Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center
The A-LEC is devoted to helping students become more independent, self-confident and efficient learners. In addition, its mission is to help students respond effectively to specific academic challenges, to articulate and attain their own educational goals, and to succeed at any level of the undergraduate curriculum. Each year, about one third of SMU’s undergraduate students participate in A-LEC programs, courses and services, including more than half of first and second year students. All A-LEC services are available to undergraduate students at no cost. Some services are available on a drop-in basis and others are available by appointment. Students may be referred to the A-LEC by their advisers, faculty or a resident assistant, but most students choose to come on their own. More information is available online at www.smu.edu/alec.
Tutoring Services. The A-LEC offers subject-specific tutoring in most first- and second-year courses. Tutorials are offered in individual, small-group and review session formats. The tutoring schedule changes regularly and updates can be found on the A-LEC website.
Writing Center. English department faculty members assist undergraduate students at any stage of the writing process, from planning a draft to learning from previously graded papers.
Workshops. Each fall, the A-LEC offers about 40 study strategy workshops; in spring, approximately 20 are offered. Among the topics covered are note taking, time management, test-taking strategies and textbook study and reading.
HDEV 1110 - Reading and Learning Strategies Each academic year, hundreds of SMU students take HDEV 1110 to develop their advanced reading and learning skills. Every fall, some sections are reserved for premed students, transfer students and students with documented learning differences. Students can register for HDEV 1110 at the same time they register for their other courses.
HDEV 1211 - Success Strategies This course helps students develop strategies for creating success in their academic, professional and personal lives. Students engage in ongoing self-assessment and journal writing, learn study skills, and explore campus resources. The course is designed for students on academic probation and for those who are dissatisfied with their grades. Students can register for HDEV 1211 at the same time they register for their other courses.
Academic Counseling. Full-time staff members are available to work individually with students on study strategies. Some specialize in working with students with learning differences or students on academic probation.
Disability Accommodations and Success Strategies. DASS offers any SMU student with a disability comprehensive support services, including classroom accommodations for qualified students with a learning disability and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. DASS also assists with physical accessibility and accommodations for other conditions such as physical, visual or hearing disabilities and medical or psychiatric disorders. For undergraduate students, academic coaching with DASS learning specialists is available in the areas of transitioning, learning strategies, educational planning and self-advocacy.
More information on the accommodations process and DASS resources is available online at www.smu.edu/alec/dass.
SMU Libraries
www.smu.edu/libraries
SMU libraries are one of the greatest assets of the University. The SMU libraries comprise the largest private research library in Texas and rank third in the state with over four million volumes. Service to Southern Methodist University students, faculty and staff is the primary goal of all libraries at SMU. The University’s library system is divided into a number of different units
- Central University Libraries.
- Underwood Law Library.
- Bridwell Library.
- Business Library.
Central University Libraries
www.smu.edu/cul
The largest of the SMU library units is Central University Libraries, with holdings of more than three million volumes, including nearly one million e-books. CUL comprises the Fondren Library Center, the Hamon Arts Library, the DeGolyer Library and the University Archives, the Emily C. Norwick Center for Digital Services, and the Fort Burgwin Library at SMU-in-Taos. CUL also supports SMU programs at the SMU-in-Plano campus.
Fondren Library Center serves students, faculty and staff in the areas of humanities, social sciences, business, education, science, and engineering, with print and online resources. Subject librarians, assigned to each discipline, collaborate with faculty and students to support the academic mission of the university. In the building complex, students have access to the Collaborative Computing Area, which provides students with group spaces conducive to creative work. Starbucks and the IT Help Desk are located on the same floor, providing snacks, drinks and technical assistance to the University community. The Prothro Learning Commons area offers single and group workspaces with the latest in computing technology. For very quiet study, the Fondren Foundation Centennial Reading Room is a beautiful setting with high-ceilings and handmade wooden tables with reading lamps in a large sunlit space. The bold visual impact of this iconic reading room epitomizes the discovery, inspiration and community for which SMU is known. The Fondren Library Center librarians also manage the SMU Digital Repository, which houses the scholarly output of the SMU faculty and graduate students. To support the research of the university, Fondren Library also provides document delivery to faculty, staff and students, as well as access to holdings from other libraries via interlibrary loan. Strengths of the Fondren Library collections include, but are not limited to, classical studies, late 18th- and early 19th-century English literature, American history, Texas history, contemporary biography and literature, anthropology, political science, economics and other social sciences.
