Location and facilities

Dallas/University Park/Highland Park campus

The main SMU campus is located on 234 acres – known as the Hilltop – in the heart of Dallas, 5 miles north of downtown in the neighboring communities of University Park and Highland Park. SMU is a major contributor to the Dallas economy and enriches the community through diverse educational and cultural opportunities.

  • SMU generates an annual economic impact of more than $7 billion in the North Texas region.
  • More than 65,000 SMU alumni live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
  • SMU attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually for cultural and athletic events and other programs.
  • Each year SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts presents more than 400 events for the Dallas community and surrounding region.
  • The Meadows Museum at SMU, housing one of the finest collections of Spanish art outside Spain, attracts an estimated 70,000 visitors annually, including more than 10,000 schoolchildren.
  • SMU offers undergraduate students more than 100 majors and 85 minors.
  • Nearly 3,500 undergraduate volunteers serve annually through approximately 125 area nonprofit agencies.
  • Big iDeas is an undergraduate research program that awards grants for interdisciplinary student teams to explore such complex challenges as poverty, illiteracy, health care inequity and environmental issues and find solutions that can be applied in Dallas and the world beyond.
  • SMU’s Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies offers doctoral and master’s degrees in a wide variety of fields across four different colleges and schools: Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Lyle School of Engineering, Meadows School of the Arts and Simmons School of Education and Human Development.
  • SMU provides professional certificates and noncredit offerings through the Continuing and Professional Education program.

SMU-in-Taos

SMU-in-Taos provides opportunities for adventurous study and research in a unique setting in Northern New Mexico. The property includes pre-Civil War Fort Burgwin and the remains of a 13th-century Native American pueblo. SMU began acquiring the property in l964 and reconstructed the fort to serve as an archaeology research center. Student facilities were added in 1973.

  • The Taos campus covers 423 acres and contains 31 buildings. It is located within the Carson National Forest and surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
  • SMU-in-Taos offers credit courses in the natural and social sciences, humanities, arts and business. Emphasizing experiential learning, classes are enhanced by the region’s distinctive mix of cultures and rich natural resources.
  • SMU-in-Taos hosts enriching programs for alumni, friends and members of the Taos community, including lectures, concerts and art exhibitions.
  • The annual Taos Cultural Institute provides a summer weekend of informal classes for adults taught by SMU faculty members.
  • Facilities are available for conferences, retreats and youth groups.

Unique resources

Distinguished speakers and programs

SMU features noteworthy national and international visitors through the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series, Hart Global Leaders Forum and John Goodwin Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs Medal of Freedom and other University programs. Prominent visitors have included:

  • U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Gerald R. Ford and Barack Obama
  • U.S. First Ladies Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama
  • U.S. Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Al Gore
  • U.S. Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice
  • U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas
  • U.S. Senators Bob Dole, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John McCain
  • British Prime Ministers Tony Blair, John Major and Margaret Thatcher
  • President of Mexico Vicente Fox
  • King Juan Carlos of Spain
  • His Holiness the Dalai Lama
  • Archbishop Desmond Tutu
  • Archbishop of Canterbury George L. Carey
  • Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev
  • Anthropologist and primatologist Jane Goodall
  • Historians Michael Beschloss, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David McCullough and Jon Meacham
  • Director Spike Lee
  • Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns
  • Astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking

 

Meadows Museum

Meadows Museum, a division of Meadows School of the Arts at SMU, is the leading U.S. institution focused on the study and presentation of the art of Spain. In 1962, Dallas businessman and philanthropist Algur H. Meadows donated his private collection of Spanish paintings, as well as funds to start a museum, to SMU. The museum opened to the public in 1965, marking the first step in fulfilling Meadows’ vision to create “a small Prado for Texas.” Today, the Meadows is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. The collection spans from the 10th to the 21st centuries and includes medieval objects, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, and major paintings by Golden Age and modern masters. 

 

George W. Bush Presidential Center

SMU is home to the George W. Bush Presidential Center, which includes the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, operated by the National Archives and Records Administration, and the George W. Bush Institute, the nonpartisan public policy arm of the Bush Center. The Bush Center enjoys a special relationship with SMU, collaborating with the University to host events, conduct research and provide unique learning opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.