult English language learners learn to read in the competition presented by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Using the video game app for Codex: The Lost Words of Atlantis, players assume the identity of an enterprising archaeologist seeking clues to the forgotten language of mythical Atlantis. Keys to finding the lost language are hidden in letter-sound instruction, word lists and consonant and vowel decoding skill-building exercises.
The award for the app, presented on February 7 at the Florida Celebration of Reading in Miami, capped a four-year global competition to develop a smartphone app that created the greatest increase in literary skills in adult learners over a 12-month period. Reading specialists from SMU’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development, game developers from SMU Guildhall graduate video game development program and adult literacy experts from LIFT, a Dallas nonprofit literacy service provider, teamed to develop an award-winning video game that has reaped much more than international honors.
“We are thrilled to be a grand prize winner,” says Stephanie Knight, dean of the Simmons School. “But the important part of this competition is learning the most effective way to help low-literate adults become readers. The development of the app, the data gathered through this process and our partnership with LIFT is just the beginning of bringing the life-changing benefits of reading to low-literate adults.”
The 7,000 players who have downloaded the game and improved their reading skills have left a trail of information that will strengthen the app and provide important data to researchers as well. Data collection is built into the game’s design, says Corey Clark, deputy director of research at SMU’s Guildhall, assistant professor of computer science and leader of the team of faculty, students and volunteers who developed the game. Each time a player touches the screen, data is collected that records engagement, difficulty and transfer of knowledge.
Read more at SMU News.
Perkins School of Theology is the recipient of a five-year, $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., for an initiative designed to strengthen congregational ministries with youth. Co-directors of the grant are the Bart Patton, director of youth and young adult ministry education, and Priscilla Pope-Levison, associate dean, Office of External Programs.
Entitled “Reboot: The Congregation as Youth Worker,” the initiative will select and resource a cohort of congregations within a 300-mile radius of Dallas without a paid full-time youth worker. The initial cohort of 18 congregations – the “Starter Cohort” – will undergo a discovery process to determine the viability of ministries with youth in their communities and will be introduced to current innovation models for youth ministries. From this cohort, 12 congregations will be selected as the “Innovation Cohort” to apply for resources provided by the grant to build and sustain an innovative model for congregational ministry with youth.
Read more at SMU Perkins.
Ana Rodriguez ’03 is “managerially focused and empirically driven” as she helps top companies recruit, retain and develop diverse workforces. Rodriguez was interviewed by the Dallas Business Journal about her role as director of the Cox School of Business Latino Leadership Initiative and its focus on combining practical leadership principals with insights from rigorous research to address the opportunities of today’s diverse, global market.
Read more at SMU Cox.
Professor Barbara Minsker has been honored by the American Society of Civil Engineers with the 2019 Margaret S. Petersen Award for her technical accomplishments, leadership and commitment to mentoring women pursuing engineering careers.
Minsker serves as chair of the civil and environmental engineering department in SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering.
She is the author of two acclaimed books: The Joyful Professor: How to Shift from Surviving to Thriving in the Faculty Life (2010) and Discovering the Path of Success and Happiness: Mindful Living with Purpose and Resiliency (2014). From her books, she developed a popular leadership course focused on navigating through conflict and uncertainty that has drawn students from across the SMU campus.
Since the late 1990s, Minsker has successfully advised and mentored 17 Ph.D. students and 24 master’s students. She also leads research to develop innovative systems approaches to improve the sustainability and resilience of human and natural systems.
The award honors Margaret S. Petersen, a pioneer in hydraulics and water resources engineering and recognizes a female member of ASCE or the Environmental & Waters Resources Institute, a specialty organization within ASCE, who has demonstrated exemplary service to the water resources and environmental science and engineering community.
Minsker was previously awarded the ASCE’s Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize in 2003 and EWRI’s Outstanding Achievement Award in 2005.
