English Professor Willard Spiegelman's discernment in literature has earned the respect of PEN America through one of its prestigious awards. Spiegelman, editor of Southwest Review for more than 20 years, received the PEN Nora Magid Award in May 2006. Judges described the journal published at SMU as "one of the best literary quarterlies in the United States."

Born profoundly deaf, SMU film student Kimby Caplan grew up resisting her silent world. She tells her story in her Master’s thesis film, “Listen”, which won the Student Academy Awards’ bronze medal in June 2005. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented the award in the documentary category.

Texas Instruments donated 75 years of company archives to SMU’s DeGolyer Library. The historic materials include early models of some of TI’s most successful products, such as the Speak & Spell educational toy, transistor radios and hand-held calculators. The family of the late Jack St. Clair Kilby also donated his archives, including the Nobel Prize he won for his invention of the integrated circuit.

SMU paleontologists have identified a new prehistoric lizard that completes an evolutionary puzzle. The lizard, christened Dallasaurus, represents a missing link in the evolution of a group of animals called mosasaurs. Mosasaurs began as land creatures but evolved into sea animals that dominated the oceans 92 million years ago, at the same time dinosaurs lived on land.

Twenty Perkins School of Theology students spent three weeks in January exploring Christianity in Palestine and Israel as part of a new program in global theological education. Students attended seminars at the International Center of Bethlehem and exchanged ideas with Christian, Jewish and Islamic students. Other Perkins students traveled to Mexico City to study the culture of Mexican Methodism with a focus on ministry to the aging.

U.S. News & World Report gave Cox School of Business and Dedman School of Law top rankings in its 2007 America’s Best Graduate Schools guidebook. Cox increased its standings in all of its rankings, rising to No. 10 for its professional M.B.A. program and to No. 14 for its executive M.B.A. program. The full-time M.B.A. program ranked 41. Dedman School of Law increased its national ranking, rising from 52 to 43.

Students with limited English skills typically lag 34 to 50 points behind their peers on standardized tests. A new model for bilingual instruction developed by Shelly Wright, lecturer, School of Education and Human Development, addresses this problem by combining content and language. Kathleen Leos, assistant deputy secretary, U.S. Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition, lauded the model when she spoke to SMU bilingual educators.

The J. Lindsay Embrey Engineering Building is a model of green design and energy efficiency. The building is a living laboratory for environmental, civil and mechanical engineering students and faculty. Projected to be the first Gold Level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) facility on a Texas campus, the Embrey Building is designed to reduce energy costs by 30 percent. Engineering students helped design the building, which opened for classes in August 2006.

Three SMU students won $3 million in the August 2006 season finale of the NBC reality show Treasure Hunters. Known as The Geniuses, the team eliminated nine other teams by cracking codes and solving puzzles at historical locations around the globe. Senior Sam Khurana, junior Francis Goldshmid and Charles Taylor (’06) have near-perfect SAT scores, multiple majors and high GPAs. All three plan to use their winnings to further their education and help their families.

Six innovative professors received SMU’s 2006 Ford Fellowship awards to fund their studies and creative achievement: Shelley Berg, associate professor of dance; Gary Evans, professor of electrical engineering; Raj Sethuraman, associate professor of marketing; and Ryszard Stroynowski, professor of physics. Paige Ware, assistant professor of education, and Lisa Pon, assistant professor of art history, received the Early Career Ford Fellowship. SMU Trustee Gerald J. Ford provides funding for the awards.

SMU received the American Football Coaches Association’s 2006 Academic Achievement Award, which is presented annually by the Touchdown Club of Memphis. The school recorded a 100 percent graduation rate when all members of its freshman class of 2000-2001 earned a degree.