The Department of Music at Southern Methodist University began with six faculty and 50 students led by Dean Kirk Towns when the university opened in 1915. The following year, the department became the School of Music. Music was the primary focus of the School and only offered courses toward the Bachelor of Music degree. There were no studies in theater, dance, or visual arts; however, the Arden Club provided students extracurricular experience in theater.

Until McFarlin Memorial Auditorium was constructed in 1926, the School of Music met and performed in Dallas and Atkins Halls. Student performing groups in the early years included the men’s Glee Club, women’s Choral Club and the Oratorio Society. Enrollment in the school grew rapidly from the initial fifty students in 1915 to over two hundred in 1927, and new courses, such as Public School Music and Appreciation of Music, were added as the program grew. In 1945 the Graduate Department of the School of Music was founded, offering degrees in Applied Music and Music Education.

Due to a flowering of student interest in the arts, in 1964 SMU reorganized the School of Music, adding courses in theatre and art and renaming it the School of the Arts. Aided by the philanthropy of donors, including Charles S. Sharp, Algur H. Meadows and Edmund W. Mudge, Jr., the Owens Arts Center was built during the 1960s to house the expanding School of the Arts. Additionally, in 1969 Texas oilman Algur H. Meadows pledged to donate $8 million dollars for the endowment of the School of the Arts, and it was at this time that the School was renamed the Meadows School of the Arts in his honor. Over the years the Meadows School of the Arts has grown apace with the University, adding new fields of study in areas including advertising, arts management, communication studies, and film and media arts.