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.
Category: August 2019
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.
TV host and travel author Rick Steves leads the lineup of distinguished speakers for Perkins’ annual fall convocation, “Mission Quest: Finding Your Place in God’s World,” November 11-12 at Highland Park United Methodist Church and on the campus of SMU.
This annual event offers two days of lectures, workshops, dialogue with speakers and participants, Bible study and worship.
Rick Steves’ lecture, “Travel as a Spiritual Act,” will take place 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m on Monday, November 11,in McFarlin Auditorium. Steves will explore how his lifetime of travels, along with his faith, shaped his politics and broadened his perspective. Steves will reflect on how his social activism has grown from his travels — and how travel can be a transformative experience for all Americans. He will sign books afterward from 9 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets for non-full-conference attendees are $15 per person; a printed receipt will be required for entry. No payments will be accepted at the door.
View the complete schedule here.
Read more at Perkins
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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