The Faculty Senate rejected a motion yesterday to conduct a survey asking faculty members if they approved of the Bush Library and Institute.

According to Faculty Senate President Rhonda Blair, “The survey was defeated because it was framed as an up or down vote and didn’t account for a full range of opinion.”

According to several professors, there’s no provision in the Senate Constitution for a referendium.

A petition signed by 175 of SMU’s 600 faculty members called for the failed referendum, citing the Senate’s responsibility to monitor “the activities of non-school academic institutes and programs.”

But according to jounalism professor Rick Stevens, “You can’t have a referendum in the Senate – it’s a contradiction in terms. It has to come from outside the Senate, like when voters want legislation.”

The Senate’s Constitution doesn’t allow for a referendum, which is why the language of the proposal had to be changed to “survey” at the beginning of the debate.

History Professor Dan Orlovsky was impressed by his fellow faculty members during the debate on the resolution.

“We had an extensive discussion – as faculty should have – about how to form a collective opinion … about something everyone regards as an important moment in the university’s history,” he said.

He added that the general sentiment was that opinions should be solicited in “a variety of ways.”

According to Orlovsky and several other faculty members, the debate lasted longer than planned (about an hour) because of procedural confusion.

“Most of it was ‘you didn’t do this right, you can’t bring it to the floor yet,’ that kind of stuff,” said Stevens.

The survey would have been incorporated into a resolution the Senate Executive Committee is drafting for President R. Gerald Turner concerning the Bush Library. According to Blair, the planned resolution would let President Turner know the faculty’s opinion on several aspects of the Bush Library, including the Institute.

Blair said that even though the motion had been defeated, the Senate still “invited people to submit other motions for getting feedback.”

Any resolution submitted to Turner would be taken under advisement, but the ultimate decision-making authority lies with SMU’s Board of Trustees.

Assistant History Professor Ben Johnson said the true weight of Wednesday’s meeting was still unclear.

“If this was a turning point, we won’t know it until next week,” he said, adding that the opinion of the faculty was also unclear.

If there were a vote on the library, he said, he would have “absolutely no idea what most people would say.”

Theology professor Susanne Johnson, one of the leading opponents of the Bush Institute, said she considered Wednesday’s meeting a positive one.

“Any person, group or constituent can conduct a survey and make the results known to Senate,” she said, which she considers “good news.”

Johnson added that the number of faculty members who oppose the institute may be higher than petition numbers show.

“We have 175-plus members of the faculty who are untenured and tenured faculty who are still afraid to go on the record for fear of offending donors,” she said.

According to Ben Johnson, “Nobody’s willing to lie down on the tracks to keep away the library,” but, he said, “As I understand it, I think it’s very unwise for SMU to be associated with this institution.”

Minutes from a Jan. 24 meeting show that Turner explained the Bush Library Center would be a package and that severing the institute wouldn’t be an option.

“The library would be administered by the National Archives and Records Administration, while the museum and institute would be administered by the Bush Foundation,” he said, describing the Institute as a “scholarly enterprise.”

Turner added that the Institute “might even attract opponents” and that it SMU would develop ways to balance a partisan emphasis.

Turner wasn’t at Wednesday’s meeting, but he has gone on record encouraging the Faculty Senate to put its concerns in writing.

Computer science professor David Matula was just excited the meeting was a little out of the ordinary. “I’d much rather be discussing the institute than another sports field,” he said.

“It makes it fun to come.”