The Praxis Think Tank, located in the Owens Fine Art Center, offers advertising students a place to work. (Spencer J Eggers/The Daily Campus)
The Temerlin Advertising Institute (TAI) at SMU is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
TAI is the first endowed program in advertising in the country. with some of the highest quality-advertising professors.
Established in October 2001, TAI is named in honor of Liener Temerlin, founder of TM Advertising, industry pioneer and philanthropic and civic leader of the Dallas community.
The Dallas advertising community is extremely supportive of TAI. Many of these professions volunteer as guest speakers, teach in the program and offer internships to TAI majors.
“Advertising is a dynamic and exciting major,” Advertising professor Dr. Steve Edwards said.
According to Edwards, advertising, “exists at the crossroads” of communication, business, psychology, computer science and art.
In the past three years, TAI has started a new graduate program, which focuses on responsibility.
Many of the TAI majors love the academic program because of the emphasis on the creative application of advertising study.
“Advertising is a balanced mix of art and business and I am allowed to use creativity in all of my classes,” senior Kate Elpers said. “I enjoy working with professors that have real industry experience.”
After taking “Introduction to Advertising” as a sophomore, Megan Lee became interested in the creative aspects behind the subject.
“Before that, I had never really thought of it as a career, I always assumed marketing and advertising were the same thing,” Lee said. “I ended up joining the creative department.”
Lee believes the creative side of advertising, as opposed to the account route, isn’t about selling the product, but about creating a new outlook at an already established brand or idea.
TAI students have won many awards and received recognition for their advertising achievement, such as two national and four district championships in the National Student Advertising Competition sponsored by the American Advertising Federation. Other awards include the ADDYs, the One Show for Art & Copy and Chipotle’s 30 Seconds of Fame National Ad Competition.
Students have also won prestigious industry-related internships and fellowships including the American Association of Advertising Agencies Multicultural Internship, American Advertising Federation Most Promising Minority Student Awards and American Advertising Federation Stickell Internships.
Through TAI students have also had the opportunity for international immersion experiences for advertising in India. Partnering with the DDB-endowed Mudra Institute of Communications in Ahmedabad, TAI was the first advertising program to establish a long-term agreement with an Indian institution of higher education.
“We imbue students with a sense that advertising can be better than it is currently and that it can be used to change the world for the better,” Edwards said.
