Summary of Remarks to the General Faculty Meeting

January 17, 2007

Summary of Remarks to the General Faculty Meeting By SMU President R. Gerald Turner

Background

The election of George W. Bush as President in November 2000 gave SMU the opportunity to be among the few universities in the nation to have a Presidential Library on its campus. Several other universities emerged as competitors: UT-Austin, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, the University of Dallas and UT-Arlington in partnership with the city of Arlington.

A Library Site Selection Committee was formed, headed by former Secretary of Commerce Don Evans and including as members Marvin Bush; Craig Stapleton, ambassador to France; and Andrew Card, former White House chief of staff.

After being selected one of three finalists with UD and Baylor, SMU was notified December 20 that the committee would enter into further discussions focusing on this University.

The universities competing for the Library saw many benefits associated with the project.

The major motivation of some competitors was economic development, as has been seen with the Clinton Library and the revitalization of Little Rock. In fact, developers near SMU are already investing in projects and using the proposed Library in their marketing.

A second reason cited is increased national visibility. In its first year, the Clinton Library and Museum received 500,000 visitors; second year attendance records are similar, minus the large crowd assembled for the opening.

All of the competing institutions have seen the Library as an opportunity to make their strengths and offerings known to a broader audience, consisting of many who would never visit those campuses except for the Library. Over half of the visitors to such facilities are schoolchildren, and the competing institutions, including SMU, rightfully saw student recruitment opportunities associated with those visits.

There are only 12 Presidential Libraries in existence. With three in Texas, SMU could anticipate a healthy number of summertime visitors and vacationers to come to campus when general university activities are at their lowest. Increased recognition of our strengths and the ability to reach a broader audience are both compatible with SMU’s recruitment, as well as fund-raising, goals.

From the standpoint of a research university, the most important benefit is the enhancement of academic resources and professional interactions that a Library, Museum and Institute can bring. This Presidential Library will be a treasure trove of documents and artifacts dealing with one of the most intense and controversial periods in U.S. history. The more controversial the decisions of a President, the more valuable the resources of a Presidential Library become for historians, public policy analysts and other researchers who will want to examine the decision-making behind that administration’s policies. The expectation is that the materials of the 43^rd President will be some of the most scrutinized documents in the history of Presidential Libraries. It is impossible to calculate the value of having this material at facilities on campus and having access to the thousands of scholars who will visit over time. Many of these researchers will be colleagues of our faculty from other institutions who will engage in dialogue and also will learn more about the strengths of SMU through visits to the Library. For these reasons, the competing institutions have valued and desired the academic resources and scholarly interactions that the Library will provide.

Materials generally are released in phases, ensuring that there will be heightened attention to the Library and its components well beyond their opening events.

Presidential Libraries and Museums are operated by the federal government, through the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which is headed by the national archivist. When the Library and Museum are built to federal standards, the federal government appropriates funds for the Library and for the basic operations of the Museum. A Presidential Foundation provides additional funding to the Museum for rotating exhibits beyond what federal funding would allow. No private Presidential Foundation runs the archives of a Presidential Library, since it is under the authority of the national archivist.

Some Presidential Libraries also are associated with academic components, such as a school, funded by the Presidential Foundation or the hosting university. The George H.W. Bush School of Public Service at Texas A&M is basically funded by that university. The Jimmy Carter Center associated with Emory University is funded through the Carter Foundation and other private sources.

In its request for proposals, the Library Selection Committee called for an Institute for research and dialogue on issues of importance to President Bush. The most notable model would seem to be the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

The Academic Planning Committee now consisting of 15 SMU faculty members helped to draft the proposal section dealing with a school. Once we received the request for a proposal indicating an Institute, the Academic Planning Committee reconvened to focus on a proposed Institute. The Library Selection Committee felt that having two such schools in Texas – the Bush School at A&M and the LBJ School at UT-Austin – was sufficient. (The Institute is discussed at greater length in subsequent sections of this summary.)

It is unknown at this time how long the discussion process will take with the Library Selection Committee. The first decision will be whether we have an appropriate site for the Library. If there is agreement on that issue, we will develop a memorandum of understanding or a joint operating agreement among SMU, NARA and the Bush Foundation. Also expressed in the agreement will be the nature of SMU’s interaction with the Library, Museum and Institute.

