Ensuring Student Success

Meet Lori S. White, the new vice president for student affairs at SMU. Dr. White oversees student life programs including residence halls, student activities; judicial affairs; campus ministries; health and wellness programs; career services; the Hughes-Trigg Student Center and Dedman Center for Lifetime Sports. She also will have an adjunct faculty appointment in SMU's School of Education and Human Development.


What are your goals for the Division of Student Affairs?
We are embarking on a strategic planning process, which will be carried out in concert with the University's strategic plan, and its three fundamental principles are student success, student learning and being an exemplary student affairs division.

We want to ensure that all students are successful, but "success" means more than graduation and retention. Those are important, but we also want to make sure that every student who comes to SMU has the opportunity to connect with all of the wonderful programs and resources, and that we touch every student.

One of the mistakes people make when they think about what we do in Student Affairs, is that our work is only planning student activities or preventing students from getting in trouble. Really, we are also educators, and we're about facilitating student learning and engagement. We want to put student learning at the forefront of what we do in the same way a professor would do.

And third, our goal is to be a model division of student affairs. We want to make sure that when we go to conferences where people are looking for innovative ideas and programs, they say, "Go find out what's happening at SMU so we can replicate that at our school!"


What are the strengths of the campus experience at SMU?
At SMU we are small enough to create a wonderfully personal experience for students but large enough to have a wealth of resources. We're in an urban environment, which allows students the full advantage of a city: the opportunity to do internships, to find what the challenges are in an urban environment and to be exposed to big business and philanthropy. Another advantage is the fact that we are growing as a national university.


How can student affairs and academic affairs work together?
We need to be tied at the hip because, again, when students reflect on their experiences, they see us as one university. It's not, "I had this experience in student affairs and I had this experience in academic affairs." It's "I had this educational experience. I had this learning experience. I had this great experience," and so the closer that the student affairs division and the academic affairs division work together to create this educational holistic experience for students, the better students feel about their SMU experience and the more enriching that I think it is.


What makes SMU distinctive in developing student leadership?
Developing student leadership is ingrained in the culture of SMU. We are one of the very few institutions with a voting student member of the board of trustees. Our student code of conduct is written by students with the support of University administrators, whereas at many universities, students don't have much input. The Family Weekend program is planned wholly by students. We have almost 200 organizations that students can participate in, and students can serve as residence assistants and orientation advisers, among other positions. It is an SMU value that students are involved in governing the affairs of the institution and that SMU considers the voice of students before making major decisions.



How can SMU grow school spirit?
Well, the teams have to win! Somehow, winning teams have a way of bonding students, faculty and staff and alumni to the institution. That aside, we have lots of wonderful traditions at SMU that people rally around – the Celebration of Lights, Homecoming and Family Weekend. So I think there is school spirit at SMU, maybe it just doesn't play out in the traditional way when people think of 80,000 fans heading to the football stadium.


What has changed about parent involvement during your career?
I've been working in higher education for the last 27 years, and when I started, the philosophy was: We talk to students; we don't really talk to parents. Clearly that philosophy has evolved. Parents are much more interested in what's going on with their students; students and parents are much closer to one another; and we now understand as a university that in supporting our students, parents play a key role.


What influenced your avid interest in sports?
My mother! I grew up in an all-female household with my mom and two sisters, and when I was a little girl I would hear my mom shouting at the TV on Sundays. She was watching the San Francisco 49ers, and slowly but surely she taught us all about football and basketball, and now we're all huge sports fans.


What do you like about Dallas?
Dallas is just about the right-sized city. As compared to Los Angeles, I have found Dallas very easy to navigate. People complain about the traffic in Dallas, and I say, "But you've never lived in L.A." Dallas has great shopping and great restaurants. And I'm adjusting to the weather.