Academics, Research and Faculty Excellence

Founded in 1911 by what is now The United Methodist Church, SMU opened in 1915 with support from Dallas leaders. The University is nonsectarian in its teaching, committed to freedom of inquiry and seeks to enhance the intellectual, cultural, technical, ethical and social development of a diverse student body.

SMU offers students abundant opportunities for access to faculty in small classes, research experience, international study, leadership development and off-campus service and internships, with the goal of preparing students to be contributing citizens and leaders for our state, the nation and the world.

Student Quality

• SMU's 11,000 students come from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 90 foreign countries, and represent diverse economic, ethnic and religious backgrounds. Fifty percent of undergraduates come from outside Texas.
• The average SAT score of the first-year class has risen more than 129 points in the last 15 years.
• SMU is one of the few universities to have a voting student member of its Board of Trustees. More than 200 campus organizations provide other opportunities for involvement. 
• Undergraduate research opportunities for students are available through programs such as Big iDeas, Undergraduate Research Assistantship program, Richter Research Fellowships, Engaged Learning, Hamilton Undergraduate Research Scholars and the Meadows Exploration Awards.
• Several students recently won prestigious, nationally competitive national honors for 2012-13: Graduate student Megan Bond Hinrichsen received a Fulbright fellowship to study how microfinance affects health in Ecuador; sophomore Lade Obamehinti received a Boren Scholarship, which provides U.S. undergraduate and graduate students with resources to acquire language skills and experience in countries critical to the nation's security and stability; and juniors Marcial Sanchez and Mayra Pratz each received Gilman Scholarships, which are awarded to Pell Grant recipients who wish to study overseas.

Academic Offerings

SMU offers 103 undergraduate degrees in 91 fields. At the graduate level, there are 104 Master's degrees in 101 fields, two graduate professional degrees (law and theology) and 27 doctoral programs. The University has seven degree-granting schools:
• Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences
• Meadows School of the Arts
• Cox School of Business
• Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering
• Dedman School of Law
• Perkins School of Theology
• Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development
• SMU has several centers and institutes focused on diverse and interdisciplinary subjects. They include the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies, the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility, the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship and the Institute for Reading Research.
• SMU also offers more than 150 study abroad programs as well as a unique campus in Taos, New Mexico on the site of a historic fort and 13th-century Indian pueblo.

Faculty and Research

• SMU has more than 705 full-time faculty members. More than 83 percent of full-time faculty holds the doctorate or highest degree in their fields. The student-faculty ratio is 11-to-1.
• The University's nine libraries house the largest private collection of research materials in the Southwest.
• External funding for research and sponsored projects was more than $22.4 million during 2011-12.

Current faculty research projects include:
• Discovery of new drug therapies that can be developed into medicines.
• Improving primary and secondary education via development of effective teaching methods, school leadership protocols and instruction strategies that lead to improved school performance.
• Participation in the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) initiative in Switzerland, where experiments using the Large Hadron Collider increase understanding of the basic forces that shape the universe.

Academic Rankings

• The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching raised SMU's classification to a research university with "high research activity."
• SMU ranks in the top one-fourth of the best national universities in the U.S. News & World Report's ranking for 2012.
• Cox School of Business is one of the few schools in the nation with three M.B.A. programs ranked in the top 12, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
• SMU has been ranked as the top school in its conference for 11 of the last 15 years in the Directors' Cup Division I overall athletic rankings.