Opportunities to Get Involved

Research:

  • Dedman College Linking Fellowships help faculty connect with colleagues in other disciplines and expand their interdisciplinary research capabilities
  • The Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute provides a platform for collaboration and the exchange of ideas across academic disciplines, helping to forge connections between the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities; between Dedman College and SMU’s professional schools; and between academia and the broader community. The DCII provides funds for cluster speakers series and advanced symposia, support for faculty research assistants, and organizes the Big Challenge program that tackles a major challenge facing humanity with associated events and programming.
  • Cluster-specific funds for projects that are collaborative and interdisciplinary in nature, that help advance the cluster through new external research awards and publications, and that leverage existing resources and projects.
  • Engage Dallas, SMU’s place-based community engagement program serving south and west Dallas, offers research grants and collaboration opportunities with its 34 non-profit partner organizations, faculty, staff, and student volunteers. Current research with Engage Dallas centers on community partner engagement with universities, student leadership learning, programs, and a longitudinal study of student learning through place-based community engagement.

Teaching and Mentoring:

  • Faculty contribute courses to interdisciplinary majors such as that of the SMU Human Rights Program. The SMU Human Rights Program is educating a new generation of visionary changemakers to defend and demand human dignity. As one of only seven programs in the United States to grant a bachelor's degree in Human Rights, it offers over 100 academic courses, educational travel opportunities across the globe, and a variety of proven social innovation efforts in North Texas.
  • Faculty can bring their expertise in any aspects of urban life to the University Honors Program’s interdisciplinary team-taught course, The Greater Dallas Experience. In its emphasis on understanding cities from different disciplinary perspectives, the course seeks to serve as a catalyst for innovation and problem solving. Beyond formal study, the course directly involves and engages students with various aspects of the city and its inhabitants via field trips and community projects.
  • The Office of Engaged Learning, the Hegi Family Career Development Center, McNair Scholars Program, and Engage Dallas, alongside other initiatives on campus, offer faculty the opportunity to mentor research and high-impact projects via paid internships, undergraduate research assistantships, or Engaged Learning Fellowships.
  • Engage Dallas invites faculty to connect relevant courses to their eleven community-identified needs (e.g., homelessness, food insecurity, college access, immigrant and refugee support, etc.) to permit students to obtain general education and other Common Curriculum requirements. The Engage Dallas team supports the development of such courses via coaching, financial, and other means. For instance, a Corporate Communications and Public Affairs course teaching Communication Research and Data Analytics partners with a non-profit organization so students can learn focus group facilitation skills and survey design and analysis while benefiting a local non-profit organization. Plans exist to develop a grant-writing course helping SMU and our community partners.

Community:

The Urban Research Faculty Cluster offers an intellectual community with shared commitment to community-engaged research. You can also find community at SMU via :