The Hamon Arts Library, adjoining the south side of the Owen Arts Center of the Meadows School of the Arts, provides resources for the study of art history, communications, dance, film, music, theatre and visual art. With more than 220,000 volumes of books, sound recordings and video recordings, the library’s collections support the Meadows curriculum and are particularly strong in European and American arts. The library also provides conference room facilities; group audio-visual study and presentation rooms; and public computers for research, study and arts-specific software projects. Two special collections units are administered by Hamon Arts Library:
The Jerry Bywaters Special Collections focus on the cultural history of the American Southwest. Visual arts holdings include archival materials and works of art on paper documenting the careers of artists such as Jerry Bywaters, Otis and Velma Davis Dozier, E.G. Eisenlohr, Octavio Medellin, Olin Travis and Janet Turner as well as correspondence of 19th-century French painter Rosa Bonheur. Performing arts holdings include two Japanese gigaku masks dating from the 7th to the 10th centuries, the papers of Oscar-winning actress Greer Garson, and materials documenting the careers of longtime SMU music faculty members Paul van Katwijk and Lloyd Pfautsch.
The G. William Jones Film and Video Collection, founded in 1970, holds more than 10,000 films and videos on a wide array of subjects, in all types of formats. The Jones Collection is best known for its Tyler, Texas, Black Film Collection and for the Sulphur Springs Collection of prenickelodeon films.
DeGolyer Library is a noncirculating special collections branch of CUL that contains more than 160,000 volumes. In addition to rare books, it holds nearly 2,500 separate manuscript collections, more than 1.3 million photographs and negatives, 2,000 newspaper and periodical titles, 3,000 maps, and an extensive collection of printed ephemera. Subject strengths include the American West, Mexico, railroad history, business history, and the history of science and technology.
The University Archives, part of the DeGolyer Library, are the official repository for SMU administrative and historical records of the University. The archives con-tain manuscripts, photographs, publications, records, and artifacts documenting the establishment and growth of the University. SMU administrators, faculty, local historians and media representatives are its principal users, but students and visit-ing scholars often use its materials for a variety of research projects.
The Norwick Center for Digital Services, located in the staff-access-only area of the Fondren Library Center, focuses on digitizing CUL’s collections of rare photo-graphs, manuscripts, imprints, art work, film, musical recordings, and other unique items for increased access via the CUL Digital Collections website (digitalcollections.smu.edu/all/cul). The nCDS serves as a teaching lab, with digital collections development and Digital Humanities practicums available to students. The center is also affiliated with the SMU Digital Repository (digitalrepository.smu.edu) and other repositories within the library system.
The Fort Burgwin Library, located in SMU-in-Taos, serves students and faculty in the SMU-in-Taos program. It is focused on the history, literature, cultures and envi-ronment of New Mexico and the Southwest. The library contains approximately 9,000 books and a small collection of journals and maps, and it houses the Fred Wendorf Information Commons, a computer facility and library constructed in 2004.
Underwood Law Library
library.law.smu.edu
Underwood Law Library, one of the 30 largest law libraries in the country and the largest private law library in the Southwest, houses more than 665,000 volumes and primarily serves the faculty and students of the Dedman School of Law. The collection includes state and federal legislative, judicial and administrative materials; law periodicals; law treatises; U.S., international and foreign documents; and U.S. government documents relating to the legal profession. Strengths of the collection are in taxation, securities, corporate law, labor law, air and space law, commercial and banking law, constitutional law, and law and medicine. The library’s collection of antiquarian law books, including the McKnight Antiquarian Book Collection, is one of the leading collections of its kind in the country, with volumes printed as early as 1474. The Kay and Ray Hutchison Legal Resource Learning Center in the Underwood Law Library is a computer-learning lab located on the third floor.
Bridwell Library
www.smu.edu/bridwell
Bridwell Library, primarily serving the faculty and students of the Perkins School of Theology, is the University’s principal research resource for the fields of theology and religious studies. It offers a print collection of more than 380,000 volumes and 1,100 current periodical titles, and it provides access to a wide array of digital books, journals and databases. Among the library’s special collections are significant holdings in early printing, English and American Methodism, theology, religion, and the book arts. The interpretation of these collections is accomplished through class instruction, lectures, publications and exhibitions. Reference librarians are available to help students discover and use the many resources of Bridwell Library.
Business Library
www.cox.smu.edu/bic
The Business Library of the Cox School of Business is located in room 150 of the Maguire Building. This library is open to all students regardless of major. The mission of the library is to provide the SMU community with authoritative business information, regardless of format; support the integration of information and tech-nology into the curriculum; and act as a center for research and development for state-of-the-art information technology applications in the business education field. In support of this mission, students, faculty and staff have access to course-specific in-class instruction sessions, open enrollment research workshops and reference assistance from dedicated business librarians to enhance their use of current business news and financial, industry and market data from premier providers. The Business Library includes the Kitt Investing and Trading Center, quiet and group study areas, 70 computer workstations in individual and group areas, a multimedia studio, a group presentation practice room, a periodicals area, facilitywide wireless access, more than 400 electronic resources, and a variety of print resources, including the Hillcrest Foundation International Resource Library, the Edwin L. Cox Business Leadership Center Resource Collection, the Maguire Energy Institute Resource Collection and the Cox Career Services Collection. Librarians are available all hours that the business library is open, providing research assistance in person and virtually via email and telephone.
