Happenings on the Hill
Call it SMU/Mockingbird Station
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) has renamed Mockingbird Station after reaching an agreement with SMU.
Calling it SMU/Mockingbird station will make it easy for visitors to find the campus and make DART a significant gateway to the university, DART and university officials said.
“Taking DART to SMU/Mockingbird Station is an easy way to get to a wide variety of SMU events – from Division I sporting events, to lectures and artistic performances, as well as to the George W. Bush Presidential Center,” SMU president R. Gerald Turner said.
Approximately 2,800 riders travel through the SMU/Mockingbird Station on an average weekday, and DART’s Mustang Express provides service to the campus for about 500 passengers each weekday.
The station is located at Mockingbird Lane and North Central Expressway.
Gretchen Carlson to Lecture
Gretchen Carlson, journalist, author, and advocate, will give the 20th annual. Rosine Smith Sammons Lecture in Media Ethics at SMU at 8 p.m. Oct. 2, in Caruth Auditorium in the Owen Arts Center, 6101 Bishop Blvd.
Carlson became the face of sexual harassment in the workplace in 2016 after her complaint against the chairman of Fox News. Since then, she has graced the covers of both Time and Good Housekeeping magazines.
Named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and author of bestsellers Be Fierce and Getting Real, Carlson is a successful and recognized news anchor and advocate for equality and empowerment of women.
This free lecture series is funded by an endowment from the Rosine Foundation Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas. Past speakers have included Pulitzer-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer, media lawyer and author Bruce Sanford, and Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez.
Democrats and Climate Policy
Two faculty experts at SMU offer differing takes on the climate proposals of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
Bonnie Jacobs, professor of paleobotany, favors decisive moves that slow down, if not reverse, the build-up of greenhouse gases that she feels are at the core of climate change today and going forward.
“The physics of the link between greenhouse gases and warming is indisputable, like gravity, and simply choosing to believe that greenhouse gases and climate change are unrelated is choosing the path of wishful thinking,” she said.
But associate professor of energy law James Coleman warns that some of the democratic candidates’ plans seem likely to crush U.S. energy and squander the environmental benefits of the American energy boom.
Common democratic plans such as a ban on oil and gas drilling on federal lands, the “Green New Deal,” and a ban on fracking and exports, could cost the American public trillions of dollars.
Such approaches could crush the U.S. energy industry, harm the climate, and pollute the air by locking away clean-burning natural gas, he said.
Cultural Intelligence
Best-selling author and podcaster Malcolm Gladwell is set to discuss his new book Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About People We Don’t Know at 8 p.m. Oct. 7 at SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium.
His book uses well-known scandals and stories from history to illustrate why interactions with strangers go wrong and how to make them go right. To help tell his stories, he references high profile cases such as Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff, Amanda Knox, and Sandra Bland. 
Gladwell’s lecture is part of SMU’s Bridge Builders lecture series, presented by the cultural intelligence initiative, CIQ@SMU. The series is designed to highlight the work of those who have dedicated their lives to building bridges across a widening cultural divide.
Senior adviser to SMU provost on cultural intelligence Maria Dixon Hall said that having the lecture series brings SMU students, faculty, and staff to a bridge over the very troubled water of cultural identity.
–Compiled by Tanika Turner
