I love higher education, and I love SMU. We thrive on tremendous resources, the greatest of which is the people we attract and our ability to openly discuss ideas and beliefs.
Our students, faculty, staff, administrators, trustees, donors, parents, alumni, sports fans, arts patrons and other supporters make us a strong, leading university. We shine brightly when engaged in passionate debate over matters of common concern.
I appreciate the recent thoughtful, and sometimes heated, discourse surrounding the George W. Bush Presidential Library and related Institute. Though I’ve not been able to attend faculty forums because of academic conflicts, I’ve read accounts of these meetings, numerous editorials and many e-mails. From this study, several points seem to emerge:
1) The process that brought this possibility within reach appears honest, appropriate and well-executed. Requiring competitive negotiations on the highest levels spanning years, I don’t think this opportunity could have been realized with complete transparency and hands-on participation from the entire SMU community. President R. Gerald Turner, in consultation with senior administrators and the Board of Trustees, evaluated this initiative just as he was charged to do. After determining that probable benefits exceeded risks, the SMU community proceeded in a manner designed to serve our institution’s best interests. For all its academic significance, I believe securing our finalist status was their role, not ours.
2) As faculty, we do have roles in this. At the heart of the endeavor is a catalyst for long-term academic study and debate over a controversial administration’s role in shaping the world’s future. The mere potential of imminent association with a presidential library and institute has inspired broad discourse on issues worthy of scholarly concern. Listen! This campus resonates with diverse opinion and disagreement over ideological and procedural concerns. Though I respectfully defer to my research colleagues, as teaching faculty I believe it would be provincial and short-sighted to deny our students, and ourselves, this continuing academic stimulus.
We also have a role in standing by the academic freedom so integral to higher education. Concerns about associating with a president whose views so many disagree with is understandable. Another concern could be the image of an academic institution appearing so intent on distancing itself from expression of those views that it might deny its entire academic community the chance to critically study them through a library, museum, and institute on our own campus.
About the writer:
Barbara Kincaid is a senior lecturer in Business Law at the Cox School of Business. She holds three degrees from SMU, is an SMU parent and has been recognized by her students as an outstanding instructor for 10 consecutive years. She can be reached at [email protected].
