Schedule.SMU is SMU's new room scheduling system. It is based on the purchased software, Astra, and has been implemented at the direction of Provost Ludden and with the support of VP Casey.

Schedule.SMU is intended to be used to maintain an inventory of academic facilities, schedule classes, activities and events in academic spaces, provide tools to optimize the use of spaces, provide campus wide on-line access to information about the availability of space, provide processes for requesters to easily request space, be in sync with Access.SMU and provide management reports on the utilization of spaces.

Schedule.SMU also is intended to make available these same uses for non-academic spaces. Schedule.SMU will be available to users campus wide on March 15.  General users can use Schedule.SMU as a guest without logging in to request rooms for events, view a calendar centered on space usage, view class sections and assigned rooms.

At this time the Schedule.SMU production database is live. It has an inventory of all academic spaces with basic characteristics and it has Spring 2010 class sections. It doesn’t have one time events held in academic spaces and it doesn’t have a complete inventory of non-academic spaces.   

We have the academic facilities defined in Schedule.SMU and have extended an offer to facility managers to use Schedule.SMU to manage all facilities not regularly used as academic space.

Schedule.SMU will be available to administrative users in mid February.  The intent is that they can enter their currently scheduled non-events into Schedule.SMU prior to March 15, when the system is available to general users. 

Administrative users will use User Name and Password to log-in to Schedule.SMU to create events, approve room requests, schedule rooms, produce utilization and management reports.

Astra is a complex, comprehensive, powerful piece of software, and as result, Schedule.SMU is complex, comprehensive and powerful.  This makes it essential that administrative users receive training prior to being granted security to perform tasks in.  Several facility managers have already registered for the training sessions on Feb 16 and Feb 17.

We have planned the following sessions to demonstrate Schedule.SMU for general users. These sessions do not require registration.  Invitation will be send to the potential general users inviting them to attend one of the following sessions.

Wed     02-24      3–4    Blanton 110/112               Mon      03-01    11–12    Blanton 110/112      

Wed     03-10       3-4    Blanton 110/112              

Wed     03-24    11-12    Blanton 110/112             

We will continue to work on implementation of other modules for Schedule.SMU though spring and summer.

The implementation team has worked tirelessly to implement the system. Implementation team includes Monica Cordero, Darrah Rippy, Curt Herridge, Brian Hart, and Joe Papari who directed the team.  The training team has worked hard to prepare the training materials and along with the implementation team will conduct the training and the demo sessions.  Of Course, we have had others in OIT and Registrar’s Office providing support to the implementation team. Many thanks to everyone involved. 

The Face of SMU is You!

The 2nd Century campaign has reintroduced an aspect of SMU that gets lost from time to time.  The success of SMU is an outgrowth of the efforts of all of us. 

The advertising campaign used by Undergraduate Admission for this recruitment year featured the "student" face of SMU.  Working with Integrated Marketing, the Undergraduate Admission staff is adding faculty and staff faces to this campaign for the coming year.   Market research shows that students select colleges and universities for any number of reasons -- not just rankings, but academic opportunities and for the spirit of the campus and those with whom the prospective students and their families interact.

Just as the donations made by faculty and staff show our commitment and pride in SMU assist in fund raising, so does our representation of the university in our recruitment efforts.  The personal attention that students and their families are shown in and out of the classroom is one of the values added to the cost of an SMU education.

Show your feelings.  Wear your colors.  Tell your story.  And extend that hand.  You never know who might see the spirit of SMU in your face.

photographs by Damon Wilkins

kept Admission from hosting families.   With snow on the ground, fallen trees in pathways, and the campus closed, the Blanton Building was welcoming families scheduled for Information Sessions and a campus tour on Friday, February 12th.  Admission staff came to campus as conditions allowed.  Other staff coordinated the Saturday Information Session and campus tour from home, sending announcements to families expecting to visit SMU.  Families who could not make it to Dallas because of weather conditions in their hometown were rescheduled and assured that SMU would welcome them at a later date.  SMU Undergraduate Admission takes their work seriously. 

Spring 2010 has presented a number of challenges to the Undergraduate Admission staff.  Prospective students are making their decisions with regard to their college of choice more often in their junior year of high school.  The spring recruitment season for prospective students has grown over the past several years, requiring the Admission staff to do double duty -- focusing on yield for the incoming class in the fall while ramping up recruitment of prospective students. 

Undergraduate Admission is providing the regular information sessions to prospective student throughout the spring but adding a new information session each day for admitted students.  The importance of Springfest for high school juniors and Mustang Days for admitted students has become critical to our success.  Students are looking for personal attention not only from Undergraduate Admission but from faculty and staff as well.  Those looking at SMU want to know who are our students, faculty, and staff more than they want to know what is SMU.