Perkins School of Theology

The School of Theology at Southern Methodist University was one of the original schools established at the new university upon its opening in 1915. Although SMU was a small, newly-built institution on the distant edges of Dallas at the time, the theology school was expected to assume a prominent place within the Methodist Church. Church leaders intended the school to serve as the principal locale for the training of Methodist clergymen west of the Mississippi, with Emory University in Atlanta serving as the main theology school in the east.

Vanderbilt University, previously affiliated with the Methodist Church, became an independent institution by 1914, and the need for a new theology school to serve the west and southwest regions of the United States led some church leaders to identify Dallas as the desired locale for such a new school. In a circa 1915 letter to Southwestern University President Robert S. Hyer (who shortly thereafter became the first president of SMU), Bishop Seth Ward argued, “I am not fully satisfied with conditions at Vanderbilt and if I were satisfied I think our Church needs another theological school and I am sure it should be located in Dallas.”

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