Jodi and I went to SMU today to do some work on our grant proposals. This happens to also be moving-in weekend, though our end of campus was not at all busy. The science buildings are located on the north end of the SMU campus, behind and to the east of Dallas Hall. The residences are nearby, but apparently all of the moving-in weekend activities were well-contained.
I work in Fondren Science, which houses several departments including chemistry and physics. The whole campus is beautiful, and this end is no exception. Wherever I’ve worked or gone to school for the last 15 years, the sciences tend to be in less pleasant parts of campus. SMU certainly has the best science buildings, mixed with sidewalks, grass, and trees, of any place I’ve worked. While the laboratory facilities themselves still have a way to go to rival Stanford, MIT, Yale, or other schools, the existing buildings with their modern classrooms, labs, and (for physics) renovated offices are a good start.
Next door to Fondren is the Dedman Life Sciences building, housing departments such as biology. Together, Fondren and Dedman form a corner at the northeast edge of the main campus. Dallas Hall, a main administrative and classroom building, is the impressive domed building shown below. This is also the headquarters of Dedman College, which contains the sciences as one cluster out of of many more departments.
This coming week is the first week of classes, starting on Wednesday. Jodi will teach her first two classes this week; her course this semester is a Cosmology class for advanced undergraduates. I’m excited and nervous for her, since I won’t be teaching until second semester. We also have convocation on Tuesday, the traditional and formal kickoff to the new year welcoming new students. For Jodi and I, this will be preceded by our first faculty meeting.
On top of all of this, we are finalizing our Early Career Award applications so we can present them to the Research office for completion of our application package. Both of us have a lot of work to do before these applications are in the right shape, but it has to get done because the deadline is Sept. 1.
Now begins the real effort of faculty life, as we rush into meetings and teaching, grants and hiring, recruiting and researching.