Researchers at SMU and UCLA are enrolling subjects for a five-year study of a treatment for a psychological condition known as anhedonia – the inability to find pleasure in any aspect of life. A grant of approximately $4 million from the National Institute of Mental Health will allow professors Alicia Meuret and Thomas Ritz at SMU and Michelle G. Craske at UCLA to study the effectiveness of their treatment in 168 people suffering from this very specific symptom.
“The goal of this novel therapeutic approach is to train people to develop psychological muscle memory – to learn again how to experience joy and identify that experience when it occurs,” said Meuret, professor of psychology and director of SMU’s Anxiety and Depression Research Center. “Anhedonia is an aspect of depression, but it also is a symptom that really reaches across psychiatric and non-psychiatric disorders. It’s the absence or the lack of experiencing rewards.”
Historically, treatments for affective disorders such as anxiety and depression have been aimed at reducing negative affect, Meuret said. Over the next five years, Meuret, Ritz and Craske will treat 168 people using a type of cognitive behavioral therapy aimed at teaching people to seek out and recognize the positive aspects of life – increasing their sensitivity to reward. They will compare their results with a more traditional approach of treating the negative affect side of their problems.
The monitoring of treatment success will include simple biomarkers of enjoyment. “The heart beats faster in joy, something that has been shown to be absent in anhedonia,” said Ritz, an SMU professor of psychology who specializes in studying the relationship between biology and psychology in affective disorders and chronic disease. Other measures will capture immune activity, which is important as an indicator of long-term health.
Read more at SMU Research.
The Tony-winning Dallas Theater Center (DTC) and the SMU Meadows Division of Theatre are presenting the hit play The Wolves, March 6 through April 14, at Studio Theatre, an intimate black box space on the sixth floor of the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, 2400 Flora St. in Dallas. The play continues the close collaboration between SMU’s theatre program and DTC, with a cast composed chiefly of Meadows theatre students and alumni.
Written by Sarah DeLappe, the play focuses on a competitive high school girls’ soccer team known as The Wolves. The elite squad of nine teenage female warriors meets every Saturday to stretch before their games, and high school gossip rapidly evolves into mature meditations on the girls’ understanding of themselves and their place in the world. The play, which critics called “remarkable,” “exhilarating” and “incandescent,” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2017. It will be directed by guest artist Wendy Dann, a playwright, director and associate professor of theatre at Ithaca College in New York.
The Wolves, along with last year’s co-production of Frankenstein, represents a new development in the Meadows School’s longstanding relationship with Dallas Theater Center.
Read more at SMU Meadows.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Enjoy this roundup of stories that highlight some of the interesting people and events making news on the Hilltop.
- Big excitement about the SMU Big Event on March 30
- Mustang football opens on the road. Check out the schedule.
- Alumna named associate vice president and dean of students
- Three world premieres on one stage: Meadows Spring Dance Concert
- Erin Trahan ’20, Andrea Podmanikova ’21 swim to conference titles
- SMU mourns the death of business leader Gene H. Bishop
The University community is invited to attend the groundbreaking for the Gerald J. Ford Hall for Research and Innovation at 11:45 a.m. on Friday, February 22, at the site of the new facility on the corner of McFarlin Boulevard and Airline Road.
The new facility will serve as the home to SMU’s AT&T Center for Virtualization, the Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute, high-performance computing and data science, the new innovative Visualization Lab and SMU Guildhall, the Hart eCenter’s top-ranked digital game design program.
SMU’s ability to cultivate and launch entrepreneurs for North Texas and beyond received a major boost with a significant new gift from prominent Dallas business leaders and major SMU supporters Linda Wertheimer Hart ’65 and Milledge (Mitch) A. Hart, III. The Harts now are among SMU’s most generous donors.
The Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at SMU will combine the innovative forces of SMU’s Cox School of Business and Lyle School of Engineering. The two schools will integrate their expertise, resources and guidance to develop technology prototypes and create viable business plans.
