Links and Lending Library

This page highlights some resources that might prove of interest to Hunt Scholars. It includes SMU links, Dallas links, and links to general Leadership events or organizations. It also describes the books available in the Hunt Scholars “lending library.”

You can borrow any of these books at the office of Professor Ellen S. Pryor. If you have books you would like to add, let us know, and we will include them.

SMU Links

“
What are the most essential personal traits needed for effective leadership? Honesty and integrity—no others come close.”



--- The late Annette Strauss, former Mayor of the City of Dallas, speaking at a forum organized by the Hunt Leadership Scholars
  • Cox Business Scholars program
    The Cox Business Scholars program is the program by which students are admitted to the Cox Business School directly for a four year experience. Many of the events on their calendar of events—luncheons, speeches, workshops—are open to SMU students generally, or possibly can be open (for instance, we could obtain a table for the Hunt Scholars at luncheons of special interest).

    If you are interested in an event and are not sure about the criteria for attending, contact Rose Torres or Professor Pryor.

  • SMU University Honors Program Calendar of Events

  • SMU Office of Leadership and Community Service
     This office, under the leadership of Dr. Carol Clyde, coordinates myriad service-related and leadership-related activities within and external to SMU.

Dallas Links

  • World Affairs Council of Dallas/Ft Worth
    This a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization was established in Dallas in the 1950s to education citizens about foreign policy and public affairs. It brings fabulous speakers and authors through town. This year’s programs include: the US Ambassador to Afganistan; former Senator John Danforth; who has a new book on the relationship of politics and religion; journalist Lawrence Wright, whose new book, The Looming Tower, is already receiving reviews that describe the book as the best account of the history of Al-Quaeda and the events leading up to the attacks on 9/11. As a student, you can buy a student membership for $25. With a membership, most programs cost between $25 and $35. (Bono came last year, and tickets were a bit higher.)

  • DFW International Community Alliance This is the portal to international North Texas, a region in which 40% of the residents are New Americans of first or second generation. We are a network of over 1,600 internationally-focused civic, community and educational organizations in the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex that embodies the cultural and economic vibrancy of the global community. Our Mission is to promote and link North Texas ethnic and New American groups, empowering them as respected members of the community and providing forums through which to share their cultural heritages.

Leadership Links

“
In public life, responsible political leadership holds forth realistic, attainable goals rather than wishful thinking.”



--- The late Annette Strauss, former Mayor of the City of Dallas, speaking at a forum organized by the Hunt Leadership Scholars

Lending Library

“
Recognize now that you are going to be learning every day for the rest of your life. Your ability to continue to learn and your open-minded attitude toward learning will serve you better than anything else.”



--- Les Alberthal, CEO of EDS, speaking speaking at a forum organized by the Hunt Leadership Scholars
The office Professor Pryor will contain a lending library for the Hunt Leadership Scholars. Any of you are welcome to borrow these; just sign the book out on an index card.

Below is a list of some “featured titles.” In addition to these, the lending library has a number of books on current affairs, historical and current leaders, careers and work life, the role of religion in the public square, ethics, business ethics, ethics from a comparative religious standpoint, bioethics, history and current issues in Islam, history of and current affairs in Russia and China.
  • Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005). By the Pulizer-prize winning author (and 2006-2007 Tate Lecture Series speaker), this book chronicles Abraham Lincoln’s leadership by focusing on his unusual inclusion, in his Cabinet, of 3 of his political rivals.

  • Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Home Front in World War II. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History. “The author paints an image of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt so vivid and real that as you read the story you feel you are reliving the exciting history of that time with them.”

  • Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
    (2002)
    “It’s a book about change. In particular, it's a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990's? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? I think the answer to all those questions is the same. It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.”

  • Peter J.Gomes, The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need (2002) “After more than thirty years as minister at Harvard University, Peter J. Gomes has given his share of advice to the best and brightest as they set sail into the world. This book is the distillation of years of observation and insight…”

  • Bob Woodward, Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom (2002). A book that “takes you inside the Federal Reserve and Alan Greenspan’s thinking.”

  • Stephen E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (1996). A great account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

  • Thomas Fleming, Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America (1999) “It is riveting, revealing, and relevant as it reminds today’s reader that men of power and position have always possessed human flaws no matter the time or place.”

  • Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1982)

  • Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (2005) “Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the 21st century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt . . . A timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents.”

  • Daivd McCullough, Truman (1992) Pulizer-prize biography of the “seemingly simple, ordinary man who in fact was always much more than met the eye and who would achieve a greatness of his own after coming to office in FDR’s giant shadow.”

  • Daivd McCullough, John Adams (2001) “The adventurous life-journey of John Adams, who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war.”

  • Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (2001) Award-winning biography of Theodore Roosevelt, starting with his taking the oath of office after McKinley’s assassination and through the next seven years).

  • John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (2004). “The fullest, richest, most panoramic history” of the great influenza of 1918, which killed over 100 million people worldwide and which “provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon.”

Videos

  • PBS DVD Video: The 50 Years War: Israel and the Arabs

  • PBS Home Video: The Question of God (presentation of the similarities and differences between two great thinkers, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis)

  • PBS DVD: Islam: Empire of Faith

  • PBS DVD Gold: Ken Burns, The Civil War (prize-winning multi-DVD set)

  • PBS DVD Gold: Ken Burns, Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery

  • PBS DVD Video: Martin Luther

  • BBC Video: A History of Britain (5 DVDs), written and narrated by Simon Schama, author of the book by the same name.

  • Casablanca (not a PBS or BBC production; rather, the best movie of all time)