Policy stifles patriotic display
My name is Joe Magliolo, and I am a first year student living in the Cockrell-McIntosh Residence Hall. My roommate, Max Meggs, and I created a CD with many patriotic songs including versions of the National Anthem, “God Bless America,” speeches by President Bush, and other various American songs to play on September 11th. We placed speakers at the windows in order to allow the entire quad to hear this music during the day.
Despite our efforts, we were told at midday to turn off the music, that such a practice is considered “against policy?” This angered me a great deal. It would be a salient policy if the music were in any way offensive or obscene, but this was patriotic music designed to allow the listener to remember that day, and feel proud about being American. The music was barely audible in our own hallway when the doors were closed(which they were all day long). It was a disgusting use of “policy?” to muffle an attempt at patriotism.
Joe Magliolo
First Year
Remembering Robert Dedman
On Aug. 19, SMU lost perhaps its best (and certainly its most generous) friend, Robert Henry Dedman. Most SMU students never met Dedman, but all recent SMU students have benefited from his generosity. Every student who goes to the Lifetime Sports Center, or takes a course in Dedman College, or enters the Dedman Life Sciences Building benefits from Dedman’s generosity. Every student enrolled in the Dedman School of Law benefits from his generosity. All totaled, this generosity to SMU adds up to $77 million, a figure so large as to be unreal to most of us.
In addition to these millions for SMU, Dedman also gave millions to the RHD Hospital in North Dallas, to the University of Texas (both Austin and Southwestern Medical Center), and to a host of other charities.
But Robert Dedman’s legacy is much larger and more important than the amount of money he gave away, even though that amount is very large indeed. Dedman was well aware of Mark 12:41-44, and he was quite humble about his generosity. He believed that his greatest achievement was not that he gave away a vast fortune but rather that he set an example for how one should live. Dedman was born in Raison, Arkansas, where he lived until he moved to Dallas to attend high school. His family had a great deal of pride, but very little money. Dedman sent himself through college and law school at UT Austin and then through an LLM from the SMU law school that now bears his name.
He had many goals, the most important being the commitment to his wife Nancy, whom he met at SMU, his son, Bob (who holds both an MBA and a JD from SMU), his daughter, Patty (who holds an MA in psychology from SMU), and his five grandchildren. But his goals extended well beyond his family. Early on, he had a life plan for generosity: to give away a million dollars before he was forty and to give away $100 million over his lifetime. He exceeded both goals.
Dedman frequently said, “There are no luggage racks on hearses.” He knew that his success would be measured not in what he made, but in what he gave away. Over the years he taught me to be considerate, to look at every situation through the eyes of everyone involved in the situation. This would not necessarily change my opinion or my goal, but it would help me understand how to shape my opinions and my goals so as to make them as effective as possible.
He taught me that part of my job was to promote Dedman College and SMU, and he constantly worked to help me do that. Frequently we played tennis at his house, and he always tried to arrange matches that would put me in contact with people who could and would help the College and the University. He gave me ideas in such a subtle way that it usually took me several months to realize I had not thought of them myself.
He showed almost on a moment-by-moment basis how one could maintain an excellent, self-deflating sense of humor while at the same time setting very difficult goals. Above all, he reminded me constantly through his own life that my life would be satisfying just to the extent that it was spent working for others.
None of us yet knows how much we will miss his wit and his insight. Without question we have lost one of our most tireless promoters. But I can see the twinkle in Dedman’s eye as he would say in his off-handed, self-deprecating way, “What I did was just a beginning. Others will continue what I have begun.”
He would be happy that we miss him so much, but he would smile at our fears that we cannot succeed without him. I know he would smile because I know how optimistic he was every time he visited campus and saw the extraordinary group of students preparing to pick up where he would leave off.
Jasper Neel
Dean of Dedman College