“SMU will play a major role in the formation of new enterprises and cross-disciplinary ventures thanks to the Harts’ generosity and vision,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “The Hart Institute will stand as a pioneering and lasting example to future SMU donors, reinforcing our role as an engine of regional economic development and job creation.”
Linda Hart said SMU’s focus on creating new knowledge inspired the gift.
“I was inspired to support this institute because I have seen first-hand how technology and innovation have been crucial to my own business endeavors, and they are critical elements needed in solving the world’s challenges,” she said.
“With a new institute dedicated to guiding and promoting entrepreneurial work, the University will continue its march forward as an innovation leader,” Mitch Hart said.
“Providing exposure to forward-thinking mindsets and feeding the enterprising spirit in an academic setting means there is no limit to what can be done,” he said. “I look forward to the exciting work that will be produced here.”
Read more at SMU News.
Trial attorney Laura Benitez Geisler ’97 made history on January 12 when she was sworn in as the 110th Dallas Bar Association president, becoming the first Hispanic member to lead the organization.
“The Dallas Bar Association is among the strongest and most active in the country, and I’m looking forward to the year ahead,” Geisler says. “I’ve been an active member of the Dallas Bar my entire career, having served on the board of directors since 2006. I am eager to get to work in this new and challenging role.”
Among her goals as president is to highlight the importance of protecting the independence of the judiciary through a series of programs on the history and challenges facing an independent judiciary, the development of a “Life Skills for Lawyers” series and a “Legal Incubator” program designed to help young attorneys become successful practitioners.
Geisler has served as president of the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers. She was elected to chair the Dallas Bar board in 2015 and served as president of the Dallas Women Lawyers Association in 2003. As the co-chair of the 2014–15 Equal Access to Justice Campaign benefitting the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program, she helped raise more than $1.1 million for pro bono legal services for low-income Dallas County residents.
She received her J.D. from SMU’s Dedman School of Law and has 21 years of experience representing clients in personal injury and wrongful death cases. She has achieved multimillion-dollar jury verdicts and settlements on behalf of her clients.
Geisler has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America and Texas Super Lawyers and has earned a National Diversity Council listing among the Top 50 Multicultural Lawyers in Dallas and Top 50 Women Lawyers. The Hispanic National Bar Association also honored her with its Top Lawyer Under 40 award in 2011. She recently merged her firm to form Sommerman, McCaffity, Quesada & Geisler.
The Dallas Bar Association is a 145-year-old professional, voluntary body of more than 11,000 Dallas-area lawyers.
SMU history professor Jo Guldi’s book, The History Manifesto (Cambridge University Press, 2014), recently was named one of the most influential books of the past 20 years by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Writing with Harvard’s David Armitage, she argues that historians need to shed their enthusiasm for micro-history and return to examining history’s big picture to better influence the future.Guldi and Armitage propose that historians embrace new technology as the key to analyzing the grand scope of history in ways that were not possible before. Supercomputing capable of sorting daunting amounts of data encourages scholars to synthesize information in new ways, seeing things that do not emerge in the close examination of single decades.
“Applying computer technology to research empowers historians to step back, analyze longer periods of time and search for trends and patterns that might otherwise remain hidden,” Guldi says. “It revolutionizes how we work.”
Algorithms, big data and data text mining are key to the historian’s new digital toolbox, she says Using these tools, and at SMU, the University’s supercomputer, ManeFrame, researchers can now interpret long-term historical trends and giant topics like inequality, capitalism and climate change in ways that were impossible before the emergence of search technology.
Read more at SMU News.
Take a deep dive into presidential history, innovation in the digital age and other fascinating topics while enjoying the beauty and serenity of SMU’s distinctive mountain campus in New Mexico.
The 15th anniversary of the SMU-in-Taos Cultural Institute will be celebrated this year with courses that offer something for everyone. Whether you choose an engaging class for the joy of learning or one that expands your knowledge of the world, you’re sure to have an unforgettable experience in a unique setting that inspires intellectual discovery and lasting friendships. The SMU-in-Taos Cultural Institute provides in-depth, hands-on explorations that are designed to broaden your outlook, teach new skills or simply celebrate the cultural richness of Northern New Mexico and beyond. Field trips enable you to experience topics even more vividly, and there’s always time to discover the uniqueness of Taos on your own.
