The third faculty meeting in as many weeks about the George W. Bush Presidential Library was filled with tough, respectful questions for SMU President R. Gerald Turner.

That’s according to the faculty members who streamed out of the Hughes-Trigg Ballroom Wednesday afternoon following a nearly two-hour meeting that was an open discussion about the controversial project.

The meeting was closed to the media, but multiple faculty members stopped on their way out to share impressions of the most wide-ranging discussion yet on what the complex could mean to SMU.

According to those interviewed, no faculty member spoke against the entire complex. The largest concern is the institute/think tank. Faculty asked about the need for it and how it would fall under SMU’s control.

The session opened and closed with Turner making a brief statement, but the rest of the time was filled with questions addressed to the president that alternated between faculty senate representatives and regular faculty members.

Afterward, Turner said the library complex is an all or nothing venture. The institute cannot be cut from the deal if SMU is to receive the Bush library complex.

“Does the asset outweigh what you consider to be some of the liability?” he asked.

The role of the Bush Foundation and its oversight of the institute is the remaining question for some faculty members. That is one of the items to be discussed in the final meetings between SMU and the Bush Library Committee, which are set to begin in a matter of days.

“My hope is that it will be a negotiation [over the institute], but my impression is they will be holding all the cards,” said art history professor Janis Bergman-Carton.

The news that it is all or nothing complicates the efforts of theology professor Susanne Johnson, who was pushing a drive to accept the library and reject the institute. She said that the all-or-nothing choice puts the faculty in a difficult spot.

Johnson, along with colleague William McElvaney, wrote a letter in the Nov. 10 issue of The Daily Campus that was the first to openly challenge the library complex. A month later, a draft letter written by Johnson hit the Internet. The e-mail was supposed to circulate among SMU faculty members for their signature and called for greater debate about the Library while criticizing the Bush administration.

The faculty fervor only grew after the Dec. 21 announcement that SMU was entering into exclusive negotiations for the Library, and Blair called a special meeting Jan. 9. Blair mediated the open forum that was closed to the media.

Turner addressed faculty concerns last Wednesday at the annual spring faculty meeting.

Johnson said she still has concerns that need to be addressed.

Faculty Senate President Rhonda Blair said the faculty members had a diversity of opinion that led to a “thoughtful and respectful” meeting with faculty members articulating their issues.

Faculty members were also given an explanation as to why the majority was kept in the dark on the plans for so long. Turner said the school’s front-runner status in the competition for the Library required a level of secrecy.

“Everybody was interested in competing against us,” Turner said. “You just cannot negotiate in public.”

Some raised questions about how the complex would affect student recruitment.

Turner said that while it might help in areas such as political science or history that most students would not likely consider that as part of the SMU equation.

“There are so many different things that attract people here, ” he said.

The next phase of the faculty discussion will most likely involve compiling questions and comments by the faculty senate to be presented to Turner. He then can present those to the Board of Trustees.

Each of the faculty members who left said the meeting was a tribute to the faculty of SMU,and that the current process is a good example of how things work at a university.

“It was respectful, open and healthy,” said Rick Halperin, the director of SMU’s Human Rights Program. “It will be interesting to see the result a few years from now…if people’s fears were unfounded or not.”