www.smu.edu/humanrights
Professor of Practice Rick Halperin, Director
The SMU Human Rights Program offers an interdisciplinary program introducing students to the study of universally recognized civil, political, economic, social and cultural human rights. The program offers human rights majors lecture programs, internships, independent research projects, and the opportunity to participate in educational travel programs to study human rights issues worldwide.
The human rights major consists of 30 credit hours of coursework related to human rights and at least 11 credit hours in any one world language. Students may also demonstrate proficiency in a world language through testing or other approved means. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the study of human rights, students are required to take a second major or a minor in a related field. No more than 6 credit hours taken for the human rights major can be counted towards any other major or minor. Students must also select three elective courses from the approved elective list below (or they may substitute other courses as approved by the director).
SMU Degree Requirements
An SMU undergraduate degree requires a minimum of 120 credit hours and must include completion of the University’s Common Curriculum , one major and a combination of electives and/or other majors or minors. Completion of certain majors requires more than 120 hours to finish the degree. The credit hours within this curriculum are distributed as follows: