On the Hilltop, Another Homage to Caruth Family

At SMU this afternoon, school officials, trustees, and representatives from the Communities Foundation unveiled the four-floor, 64,000-square-foot Caruth Hall. Adorned with neoclassical columns, a golden cuppola, and a tasteful red brick facade (surprise, surprise), the building sits on the site of an original Caruth Hall.

The name only makes sense, as construction was funded in large part by the $7.5 million donation from the W.W. Caruth Foundation at the Communities Foundation of Texas (that’s not counting the $5 million given for the establishment of the Caruth Institute for Engineering) and $2 million from the Hillcrest Foundation, which was founded by Earle Clark Caruth. Not to mention that the availability of the Caruth homestead played a large part in convincing the Methodist Church to located their national university in Dallas, said SMU president Gerald Turner.

“Most of you here who know the history of this university know that we would not be where we are today without the Caruth farm,” he said.

Turner, SMU alumnus and $4 million donor Robert Palmer, and Bobby Lyle, for whom the engineering school is named, and others addressed the crowd gathered around a concrete amphitheater on the eastern side of the building, which will house the computer science and engineering management, information, and systems departments.

Caruth Hall joins the Junkins Engineering Building and Embrey Engineering Building, opened in 2002 and 2006, respectively, on the engineering quad (or triangle, whichever).

2 thoughts on “On the Hilltop, Another Homage to Caruth Family

  • April 16, 2010 at 10:11 pm
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    for pete’s sake,
    how many gold cupolas
    can one campus have?

    Reply
  • April 17, 2010 at 3:37 pm
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    @peter griffin:

    That’s almost a haiku.

    Reply

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