Southwestern University - Definition and Overview

Southwestern University is a private selective, four-year, undergraduate liberal arts college located in Georgetown, Texas, USA

Campus

Southwestern is located on a 700 acre campus in Central Texas about 30 miles north of Austin in Georgetown.

Notable buildings

• Cullen Building (formerly called the Administration Building) was completed in 1896 and houses the administration, admissions office, business office, and classrooms. Throughout different times in its history, it has also housed the campus auditorium, gymnasium, chapel, and library.
• Mood-Bridwell Hall, originally a men's dormitory, was completed in 1908 and houses classrooms, office space, and a large indoor atrium.
• The Lois Perkins Chapel was built in 1950 and includes a pipe organ and stained glass windows depicting Reformation leaders and the educational institutions they were affiliated with along the east and west sides.
• The A. Frank Smith Library Center was opened originally in 1939 as the Cody Memorial Library as part of a WPA project. It was expanded in 1966 and again in 1989, receiving the new name as a result of the second expansion.
• The McCombs Campus Center opened in 1998, replacing the Bishops' Memorial Student Union Building and University Commons, which includes dining facilities, the campus bookstore, ballrooms, and student organization offices.

Organization

The university offers 37 majors and 33 minors in the Brown School of Arts and Sciences and the Sarofim School of Fine Arts, including offerings for pre-professional programs in Athletic Training, Law, Medicine, and Theology.

Faculty and students

As of 2004, 1,265 undergraduate students were enrolled, with 125 faculty. The class of 2008 has a male to female ratio of 2:3, with SAT scores of the middle 50% between 1180 and 1340. The class comes from 17 different states, but with a vast majority from the state of Texas.

Sports, clubs, and traditions

Southwestern is a member of the NCAA Division III Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. The school mascot is the pirate. Southwestern has not played football since the late 1940's, after the program fizzled following World War II. During the war years of 1944 and 1945 and the Navy's V-12 program based at Southwestern, the Pirates won the Sun Bowl in El Paso, TX.

Southwestern hosts several national social fraternities and sororities, including the fraternities Phi Delta Theta, Kappa Sigma, Pi Kappa Alpha, and Kappa Alpha, along with sororities Alpha Delta Pi, Delta Delta Delta, Alpha Xi Delta, and Zeta Tau Alpha. Over the past couple decades, the Greek dominance of social life has been phased out, with fewer than a third of campus belonging to the social Greek organizations, especially following the four year suspension of the Kappa Alpha order on campus. There are also over 100 student organizations on campus, from political to special interest groups. The school also hosts chapters of several academic honor organizations, including Alpha Chi, and Phi Beta Kappa. The national co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega also has a chapter.

History

Founded in 1840 by the United Methodist Church, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in Texas, continuing the charters granted by the Legislature (Texas Congress 1836-1845) to Rutersville College in 1840, Wesleyan College of Saint Augustine, Texas in 1844, McKenzie College of Clarksville, Texas in 1848, and Soule University of Chappell Hill, Texas in 1856. None of these four institutions lasted very long, but in 1873, the union of these four institutions opened in Georgetown as Texas University. Wanting the name for a state school of nearly the same name, the University of Texas, in Austin, the state granted the new university a charter in 1875 under the name of Southwestern University continuing in the tradition of the original charter for Rutersville.

Southwestern was a charter member of the Southwest Conference in 1915 and for decades the main sports rival was Southern Methodist University as remembrance over the near-removal of Southwestern to Dallas, leading to the founding of United Methodism's second institution of higher learning in Texas. SMU, however, grew to the point of no longer being near Southwestern in size. In the 1970's and 1980's, Southwestern transformed itself into a small liberal arts institution, getting rid of its post-graduate degrees and completely rebuilding campus with a massive capital campaign. The endowment also rose substantially, as did academic standards.

Noted alumni

• John Tower U.S. Senator from Texas
• Pete Sessions U.S. Congressman from Texas
• Red McCombs Businessman
• Mike Timlin Baseball Player
• J. Frank Dobie Author

References

Jones, Ralph Wood (1973). "Southwestern University 1840-1961". Austin: San Felipe Press.

Southwestern University (2000-2004). http://www.southwestern.edu/