Scholars’ Den
The Scholars’ Den is a gathering space for members of the various scholar groups at SMU. Its mission is to foster scholarship and community among its member groups by providing a hospitable place to study and hold scholarly events. Located in Clements Hall, the Scholars’ Den features group-meeting space, study areas, a kitchen/dining area and an informal lounge where students can gather to collaborate on academic and extracurricular projects.
Laboratories and Research Facilities
The University provides laboratories and equipment for courses in accounting, advertising, anthropology, art, biology, chemistry, chemistry, communication studies, creative computation, languages, Earth sciences, film and media studies, journalism, psychology, physics, health and physical education, dance, music, theatre, and statistics, as well as civil, computer, electrical, environmental and mechanical engineering. The University is also home to a number of centers and institutes that are detailed in each of the school sections of this catalog. University facilities not listed below are described in sections for the individual schools.
ManeFrame. SMU has one of the top supercomputers in the nation, ManeFrame, which is capable of more than 120 trillion mathematical operations per second. Housed in the data center, ManeFrame is available for faculty and student research in subjects ranging from particle physics to human behavior, water quality and drug discovery.
SMU-in-Taos. SMU-in-Taos, Fort Burgwin, is located 10 miles south of Taos, New Mexico. The facility includes classrooms, laboratories, offices, a computer center and a library, as well as living accommodations for students and faculty. The Fort Burgwin archaeology curation facility houses more than 1 million archaeological specimens from research projects conducted by SMU faculty and students. Northern New Mexico offers a multiplicity of research opportunities for both natural and social scientists. Pot Creek Pueblo, located on the fort’s property, is one of the largest prehistoric archaeological sites in the Taos region.
Museum
The Meadows Museum, founded by the late philanthropist Algur H. Meadows and located at 5900 Bishop Boulevard, houses one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of Spanish art in the world, as well as selected masterpieces of modern European sculpture, from Rodin and Maillol to David Smith and Claes Oldenburg. The permanent collection of more than 670 objects includes paintings, sculpture, decorative arts and works on paper from the Middle Ages to the present. Artists represented include El Greco, Velázquez, Ribera, Zurbarán, Murillo, Goya, Picasso and Miró. The Meadows Museum hosts a regular program of loan exhibitions each year in its temporary exhibition galleries and sponsors an active program of public lectures, tours, films, concerts and symposia, as well as children’s art programs and family days throughout the year. Museum collections are often used by SMU faculty in their courses. The museum membership program includes exhibition previews, tours of private collections and opportunities for travel. Docent tours of the collection are available to school, University and adult groups. The Meadows Museum, in addition to its collection, houses a museum store and special event rooms. Additional information is available at www.meadowsmuseumdallas.org.
Office of Information Technology
The Office of Information Technology is responsible for providing computing and communications services to support academic and administrative needs of students, faculty, staff, alumni and patrons of the University. These services include an SMU email account, access to enrollment and financial data online, Internet access, telephone services, Web-based services, technical support, and a variety of software and hardware discounts.
SMU offers high-speed network connections throughout campus. Students can take advantage of both wired and wireless connections throughout all areas of the residence halls. Wireless coverage also extends throughout the campus in most classrooms, libraries, common areas and several outdoor locations. In addition to on-campus Internet connections, OIT provides off-campus access to resources via a virtual private network connection.
All students receive an SMU email account, which remains active after graduation. The email account may be accessed online via Office 365 (office365.smu.edu). In addition, students have access to a variety of Web-based services, e.g., my.SMU, personal Web space, unlimited network storage space (OneDrive and Box) and academic applications such as the Canvas Course Management System. All academic information, including grade history, financial information, transcripts and class registration, is available through the my.SMU system.
The IT Help Desk, located in Fondren Library West, provides technical support for most computing issues Monday through Friday 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday noon-6 p.m. Phone or in-house support is available for on- and off-campus connectivity issues. The Help Desk also offers phone support for the Microsoft Office Suite and other common applications. In addition, the OIT website (www.smu.edu/oit) provides information, step-by-step instructions and answers to many frequently asked questions.
Although most students have their own computers, there are a number of public computer labs available for use. Almost all of the labs contain both Mac and PC workstations and support a variety of programs.
Discounts on technology purchases are available throughout the year. More information can be found on the OIT website.
For additional information on services provided by IT, students should visit www.smu.edu/oit or call the Help Desk (214-768-HELP or 214-768-4357). Technology news and updates are available on Twitter (@smuoit) and the IT Connect blog (blog.smu.edu/itconnect).
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