During his 2025 Opening Convocation speech, President Jay Hartzell hinted that love could be possible to find at Southern Methodist University.
“The person next to you might become your closest friend, your partner or if you’re like me, your future spouse,” Hartzell said.
He met his wife, Kara, during the first week of college after walking into the same bathroom.
“Long story,” Hartzell added.
However, some students state that this isn’t always the case.
Girls can be heard in the library discussing failed dates and guys can be seen complaining about getting ghosted. In the middle of it all is the knowledge that SMU’s dating culture isn’t seen as the most promising.
Graduate student Charity Robinson shared her thoughts about love at SMU.
“Hookup culture is detrimental to the dating environment here,” Robinson said. “True attraction comes after loving a person.”
SMU junior Noah Brada has a similar outlook on the dating standards and stereotypes at SMU.
“I feel like people have some outlooks on who you should be dating,” Brada said. “[But] social exceptions or like social outlooks that people have should not compare to who you love.”
Despite the SMU dating standards, there seem to be many happy couples at SMU. Morgan Kendrick and Guilianno Manzi, two sophomores who met each other in the Mustang Band as freshmen, shared their story. Kendrick was cheated on a month into the first semester of her freshman year, and that is when she and Manzi became closer.
“I feel like we both talked about the fact that we feel like we’ve gotten lucky,” Kendrick said. “We started dating in December of our freshman year.”
Another love story outside of the Mustang Band was told by Robinson. A romance that ended up in engagement bloomed between her and her now fiance, Devon Coates. They met through their small group, but it wasn’t until the early fall semester of their senior year that they re-met at Hughes Trigg and hit it off.
“We became really good friends over the next three months, and then he asked me to be his girlfriend on Dec. 23rd, 2024! Exactly a year later, he proposed,” Robinson said.
It seems that whether it’s a church community group, being a part of the band or any other activity, there’s a perfectly viable dating pool at SMU. What exactly are these happy couples on campus doing right, and how are they finding their partners in such unexpected places? Robinson, being recently engaged, shared some helpful insight regarding her standards.
“When it comes to standards, I’ve learned to let God take the lead,” Robinson said. “I am so lucky that Devon fulfills all of those requirements.”
Even having great standards doesn’t always account for the immense time struggles many students have when it comes to balancing relationships and school work, but it seems these couples have their schedules figured out. Manzi and Kendrick shared how they balance their time together.
“We both do have a lot of things to do. But we usually plan for the afternoons or evenings to hang out with each other. We usually get dinner at Mac’s place,” Manzi said.
Kendrick added to this.
“It’s just, you have to communicate whenever you have really busy stuff going on,” Kendrick said.
These couples seem to have found each other despite the odds, but it does beg an even bigger question. How likely is one to meet their future spouse at SMU? Is that special someone something that can truly be found, or is every student doomed to perpetual dating?
“I absolutely think finding a husband or wife on campus is possible,” Robinson said. “If you’re looking for a pool of husband material, go to 3004 SMU Blvd. If you’re looking for a pool of wife material, go sit on Dallas Hall Lawn on a sunny day in the springtime. I’m not kidding.”
It looks like President Jay Hartzell might be correct. Despite the obstacles and doubtful dating culture at SMU, your future husband or wife could be waiting for you— maybe even sitting next to you in class. All it may take to meet them is to look at the person sitting to your left or right.
