To end this semester

To end the semester, I would like to propose a way in which SMU might save itself from its own demise down the toilet of academia. My idea: a $5 million “Save SMU” fund. How would it work? Well let me tell you.

The goal of the “Save SMU” fund would be downsizing the undergraduate student population at SMU without losing any money.

By downsizing the number of students at SMU, several things would be accomplished: (1) our acceptance rate would go down, (2) our SAT average would go up, (3) we would be able to give better financial aid packages to students, (4) our student to faculty ratio would go down, (5) the parking problem would be improved considerably, (6) the housing problem would be fixed and (7) SMU would be a much better school.

Let’s say tuition costs $22,000 dollars per student, just for a round-about-number. Two hundred students at $22,000 comes out to $4.4 million.

That leaves six hundred thousand dollars of the proposed five million with which we can pay for the several full athletic scholarships we give out each year. Plus, we can make the Presidential and Hunt Leadership Scholarships into full scholarships that would pay for full tuition, fees, room, board, books and travel.

Can you imagine what all this would do? Usually, SMU is forced, for financial purposes, to accept students who should not have graduated from high school.

If we were able to throw 200 of these students’ applications into the trash can where they belong, our acceptance rate would go down, and our low SAT average would go up significantly, therefore making SMU look better to the guys at US News and World Report.

Furthermore, SMU’s endowment, even in the failing economy, would be able to provide better financial aid packages for students who would otherwise be unable to attend SMU.

This, of course, would make it possible for minority students who might be coming from lower socio-economic classes to attend SMU. Moreover, students coming from a wide range of backgrounds would create a more diverse campus.

Then, of course, parking might be better on campus with not so many people being forced to park far away from their classes and resident halls. Besides being convenient, this might also decrease the number of crimes occurring in some of the lots.

Also, with the extra money in the fund, SMU might be able to update its top scholarships.

This is not to say that the Presidential and Hunt scholarships do not provide amazing opportunities; however, we need to get with the times. If SMU wants to attract students who are qualified to attend the nation’s top universities, we need to offer more money.

As I’m sure all of you agree, this would be incredible. Surely, the people who were able to raise money for “A Time to Lead” would be able to put together a measly $5 million to do something that would actually make SMU a better school.

Think of the possibilities. In any case, SMU needs to think more about the size of incoming classes. SMU can’t support the population it has. Though we are in Texas, bigger does not always mean better.

Now, since I have some extra space, I would like to talk about something else that has been troubling me: the Dedman Center.

Ladies and gentleman, who cares? If one more person says, “We need to build a better workout facility with a climbing wall and 17 pools and a two-to-one sauna to student ratio,” I think I’m going to be sick.

I’m not saying that a new Dedman Center wouldn’t be nice. But come on. Look at some of the desks they’re using in Dallas Hall, Hyer Hall and Clements Hall. If we can’t even fix our classrooms, why are we worrying about a stupid gym?

And if you use the ol’ “the quality of our workout facility reflects in the retention of our students,” you’re kidding yourself. If, perhaps, we use my “Save SMU” fund idea that I discussed earlier, maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about students who care more about treadmills than they do about textbooks. I wonder if there’s a study on that.

Plus, just so you know, if they do approve plans for a multi-million dollar facelift to the Dedman Center, guess who’s gonna pay for it? If you think tuition increases are out of hand now, wait until you’re paying for a new Dedman Center. Do you want to pay for a facility that isn’t even going to be built until after you’ve graduated? I didn’t think so.

Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukah.