An afternoon at Southern Methodist

A drive through the University Park section of North Dallas (it’s actually a separate, donut-hole city of its own) is to imagine yourself in an episode of “Dynasty”. This is a very wealthy neighborhood with huge pre-McMansion era homes, elegant shopping centers, and beautiful views of the Dallas skyline. Southern Methodist University, one of the most prestigious of the Texas private colleges, sits amongst this wealth on a beautiful campus that’s compact and easily walkable. SMU’s 6,500 undergrads makes it either a big small school or a small big school, but the feel is certainly not big. Students here have a number of colleges to choose from (or to be chosen for). The School of the Arts (portfolio/audition required for consideration), the School of Business (beginning last year, separate, more selective admission), The School of Engineering, School of Humanities and Sciences, and School of Education and Human Development. Many enter the Humanities/Sciences School and find themselves gravitating elsewhere, though transferring internally to Business is increasingly difficult. History and Political Science students have a rare resource at SMU: the presence of the George W Bush Institute (i.e presidential library), where undergrads regularly intern.

The Meadows School of the Arts includes a terrific art museum which has arguably the largest collection of Spanish art outside of Spain and the art building–already impressive– is about to undergo a massive restoration. SMU’s relationship with the Dallas business community is long and deep (think of USC’s relationship with Hollywood), and as one of the most economically vibrant cities in the US, this relationship translates into almost unparalleled opportunities for higher-level internships.

SMU has modeled its residential life around a series of residential clusters (called ‘Commons’), all with distinct personalities and all with faculty families in residence. Greek life is big, as you would imagine. The Mustangs are in the competitive AAC and athletics are a big part of the strong sense of school spirit that exists here. One of our tour guides turned down admission to USC Film school to attend the much smaller film program here because she found it the culture to to be awash in collaboration, which was how she wanted to learn. She has not been disappointed. Her co-tourguide was a fine art photography major, who despite all the signs of of being stereotypically non-Greek, was in fact Greek. “People in high school usually don’t understand what Greek life really is”, he told me. Noted.

The Dallas Ft. Worth area is a fantastic location for a college. The metropolitan area has some of the best art museums in the United States, the economy is booming, the live music/arts scene is huge, multiple professional sports teams call the area home and the winters are tolerable. Southern Methodist may sit in one of the city’s wealthy enclaves, but they make to clear to visitors that they are connected to all of Dallas, not just Dallas money.

Increasingly selective, well-resourced, academically eclectic, SMU is one of the most impressive universities in the south.