In 2001 the SMU Board of Trustees created a Presidential Library Task Force to oversee development of our proposal. At its December meeting the Board further charged the Task Force with overseeing the final stage of discussions and added legal representation to the Task Force. However, as president of SMU, I am expected to head those discussions. The conversations regarding the potential placement of the Library at SMU have been between Don Evans and me.

I will say as emphatically and forcefully as I can: Any memorandum of understanding or joint operating agreement developed will be consistent with the mission of the University and its values, including academic freedom, and our statement of ethical principles. This is consistent with all other agreements we have with institutions and organizations. As I have stated, the relationship has to be beneficial for all participants – SMU, NARA and the Bush Foundation.

Therefore, I assure you that fears or concerns that the Institute or any other part of the Library will inhibit SMU’s practice of academic freedom and diversity of opinions are unfounded. I will not sign, nor will the Board approve, any proposed agreement that would hinder in any way the academic processes of the University. We are fortunate to be working with Don Evans, who was the chair of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System, and would, therefore, anticipate, understand and appreciate this commitment.

Addressing Faculty Questions

Faculty Senate Chair Rhonda Blair has provided me with the questions resulting from the faculty discussion January 9 and has grouped them into six categories. There will be some overlap, but I will address them in those groupings:

Process

Because discussions leading to an operating agreement or memorandum of understanding have not yet begun, the only commitment SMU has made is for land and appropriate fund-raising support.

The first requirement is for sufficient land for the Library, Museum and Institute meeting the legal standards of the 1955 and subsequent Presidential Libraries Acts and the desires of the Bush Foundation.

Among the three finalists, Baylor has increased its 100-acre pledge to 150 acres, and the University of Dallas has offered 300 acres. Since our campus is not 300 acres in total, unless we include the Taos campus, our land offering is much less. Because we knew this would be the biggest challenge of our proposal, we offered more than one option. We will not make our proposal public in this regard until all agreements have been signed.

Although I will be the point of interaction with the Bush Foundation, final approval of any agreement rests with the SMU Board of Trustees, on which the president of the Faculty Senate sits as a voting member. As topics arise that are related to the faculty or other constituencies, appropriate groups will be utilized, such as the Academic Planning Committee that designed the school proposal and is currently working to develop appropriate interactions between SMU and the Institute.

In summary, there will be a final joint operating agreement among SMU, NARA and the Bush Foundation. This is required by law and will contain the legal relationships between the three entities. I believe this will take several weeks to develop.

Oversight and Influence

As mentioned earlier, NARA will have oversight of the Library and Museum. Although we could spend a great deal of time discussing NARA processes, the size of its budget and how the Library director is selected, neither we nor any other institution hosting Presidential Libraries have much oversight of these issues. One responsibility of the Library director is to make the assets accessible and to encourage programs using the holdings. The director should, therefore, be amenable to proposals from the University to engage our faculty and our graduate and undergraduate students in appropriate ways.

As with all Presidential Libraries, it is the President’s prerogative to decide whether to have an institute, school, center or any other additional component of the Library and Museum. It is clear that the Bush Institute will focus on topics of interest to President Bush; to expect otherwise would be unrealistic. This would be true whether the President were liberal or conservative. One would expect those areas of emphasis to match issues reflected in the archives of the Library as well.

In addition, the Institute will want to hire independently its fellows to address its areas of focus. Since this approach would fall outside of University practices and standards, it is advantageous for the Institute to be independent of the University. This separation allows the University to meet its goals and preserve its values and the Bush Foundation to meet its goals.

The Bush Foundation will appoint the director of the Institute, and the Institute will appoint the Institute fellows. It will be important, however, for every oversight and advising board related to the Library and its components, including the board of the Bush Foundation, to have University representation on it, so that a University point of view will be available, unless that is inappropriate for some legal reason. In many instances, the University would be best represented by the president of the University or a member of the SMU Board of Trustees. In other cases, we might best be represented by the provost, the dean of libraries, or others.

In the long view, the Institute will be an important asset to the University, the city of Dallas and beyond. It will generate a continuous flow of programs, conferences and symposia bringing public officials and scholars to discuss topics within the Institute’s areas of focus. SMU would have access to these visitors as well as to the scholars and fellows who are part of the Institute.

