Community & Economic Impact Report
Vibrant cultural and intellectual resources are crucial to a great city. In recent years DFW has seen extraordinary growth as a center for the arts, with new facilities throughout the region and in the expanding Dallas Arts District.
Supporting this emphasis on the arts, SMU provides programs, performances and exhibitions that contribute to DFW's cultural vitality. SMU also provides expertise on arts development. Meadows School of the Arts engaged consultants to study the cultural landscape of Dallas and recommend steps for future progress. The University also provides facilities for community events and activities.
SMU facilities for art exhibitions enable Dallasites and other visitors to enjoy both permanent collections and traveling exhibitions from throughout the world:
Annually, SMU's Meadows School of the Arts presents more than 400 student and professional arts performances at the Greer Garson Theatre, Bob Hope Theatre and Margo Jones Theatre, and other campus venues. These also involve internationally known artists-in-residence who receive the Meadows Prize. They perform and interact with students and arts organizations to leave an impact on the arts in Dallas. Performances include theatre productions, dance concerts and music concerts, with performances by the Meadows Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Opera Theatre, Jazz Orchestra and Concert Choir and Chorale. Visual arts exhibitions also are presented in campus museums and galleries.
SMU provides programs, performances and exhibitions that contribute to DFW's cultural and artistic vitality.
SMU's libraries combine online resources with special collections of rare books and historic materials, including those that chronicle the commercial development of DFW.
Visitors to SMU's Meadows Museum – more than 60,000 annually – are greeted by the sculpture, "Sho," by Catalán artist Jaume Plensa. Visitors include 7,000 elementary and high school students.
Held in downtown Dallas, the annual TEDxSMU gathering brings internationally recognized speakers who are pushing the boundaries of science and culture.
The University's nine libraries house the largest private collection of research materials in the Southwest, with more than three million volumes. DFW community members are able to consult the resources at any of SMU's libraries.
The University brings renowned regional, national and global speakers to Dallas for lectures and seminars also open to area high school students. Moreover, virtually every academic department and center at SMU sponsors programs open to the public.
SMU's major lecture series include:
HART GLOBAL LEADERS
The Hart Global Leaders Program brings distinguished speakers to campus for seminars with area high school students and teachers and a public lecture.
As a service to the region, SMU facilities are available to DFW constituents for programs and events. SMU facilities are often counted on by the city when it bids on major events. For instance, SMU's football facilities were secured by the 2011 DFW Super Bowl Host Committee for the Green Bay Packers' practices. The most-used facilities for non-SMU-sponsored events include:
SMU's athletics programs complement the variety of professional sports teams in the Dallas area with affordable, collegiate competitions that contribute to a shared sense of community between SMU and the region. SMU's intercollegiate athletics program enables the University to provide a well-rounded campus experience that can unite students around a common goal, no matter what their fields of study. SMU hosts the only Division I athletics program in Dallas, which consists of 17 sports programs.
The football team's impressive victory over the University of Pittsburgh in the 2012 BBVA Compass Bowl – the Mustangs' third bowl appearance in as many years – symbolizes the progress made by SMU athletics in recent years. Ten Mustang teams advanced to the postseason in 2010-11. The women's volleyball team ended the year with a program-best 25-6 record, finishing in second place in Conference USA. Affirming the importance of academic achievement among SMU student-athletes, 31 were named C-USA Academic medal winners, and 210 student-athletes were named to the C-USA Commissioner's Honor Roll.
The BIG EAST welcomed SMU to the athletic conference with a special display in New York's Times Square.
SMU joins the BIG EAST Conference in 2013, aided by SMU's resurgence in football. New audiences will be drawn to the Metroplex, and the national visibility of SMU and the region will increase.
The estimated commercial value of the anticipated television exposure in the conference during football season alone is more than $8 million and nearly 9 million impressions.
With the addition of new schools, the BIG EAST will have the largest footprint of any college football conference in the nation, with a coast-to-coast presence spanning five regions of the country.
BIG EAST institutions reside in nine of the nation's top 35 media markets, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Pittsburgh and Hartford. BIG EAST markets contain almost one-fourth of all television households in the United States.
Download a PDF of this report to read on your tablet device.
