While classes are starting on the Hilltop this fall, a number of Mexican students are planning ahead for next semester.

As part of an agreement signed in July between SMU and Monterrey Tech, one of the largest university systems in Mexico, up to 100 Mexican students will arrive in Dallas as soon as Jan. 2003 to continue their studies at SMU.

While the program primarily focuses on engineering, the students will be able to take classes in the Cox School of Business as well as the Dedman College.

“SMU will give them such a different academic experience,” said Dean Stephen Szygenda of the School of Engineering. “Monterrey Tech is a huge urban school and we have a small and beautiful campus.”

Monterrey Tech, which has been referred to as the Mexican MIT, is comprised of over 96,000 students at 32 different campuses. The institute has similar agreements with over 300 universities across the world. However, the agreement with SMU is one of the most extensive programs developed to date.

“Internationalization is a very important part of our school,” said Leticia Zamarripa, Monterrey Tech’s liaison in Dallas who originally approached SMU about the agreement.

As part of the undergraduate curriculum at the institution, all students are required to study abroad for one semester.

“Internationalization does not only mean to go abroad, though,” Zamarrippa said. “We want our students to be really global. With this program hopefully our students will be more marketable with experience and even degrees from two different institutions in two different countries.”

Szygenda sees this as another step in bringing a more global outlook to SMU’s engineering school.

“We are an international discipline,” Szygenda said. “Probably more so than most. We look at this as an attempt to duplicate at SMU what’s happening in the technological world.”

The School of Engineering has developed smaller programs with other Latin American countries such as Guatemala and Panama.

“This program is long overdue,” Szygenda said. “This should have been done in schools in Texas before. Monterrey Tech is closer to us than Chicago.”

The agreement laid the foundation for the creation of three programs. The first would allow about 50 to 70 visiting undergraduates from Monterrey Tech to choose to go to SMU for a semester or a year. Because both SMU and Monterrey Tech are accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, all classes taken at SMU will transfer back with them to Mexico.

The two universities will also offer an accelerated master program for engineers. Twenty-five students will enroll in the 10 semester program in Mexico. After completing their bachelor’s degrees in engineering, they will take four distance learning classes from SMU in Monterrey as well as two graduate engineering courses from Monterrey Tech. During their last semester in the program, the students will visit SMU and take four graduate courses. Upon graduation they will receive a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Monterrey Tech and a master’s from SMU.

Graduate students at Monterrey Tech will also be able to come to SMU for a series of three course modules which will go toward a graduate certificate in engineering. If the students complete three certificates plus one other class, they will be awarded a master’s of engineering from SMU.

Currently, there are no plans for SMU students to visit Monterrey Tech. However, the International Office hopes the program will lead to faculty and staff exchanges, collaborative research, joint grant writing, cooperative lecture exchanges and eventually a student exchange program.

The first group of students from Monterrey Tech will be selected by Oct. 15 and will arrive on campus to start the spring semester, said Michael Clarke, director of the International Office.

“Things have progressed so quickly,” Clarke said. “To have them seek us out is a vote of confidence in the quality of education at SMU.”