Read more and register today.
The distinguished journalist and author will receive the prestigious award from SMU at Tables of Content, presented by Friends of the SMU Libraries in support of its annual grants program.
Tables of Content opens with a cocktail reception featuring this year’s Top 10 Haute Young Authors at 6 p.m. and is followed by the award presentation and dinner with table hosts leading fascinating conversations on a variety of topics. Reservations and more information are available here.
The Literati Award honors individuals who have used the written word to advance the ideals of creativity, conviction, innovation and scholarship and who have had a significant impact on culture and the community through their work. This award was created by the Friends of the SMU Libraries/Colophon in 2010 and was established in honor of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the organization to celebrate the power of the written word and to recognize significant achievements in creativity.
Lehrer came to Washington with PBS in 1972, teaming with Robert MacNeil in 1973 to cover the Senate Watergate hearings. They began in 1975 what became The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, and, in 1983, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, the first 60-minute evening news program on television. When MacNeil retired in 1995, the program was renamed The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Lehrer has been honored with numerous awards for journalism, including a presidential National Humanities Medal in 1999, the News & Documentary Emmy’s Chairman’s Award in 2010 and in October 2011 he received the Fourth Estate Award from the National Press Club.
With proceeds from the evening, the Friends of the SMU Libraries’ grant program funds the purchase of books, periodicals, electronic resources and other much-needed equipment and materials for all SMU libraries.
Vince Miller, a second-year graduate student, chose the Applied Statistics and Data Analytics (MASDA) program in Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences because he was looking for “a top tier education.” After his first year at SMU, a data scientist internship at Capital One turned into a full-time career. He’ll be working for the bank after graduating in the fall. He recently shared some insights about his SMU student experience in the college’s newsletter, Inside Dedman College. EXCERPT:
What drew you to the MASDA program? With so many options within the field, what makes SMU’s MASDA program special?
While I was considering what graduate program I wanted to attend, I was able to speak with our advisor Dr. Robertson as well as then-current students. These conversations gave me the confidence that MASDA was exactly what I had been looking for: a top tier education that would allow me to develop applied statistics knowledge while gaining experience using industry standard as far as available technology for data science from insightful professors. In my second year, I have found that the insights given by my professors have been invaluable. The main insight I’ve taken away is that an understanding of applied statistics is the best background to have within this industry.
Can you share an experience or two that sums up your time in the program best? Is there a particular member of the faculty, project, or course that you would consider to be a defining moment for you?
The class that I enjoyed the most was “Intro to Data Science.” A defining moment was when the course began, and I did not expect such a mathematical approach to the subject. I expected the course to be similar to other data science tutorials or certifications I had completed, but after a short period, I realized that the professor understood how important a fundamental understanding of statistics was in the field. This course definitely gave me an upper hand when comparing myself to students from other programs.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Enjoy this roundup of interesting stories, podcasts and more that highlight some of the people and events making news on the Hilltop.
- Will he or won’t he? Special Tate Lecture to feature Howard Schultz
- Watch, listen, tune in when the Mustangs host USF today
- Listen: Blake Mycoskie ’99 on the power of social good
- Register now for the 54th annual Women’s Symposium
- A day in the life of SMU’s track and field trainer
- Listen: Kathleen Wellman on the history behind The Favourite
“Defiantly smart” acting, “stunning original music” and “profound choreography” were just a few of the accolades Meadows alumni, students and faculty recently received from multiple TheaterJones.com critics in their “Best of 2018” roundups highlighting outstanding work by Dallas-area performing artists.
