Even for those of us who can’t abide the Bush administration, the opportunity to host his presidential library would be fantastic.
In the 1980s, Duke University faculty and students successfully forced the Nixon Library to go elsewhere. But they were focusing on the inevitable propaganda of a presidential museum, and they missed the great chance to have the scholarly resource of the library.
The museum and the library happen to go hand-in-hand, but they are different things.
A presidential library brings historical researchers, other academics, and very high-profile visitors to conferences hosted by the library. Any faculty body should be glad for the opportunity. To deny future generations of SMU this opportunity because of unrelated political differences would be petty and shortsighted.
Signed,
Jeffrey Vanke
Carrboro, North Carolina
