A group of SMU faculty members announced the launch of an online petition against the Bush Institute on Wednesday.
According to Perkins School of Theology professor Susanne Johnson, the open letter to SMU President R. Gerald Turner and the Board of Trustees was a collaborative effort between her and about a dozen other professors. In it, they challenge the notion that the Bush complex is an all-or-nothing deal.
“There are a good many of us faculty members who do not buy the all-or-nothing mantra,” said Johnson. “It’s evident that George Bush wants to come to SMU bad enough that, more likely than not, he’s open to negotiation.”
But according to SMU officials, the open letter repeats issues already resolved in Faculty Senate meetings.
“The process by which the faculty communicate to the administration is through the Faculty Senate, and that’s been the normal means of conveying faculty matters to the administration,” said Vice President for External Affairs Brad Cheves.
Johnson points to Stanford as an example of what can happen with a presidential library. There, she said, the Reagan Library was proposed as an all-or-nothing deal with an accompanying museum and institute, but resistance from professors led the administration to drop the mandatory institute.
As of Wednesday night, about 120 faculty members – including incoming Faculty Senate President Dennis Foster and professor emeritus William McElvaney – had signed the petition that Johnson said was designed to stimulate a referendum.
At a Faculty Senate meeting earlier this spring, the idea of a referendum on the inclusion of the institution in the Bush Library Complex was shot down because it was introduced in the Senate. Referendums have to come from constituents, senators have said.
Johnson says the senate may not represent the opinions of the entire faculty since all the senators don’t show up to vote for each meeting.
“So to say a given vote reflects the will of the entire Faculty Senate is patently false in the first place,” said Johnson.
“We believe SMU should not only grant this request [to reject the institute], but also its logical implications, which means that the institute should be physically separated from the library and museum and be built off-campus,” she added. “This will help avoid confusion about the nature of its relationships and its accountability to SMU, which is absolutely none.”
The letter is posted online and is open for signatures from current and retired SMU faculty members – full or part-time – as well as professional and para-professional staff members, researchers and administrators.
According to Executive Director of Public Affairs Patti LaSalle, there are 624 full-time faculty members, 300 part-time faculty and 130 retired faculty members.
“So is that [the 120 signatures] representative of anything? I don’t know,” said Cheves.
Johnson’s petition is not the first since the idea of the Bush complex first came to campus. In January, a petition created by Methodist ministers protested the linking of Bush’s name to a Methodist university, calling it “utterly inappropriate.” More than 9,000 people signed it.
In any case, Cheves encouraged taking action through the Faculty Senate.
“It’s a form of representation that has been created and has worked well in SMU’s environment of open discussion,” he said. “Dr. Turner is appreciative of the work of the senate and much of what’s included in this repeats what’s already been said.”
The letter can be viewed online at www.petitiononline.com/120/petition.html.
