SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY

(SMU) private, coeducational institution of higher education located in University Park, a suburb of Dallas, Texas, U.S. Although it is nonsectarian, the university is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. It offers about 70 undergraduate degree programs, as well as courses leading to master's, doctoral, and professional degrees. It comprises the Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Edwin L. Cox School of Business, Meadows School of the Arts, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Perkins School of Theology, and the School of Law. Dedman College is the oldest and largest academic division, offering 30 undergraduate majors and 20 graduate programs through 15 departments. SMU has one of the largest libraries in the Southwest, with holdings of more than 2.8 million books. Campus facilities include McFarlin Auditorium, the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man, the Dallas Seismological Observatory, and the Ellis W. Shuler Museum of Paleontology. The Meadows Museum has a notable collection of Spanish art. There is an academic centre in Fort Burgwin, near Taos, N.M. Total enrollment is approximately 9,000 students. Southern Methodist University was founded in 1911 and was opened in 1915; the theology school had opened in 1914. Initial funding was provided by the Dallas citizenry and by the Methodist church. The initial curriculum emphasized arts and sciences. Programs in business and in engineering were added to the curriculum in the 1920s, and a graduate program in law began in 1950. Nuclear physicist James Watson Cronin, corecipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Physics, was an SMU alumnus.