Giving Initiatives

Gifts to the SMU Fund for Lyle support the school’s highest-priority needs and are used at the discretion of the Lyle dean. Examples include critical lab enhancements, recruitment and retention of faculty and research travel grants. Resources enable us to immediately fuel and launch creative ideas and inventions.

Scholarships are essential to attract and retain the most academically gifted students around the country. The Lyle Scholars Program targets high-achieving undergraduate students who continually raise the standard of excellence across all departments. These scholarships also help increase student diversity at Lyle. We want to collaborate with students from underrepresented ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds to gain different perspectives while problem-solving and working on teams.

The Research Impact Fund bridges the gap between inspiration and implementation. Our faculty members generate ideas with great potential. Bringing those ideas to life often begins with funding for preliminary research and testing—critical initial steps in attracting the external funding necessary for real-world implementation. Investing in promising early-stage research can catalyze an idea into a world-changing project and elevate the school’s research profile.

In 2016, Lyle established an Engineering Entrepreneurship initiative, which provides the infrastructure to promote and practice entrepreneurship. Particular emphasis is placed on products with high technology content such as software, biomedical, electronics, materials and other related areas. The Initiative offers SMU students, faculty and staff a wide variety of entrepreneurship pathways to maximize creativity and invention. Gifts support ongoing programmatic elements and acquisition of high-precision prototyping facilities.

Establishing an endowment at Lyle allows you to change the lives of students and scholars. These gifts create a permanent legacy honoring or memorializing the life and work of an individual or organization. A named fund may be established with a donation of $100,000 or more. This support allows Lyle to offset the rising cost of higher education by providing a dependable source of income for student and faculty investment while minimizing the need for continued tuition increases. Revenue from the endowment enables Lyle to accomplish our highest priorities, such as faculty positions and research funds.

SMU educators are dedicated to conducting research on crucial issues and discovering new solutions that will advance scholarships, fuel scientific and technical innovation and spur economic progress and growth in the region and the nation. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has raised SMU’s classification to “high research activity” due to the University’s increasing research activity. Lyle aims to raise the bar even higher, and its faculty work to advance knowledge in a range of subjects.

Our research includes significant initiatives on issues such as cybersecurity, microbiorobotics, largescale wireless networks and improving the stability of complex environmental systems. Both undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to work closely with faculty members on many critical research projects, ensuring they gain valuable experiences in subjects that will continue to be the focus of future study. The SMU endowment represents a powerful and enduring source of support for the University that helps ensure SMU’s long-term financial strength and value to the faculty. Endowment funds typically provide a consistent level of support for the faculty, after a four-year maturation, which allows SMU to plan for the future. Donors often provide operational funding to support the immediate needs of the position while the long-term fund matures.