If the political philosophies of any President are to be enunciated or defended effectively, strong and reputable scholarship will have to be brought to the Institute. I would assume that the work of some Institute fellows might stimulate a healthy number of presentations, papers and books from some of you, activities that will enhance the scholarly reputation of SMU. The University should have within its discourse both liberal and conservative perspectives, each protected by our commitment to diversity and academic freedom. I would anticipate that the impact of professors in relevant academic departments will grow through participation in Institute programs or the presentation of different views and approaches. There should be a wide range of academic areas that could potentially benefit from visiting scholars and public officials residing at the Institute.

Another opportunity is for joint appointments between the Institute and the University. Any joint appointment would be required to follow the appropriate academic processes of the University. Therefore, any joint appointments will be under the control of the University. The Academic Planning Committee made up of 15 of your colleagues is now at work to determine appropriate categories of joint appointment and to review our academic processes to ensure that both are appropriate for overseeing this type of appointment. Consistent with approved procedures for senior positions, the faculty of any department, the dean and the provost would all be involved. The procedures for the appointment of adjunct faculty also will be reviewed for their appropriateness to that category of fellow. (Joint appointments would not follow the procedures used for University-wide academic appointments, which do not fall under departmental control.)

SMU’s oversight of the joint appointment process will challenge the Institute to appoint serious, reputable scholars who can receive this honor. In addition, it may challenge some of our departments to evaluate proposed joint appointments on the quality of a fellow’s scholarship, and not on whether one or more of the department members agree with that individual politically.

It is worth repeating: Any joint appointment for a fellow of the Institute will be under the oversight of the University’s academic processes. This standard is a crucial component of how the Institute and the University can co-exist in structural independence, yet mutually thrive.

Faculty Autonomy and Agency

Many of these issues are addressed above. As stated, joint appointments will be subject to University procedures and standards and will be approved by the appropriate department, dean and the provost.

Over time I would expect the director of the Institute to initiate conversations with appropriate academic departments early in the process of recruiting fellows to the Institute because many of these individuals will come from academic backgrounds and will want a relationship with the University. It will be in the best interest of both University and Institute for this type of interaction to occur quickly.

It has yet to be determined how much operations endowment will be raised for the Institute. Also, the extent to which endowments will be developed within the University for joint appointments is not known at this time, although I expect such endowments to be created. However, I can see instances in which a department may well decide, on its own, to provide for a joint appointment out of current funds to meet particular departmental needs. Again, that will be determined by the department.

Financial Issues

The Bush Foundation will oversee fund-raising for the Bush Presidential Library. I expect to serve on the Executive Committee for that purpose, with supporters of the President from Dallas and across the country. The committee will be led by Don Evans, as chair of the Bush Foundation.

SMU will provide assistance as needed, such as helping the Foundation and Institute get settled in temporary quarters, but we do not anticipate running the fund-raising for the Library. The Bush Foundation will hire a professional fund-raising team to coordinate this effort. The recent new hirings in our Office of Development are to prepare for our upcoming Centennial Campaign.

The University will provide land for the Library through a long-term lease. Some of the land within the possible sites has been owned for some time by SMU; other parts have been purchased by private gifts or by institutional funds. As you know, for several years it has been our policy to purchase adjacent land for future University use.

Construction of the buildings will be paid for by funds raised under the leadership of the Bush Foundation. The Foundation must turn over to the federal government the facilities that NARA will oversee. Whatever facilities are built for the Institute will be funded by the Bush Foundation and retained by the Foundation, which will operate the Institute’s facilities. The operation of the Library and Museum will be at the expense of the federal government.

The Library, Museum and Institute will be built based upon the level of funding achieved. The Bush Foundation has not announced its fund-raising goal for construction and endowment. However, both our Board of Trustees and the Bush Foundation Board of Trustees would expect this fund-raising program to provide for all of the construction expenses.

As I have said on many occasions, I believe that fund-raising for the Centennial Campaign and the Bush Library will be synergistic. Fund-raising is a momentum-based activity built upon the acceptance of a vision by potential donors and an understanding that their efforts can help the vision to be achieved. An overwhelming majority of our major donors support the Bush Library being at SMU. I would expect a number of them to contribute to its construction and endowment and to the endowment of joint programs.

I also expect most, if not all, to be very supportive of our Centennial Campaign. At this stage of the competitive process, our not receiving the Library would have a detrimental effect on the Centennial Campaign because of the significant disappointment in losing it. Doing so could undermine donors’ confidence in the ability of us all to compete at a national level for what is viewed as a tremendous asset for both SMU and Dallas.

