Of the university's roughly 11,000 students, around 6,000 are undergraduates. 20% classify themselves as "minorities", and half of the student body claims religious
affiliation (despite the university's name, only 14% of its students claim affiliation with the Methodist church).The school's sports teams, known as the Mustangs, participate in NCAA Division I (I-A for football) as a member of the Western Athletic Conference. The team was once a national powerhouse before its football
program received the "death penalty" for NCAA violations and will soon leave the WAC to join Conference USA. The men's soccer
program is currently competing in the Missouri
Valley Conference, but that arrangement will likely end with the move to C-USA, as that conference (unlike the WAC) sponsors
men's soccer.In the television show
Dallas the
character of Lucy Ewing was a student at Southern Methodist University, and several scenes were shot on location in the main
quad.Dallas Hall is registered in the National Registry of Historic Places. A scene from "Born on the Fourth of July" was shot
around the exterior of the west wing of Dallas Hall.