EXCERPT:
Dance
Chief dance critic Cheryl Callon’s list of top works of 2018 included Aladdin by alum Joshua Peugh ’06, created for his Dark Circles Contemporary Dance company, with music by alum Brandon Carson ’16. Callon said, “With its elaborate, thoughtfully designed narrative and stunning original music by Brandon Carson, the evening-length show provided an intimate, almost immersive experience for Joshua Peugh’s take on the tale and concept of the well-known character.” …
Music
Critic Gregory Isaacs’ review of favorite classical music concerts of 2018 included Joel Estes Tate Chair Joaquín Achúcarro’s piano performance with the Fort Worth Symphony on an all-Spanish program; Isaacs wrote, “Achúcarro’s performance will always stick in my memory.” Isaacs also cited the “rare treat” of hearing the Diaz Trio, including cello professor Andres Diaz, in a concert presented by the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth.
Theatre
Critic Martha Heimberg named alum and Kitchen Dog Theater co-director Tina Parker ’91 one of nine outstanding local female directors she would like to host at a dinner party, saying, “I can’t even imagine a party of theater women in this town, or anywhere, without Tina.” …
Former First Lady Laura Bush ’68 was honored as the 2018 Texan of the Year for her “uncommon leadership,” education advocacy and dedication to causes around the globe to improve the lives of women, children and families. The Dallas Morning News editorial board announced the selection on December 30, 2018, in an article detailing her extraordinary accomplishments through the years.
Laura Bush earned a bachelor’s degree in education from SMU and currently serves on the SMU Board of Trustees.
EXCERPT
Looking across the Lone Star State and surveying the world at large, there is one person who stands out for her quiet ability to unify people behind a common vision, to focus public attention on what’s critical for our society, and to produce change without concern for who gets credit. In a divided world, her graceful style has helped our country move forward on critical issues and enabled her to leave a lasting mark not only in the past year but over a lifetime of work. …
Laura Bush’s life and career have been about learning, and she has helped ingrain in our culture a deeper understanding of the need for public schooling and preserving our history — the need to both develop within our communities the skills necessary to thrive in life and the tools required to understand and expand free and democratic societies. …
Another important area to highlight in Mrs. Bush’s career is her record of leadership in creating new civil institutions. By our count, over the past two decades, she has founded or co-founded at least a half-dozen nonprofits and other initiatives that continue to improve our world. …
The artist and KREWE founder using fashion as his medium. The National Football League social maven harnessing big data for big engagement. The New York Jets tackle with a passion for startups and STEM education. What do they have in common? They’re SMU alums named to the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, the magazine’s chronicle of “the brashest entrepreneurs across the United States and Canada.”
EXCERPT:
Stirling Barrett ’11
Starting when he was a teenager, New Orleans native Barrett found a market for his photographic collages. For five years after college, he supported himself by selling his artwork and flirted with opening a New Orleans gallery. Instead he took his savings and self-financed the launch of KREWE, an eyewear brand that includes sunglasses, prescription glasses and soon, sports eyewear. KREWE’s frames are plant-based Italian acetate with lightweight lenses. The company has two stores in New Orleans, a small Soho boutique that opened in 2018 and two traveling tiny house stores. It replaces any frame that breaks, in perpetuity. KREWE’s celebrity following includes Gigi Hadid, Serena Williams, Beyoncé, Kendall Jenner.
Barrett received a bachelor’s degree in advertising from Meadows School of the Arts.
Kelvin Beachum, Jr. ’10, ’12
When Beachum isn’t protecting quarterbacks, he’s padding his portfolio. With stakes in over 20 companies, he focuses on the manufacturing, agricultural and autonomous robotics industries. He also serves on the advisory board of OneTeam Collective, an accelerator connecting companies to athletes and their IP.
Beachum received the 2018 Emerging Leader Award from SMU and has been nominated for the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences and a Master of Liberal Studies degree from the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development.
Sana Merchant ’11
Merchant advises the NFL’s 32 clubs’ executive teams on their social media strategy. She also oversees all social reporting that is distributed from the NFL to the clubs and helps teams analyze the data. She leads relationships with all major social platforms with which the NFL has deals, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. She launched the Social Managers Workshop, an annual meeting for teams’ social staff.
Merchant received a bachelor’s degree in corporate communications and public affairs from Meadows School of the Arts.
“I’ve had an almost five-decade association with this University, and I tell people all the time it’s been a 50-year love affair,” David B. Miller ’72, ’73 said before the SMU men’s basketball game against TCU on December 5.
At halftime, SMU named the Moody Coliseum court in honor of Miller, a basketball alumnus and vice chair of the SMU Board of Trustees. The move cemented Miller’s legacy as a generous and important pillar of the SMU basketball family.
Growing up, it was always Miller’s dream to attend and play basketball at SMU, which was a dominant force in the Southwest Conference in the 1960s.
“The day Bob Prewitt and Doc Hayes came into my high school gym in 1968 and offered me a scholarship, other than the birth of my children and my grandchildren and my marriage, was the biggest day of my life,” Miller said. “That dream came true that day.”
Miller earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from the Cox School of Business. As an undergraduate, he was a three-year starter and letterman on the varsity basketball team and a member of the 1971-72 Southwest Conference Co-Championship team.
Since 2011, Miller and his wife, Carolyn Lacy Miller, have given $20 million toward the expansion and renovation of Moody Coliseum as well as the construction of the Miller Event Center.
He has served on the SMU Board of Trustees since 2008 and also serves as chairman of the Cox Executive Board. He is a recipient of Distinguished Alumni Awards from both the University and the Cox School. In 2009, Miller was honored with the Silver Anniversary Mustang Award by the SMU Lettermen’s Association. He is also a recipient of the Methodist Health System Foundation’s 2017 Folsom Leadership Award.
Read more at SMU Athletics.
There was an SMU reunion in Mexico on December 13, when former Mustang golfers Sam Fidone ’15, Harry Higgs ’14 and Austin Smotherman’16 competed in the Go Vacaciones Cozumel Cup.
The fourth annual event pits 10 players from the Mackenzie Tour – PGA Tour Canada vs. 10 players from the Mackenzie Tour – PGA Tour Canada in a Presidents Cup-Ryder Cup-style competition.
The Go Vacaciones Cozumel Cup featured Fidone captaining Team Mackenzie Tour, while Higgs served as captain of Team Latinoamerica and played alongside Smotherman.
In an interesting twist, Fidone is a veteran of both Tours, playing in Canada most recently. This season, he won the Bayview Place Open in Victoria, British Columbia, and finished sixth on the Order of Merit.
Two weeks ago in Miami, at the season-ending Latinoamerica Tour Championship – Shell Championship, Higgs secured the Order of Merit title by $64 over Colombia’s Nicolas Echavarria. In his last four starts, Higgs enjoyed a win (Diners Club Peru Open), finished third (Neuquen Argentina Classic), tied for second (113th Visa Argentina Open) and tied for fourth (Shell Championship).
Read more.
The University community will join the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the annual Dallas parade on January 21 and honor his life and legacy during SMU’s Dream Week.
Dream Week 2019 events include the annual Unity Walk on the SMU campus on Wednesday, January 23, and service experiences inspired by the civil rights leader’s commitment to bridging barriers and strengthening communities. In 2018, more than 400 SMU students participated in Dallas-area service opportunities during Dream Week.
Read more at SMU Student Affairs.
The SMU community joined the nation in mourning the loss of the 41st president of the United States, George H.W. Bush. President Bush was lauded at home and abroad for his many accomplishments, including his pivotal role in ending the Cold War. He died at his home in Houston on November 30, 2018. He was 94.
The late President Bush is also famous as the father of our 43rd president, George W. Bush. The two were photographed above at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in 2013. The remarkable photo includes (from the left) then-President Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, the late George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.
In 2001, the late President Bush was honored with the SMU Tower Center’s Medal of Freedom in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the advancement of democratic ideals.
