Southern Methodist University

Southern Methodist University is a private research university in University Park, a city surrounded by Dallas, Texas. It was founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and remains affiliated with the United Methodist Church. It grew from a regional Methodist college into a university with law, business, theology, engineering, and arts schools on a compact urban campus.

Graduate study is organized through Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, the Cox School of Business, Dedman School of Law, the Meadows School of the Arts, the Lyle School of Engineering, Perkins School of Theology, and the Simmons School of Education and Human Development. Business, law, theology, and the arts are the graduate fields most identified with the university. The George W. Bush Presidential Center on campus supports policy and archival work alongside Cox and Dedman Law.

Enrollment is about 12,000, with graduate and professional students close to half of the total. Students come from all 50 states and about 90 countries. The faculty numbers about 750. Alumni include producer Aaron Spelling, actor Kathy Bates, and former first lady Laura Bush, who earned a library-science degree at SMU.

Graduate degrees include the MBA, JD, MDiv, MFA, MS, and PhD. Cox and Law are coursework and clinic based; humanities doctorates are research-supervised. The calendar is the semester. Cox fellowships, law scholarships, and teaching assistantships are the main funding routes. Graduate life is split between the University Park campus and internships across Dallas.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Southern Methodist University lists 110 graduate programs across 36 subjects: 76 master's programs and 32 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in education, music and computer science.