Although this may surprise you, we have almost no donors uniquely committed to SMU. Dallas is an incredibly generous city, in which a group of socially responsible families and individuals (some say 500, others 1,000 families) fund almost everything. Most of our major donors also support UT-Southwestern, UT-Austin, or Baylor Medical Center, the Salvation Army, or the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and other institutions that improve the quality of life in Dallas. The same is true of Houston and other out-of-Dallas donors. SMU friends of President and Mrs. Bush will support the Library, no matter where it is located. So why not have that investment come to our campus?

However, in conversations over the past few years, I have reminded these donors that we will be depending on them to participate in our Centennial Campaign. Some have already made pledges; most who have not said they intend to do so. But some who play their cards close to the vest for any project simply said that they “understood.”

To reiterate, people give to successful enterprises. The crucial ingredients in encouraging gifts are the vision of the University, its momentum and the confidence that donors have in its leadership and those who fulfill its mission. If we obtain the Bush Library, we will have a very important asset added to our campus community, with the majority of it paid for by individuals around the country who would never give a dollar to SMU. That fact and the synergistic effect of the Library and Centennial Campaign make for a double win for the University.

Security

The federal government is responsible for providing security for Presidential Libraries and Museums. We have worked with the Office of Homeland Security and other national agencies in the preparation of our proposal. In addition, Homeland Security visited campus for a week in 2005 to examine and evaluate any security issues related to our infrastructure. We have sent our chief of police, Mike Snellgrove, to the FBI Academy not only to extend his knowledge but also to strengthen our relationship with this and other federal agencies. The Secret Service and other security groups will work with whoever receives the Library to provide the greatest security possible. Since 9-11, security for all Presidential Libraries has been enhanced, and we know it will be a major consideration for construction and operation of this Library.

Reputation

Over time having the unique assets of the Library, Museum and Institute will bring many scholars and visitors to campus who otherwise would not learn about SMU, our strengths and the achievements of our faculty and students. As we all know, when such visitors come to our campus, they invariably leave with a favorable opinion of SMU.

Any marketing expert will tell you that the publicity surrounding our receiving the Presidential Library will significantly elevate the national and international visibility of the University. In many ways, it will be up to us how well we take advantage of this opportunity to enhance the awareness of the quality of our academic departments and the quality of the research emanating from them on topics relevant to the Library’s resources and Institute’s areas of emphases. Over time, the political aspects of the Library and Institute will fade, and the historical importance of the issues will ascend.

In summary, I will head up SMU’s discussions with the Library Selection Committee with the involvement of the Task Force created by the Board of Trustees. Any point at which the programs of the Library, Museum and in particular the Institute intersect with the University – and these are expected to be primarily in the creation of appropriate joint appointments – these intersections will be under control of the academic processes of the University. The shared academic values of SMU will be affirmed during this process.

We have before us a rare opportunity to augment significantly the national and international recognition of our University, bring resources for research and professional interaction that will invigorate academic discourse and dramatically enhance resources available to our social sciences and other academic areas. All the while, we will be providing a service to our community and our nation.

The key question for some is whether they can separate their political opposition to the administration’s policies and actions from the long-term value of having the Bush Library here. I have tried to address the structural and operational questions that you have understandably and appropriately asked. I have stated that any agreement will affirm the values of the University consistent with the Methodist heritage in higher education. Such dialogue is appropriate and is the very DNA of academic institutions. However, I cannot, nor have I tried, to answer the political differences with the Bush Administration that have been enunciated. Only time will tell which position is correct on some of these issues. But I do know this: the analyses on which these conclusions will be based will emerge from the sources of the Bush Presidential Library.

Hosting the Library is in the best interests of SMU. It builds and continues our institutional momentum; it affirms and provides resources for academic and historical views of how the nation’s leaders and their policies will be evaluated; and it ensures the integrity of the academy by having the Library’s interactions with the University conducted consistent with our institutional values.

I look forward to continuing conversations with the Faculty Senate on January 24, to working with the Academic Planning Committee and to beginning discussions with the Library Site Selection Committee.

This is a serious opportunity, but not a fearful one. It is one we should seize affirmatively. Let’s get it done.

# # #