SMU President R. Gerald Turner issued the following statement upon the former president’s death:
“The SMU community joins the nation in grieving the loss of President George H.W. Bush – a servant leader who lived his entire life as a steadfast example of patriotism and the strongest American ideals. Gail and I send our heartfelt condolences to President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush, and the entire Bush family. We treasure memories of time spent with “Bush 41” when he honored us with visits to our campus, such as when he received the Medal of Freedom from the Tower Center for Political Studies, and when he proudly attended as one of five living presidents the 2013 dedication of his son’s George W. Bush Presidential Center. Our University has unique opportunities to share the lessons from a life well-lived. We intend to use them.”
Read more at the George W. Bush Presidential Center.
Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour, will be the featured guest at the 2019 Bolin Family Public Life Personal Faith Scholarship Luncheon. The event will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, February 8, at the Martha Proctor Mack Grand Ballroom of the Umphrey Lee Student Center on the SMU campus.
Woodruff will be interviewed by Peggy Wehmeyer, former religion correspondent for ABC World News Tonight, on the topic of personal faith in the public square.
Judy Woodruff has covered politics and other news for more than four decades at NBC, CNN and PBS. She is the recent recipient of the Radcliffe Medal, the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University.
The Public Life Personal Faith series, inaugurated in 2010, is a fundraising and outreach event of Perkins School of Theology in service to the larger community. The lecture provides an opportunity for guests to hear prominent people in the public sphere on topics related to how and why personal faith shapes public life. This luncheon is a major fundraiser for student scholarships.
Read more at SMU Perkins.
Though a decade has passed, the recession of 2008-09 offers perennial lessons to retailers. No one is immune to shopping for groceries and basic household items but shoppers have choice. SMU Cox Marketing Professor Chaoqun Chen analyzes how consumers shop around various retail formats and how their behavior changed during the Great Recession. Her findings uncover truths about how consumers from different income levels adjusted to a new normal in their weekly treks.
Grocery stores have been the dominant retail format for food and related items for decades, Chen’s narrative begins. Households form their impressions about retail attributes of a retail format over a long period, and their impressions are unlikely to change quickly. Their impressions are slightly sticky. In general, retail formats are competing for expenditure shares, a distinguishing factor in her research — not for consumers.
From 2004 to 2007, discount stores such as Target and Walmart grew their market share substantially, the research notes. However, in 2008, the beginning of the Great Recession, discounters lost share to other competing formats like Costco warehouse clubs. Chen observes that in the midst of the Great Recession there was little adjustment to retailers’ pricing policies, despite the changes in market share.
Read more at SMU Cox.
SMU Meadows School of the Arts announces a new collaboration with the renowned Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC) in Canada that will offer SMU’s Peak Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence Prize to the competition’s first place laureate.The Banff International String Quartet Competition, a program of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Banff, Alberta, is one of the world’s leading music competitions. Founded in 1983 and held once every three years, BISQC invites 10 select quartets from around the globe to Banff Centre to perform various pieces of work over seven days, competing for the top prize: a three-year career development program worth over $150,000. It includes a cash award, concert tours throughout Europe and North America, and a Banff Centre residency that includes the production of a recording.
Now, the first place laureate will also be named the Peak Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at SMU Meadows. The fellowship was made possible by a generous gift from Martha Raley Peak ’50, a graduate of SMU who had a lifelong passion for the arts, particularly music. She regularly championed young musicians starting their careers.
The next BISQC will take place August 26 to September 1, 2019, and the winner is expected to begin the Peak residency in 2020.
Read more at SMU Meadows.
Categories
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Enjoy this roundup of interesting stories and videos highlighting some of the people and events making news on the Hilltop.
- Video: Highlights of another great year at SMU
- SMU community mourns the loss of President George H.W. Bush
- Video: Sharing serious wisdom with a sense of humor
- Remembering one of China’s leading dinosaur experts
- Simmons Luminary Awards to honor leaders in education
- Law alum ready to put his stamp on the Dallas DA’s office
- Simmons math research expert tapped for national committee