Southwestern University (Southwestern or SU) is a private, liberal arts college in Georgetown, Texas. Formed in 1873 from a revival of collegiate charters granted in 1840, Southwestern is the oldest university in Texas. Southwestern offers 40 bachelors degrees in the arts, sciences, fine arts, and music as well as interdisciplinary and pre-professional programs. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the National Association of Schools of Music. It is historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church.
The university is a member of the Annapolis Group, the Associated Colleges of the South, the Council of Independent Colleges, and is a signatory of the Talloires Declaration.
Prior to assuming the universitys current form, charters had been granted by the Texas Legislature (Texas Congress 1836–1845) to establish four educational institutions: Rutersville College of Rutersville, Texas, Wesleyan College of San Augustine, Texas, McKenzie College of Clarksville, Texas, and Soule University of Chappell Hill, Texas.
In 1873, the union of these four institutions opened in Georgetown as Texas University. Wishing to reserve that name for a proposed state university in Austin, the University of Texas, the Texas Legislature instead granted a charter in 1875 under the name Southwestern University as a continuation of the charters for Rutersville, Wesleyan, McKenzie, and Soule. The university considers its founding date to be 1840 when Rutersville College opened. Southwestern thus claims to be the oldest university in Texas and the second oldest coeducational liberal arts college west of the Mississippi.
Southwestern was a charter member of the Southwest Conference in 1915. Southern Methodist University was Southwesterns main rival for several decades in remembrance of an unsuccessful attempt to relocate Southwestern to Dallas which instead resulted in the establishment of SMU. When SMUs student population became much larger, students at Southwestern began considering Trinity University and Austin College to be the schools main rivals. After World War II, Southwestern transformed itself into a small liberal arts institution, discontinuing its post-graduate degrees, disbanding the football team, and rebuilding much of the campus with a massive capital campaign. The endowment rose substantially.
Southwestern has a history of drawing prolific lecturers to campus, including William Jennings Bryan, Helen Keller, bell hooks, and alumnus J. Frank Dobie. Orators traveling by train often stopped off on their way to or from Austin, giving their lectures and catching the next train. Speakers at the annual Brown Symposium have included author Isaac Asimov (through a video conference) in the early 1980s and Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in 2002. Since it began, the Shilling Lecture series has brought a variety of prominent figures, including presidential advisor Karen Hughes (2003), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (2004), former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (2005), former Governor of New Jersey Thomas Kean (2006), former Secretary of State James Baker (2007), former U.S. senator Bill Bradley (2008), Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai (2009), senior fellow in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health Program William Foege (2010), founder of TOMs Shoes Blake Mycoskie (2011), and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman (2012). In 2002, The Writers Voice series presented Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon. The Writers Voice has also welcomed such authors as Joyce Carol Oates (2000), Margaret Atwood (2003), Amy Tan (2007), and Azar Nafisi (2008).
The university offers 40 majors and 36 minors divided between the Brown College of Arts and Sciences and the Sarofim School of Fine Arts. In addition to traditional academic majors, Southwestern offers interdisciplinary, independent, and paired majors as well as pre-professional programs in Engineering, Law, Medicine, and Theology.
In the 2013-2014 school year, total student enrollment was at 1,536, with a gender distribution of about 60 percent female and 40 percent male. Of the entering first-year students in Fall 2013, 37 percent were in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class with an average SAT score of 1166 (*writing section not included). While the majority of students come from Texas (89 percent), the remaining 11 percent come from 23 other states and 6 countries. Minority students constitute 33 percent of the student body.
The student to faculty ratio is 11:1, with an average class size of 15 students. Ninety-nine percent of the tenured or tenure-track faculty hold a doctorate or highest degree in their fields. Collaborative research and publication with students is common.
Southwestern hosts two interdisciplinary academic exhibitions each year to showcase research by students at Southwestern and researchers across the country. The Brown Symposium held in the early spring is an academic conference attracting guest lecturers and panelists. All Brown Symposium speakers present research that shares the symposiums theme for that year. The Creative Works Symposium held near the end of the spring semester offers undergraduate students an opportunity to display their own research as a formal oral presentation, panel discussion, poster presentation, art exhibit, or technology demonstration. These student presentations are often the culmination of senior capstone projects, independent studies, collaborations with a faculty member, or a requirement for receiving research grants.
Loren Pope, former education editor for The New York Times, included Southwestern in his 1996 book, Colleges That Change Lives, and in a 2012 update to that book.
Southwestern University is located in Georgetown, Texas, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Austin. The campus comprises 700 acres (2.8 km²) mostly located north of University Avenue, although the eastern portion of these lands remains largely undeveloped with some portions serving as an EcoLab where faculty and students conduct research. The main campus is organized around a central academic mall formed by a semi-circular grassy area bounded by a pedestrian walkway and academic buildings. Residence halls and on-campus apartments are located to the east and northwest of the academic mall. Sports fields, support facilities, and parking are on the periphery of the main campus.
The Hugh Roy and Lillie Cullen Building (formerly called the Administration Building) was built in 1898 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Cullen Building currently houses the administration, business office, alumni relations, and classrooms. Throughout various times in its history, it has also housed the campus auditorium, gymnasium, chapel, and library. It is named in honor of Hugh Roy Cullen and his wife.
Mood-Bridwell Hall, originally a mens dormitory, was completed in 1908 and currently houses classrooms, faculty offices, a computer lab, the Debbie Ellis Writing Center, and an indoor atrium. Mood-Bridwell is included in the Cullen Buildings listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
The A. Frank Smith Library Center opened in 1939 as the Cody Memorial Library and was built as part of a WPA project. It was expanded in 1966 and again in 1989, receiving the new name as a result of the second expansion. In addition to books and periodicals, the library houses a film and audio collection, 24-hour computer lab, maps, sheet music, and special collections for Texas history and culture, John Tower, J. Frank Dobie, Jessie Daniel Ames, Herman Melville, Aaron Burr, Edward Blake, Thomas Bewick, and Australia.
The Lois Perkins Chapel was built in 1950 and includes an Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ. Stained glass windows along the east and west sides depict Reformation leaders and Methodist leaders with seals for the educational institutions they were affiliated with.
The McCombs Campus Center opened in 1998, replacing the Bishops Memorial Student Union Building and University Commons. It includes dining facilities, the campus bookstore, ballrooms, and student organization offices. It is named for billionaire entrepreneur and Southwestern alum Red McCombs.
The Fayez Sarofim School of Fine Arts is housed in the Alma Thomas Fine Arts Building, originally built in 1956 on the former property of the Texas rancher John Wesley Snyder, a Southwestern University benefactor. The Fine Arts Building (FAB) has been renovated multiple times, most recently in 1998 and 2008. The FAB houses the 700-seat Alma Thomas Theater, the smaller Jones Theater, the Caldwell-Carvey Foyer, numerous practice rooms, art studios, a black box theater, and an instrumental rehearsal hall.
The Wilhelmina Cullen Admission Center opened in 2009, moving the admissions office out of the Roy and Lillie Cullen Building. It is Southwesterns first "green" building and was designed to receive Gold LEED certification. Some of the buildings features include a bamboo floor in the lobby area, skylights in the center of the building, solar-powered sink faucets and reflective roof shingles. Southwestern plans to turn the area in the original Cullen Building formerly occupied by the Admission Office into a museum. The Admissions Center was named after Wilhelmina Cullen, the daughter of Roy and Lillie Cullen.
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