SMU won't vote on Bush think tank
DALLAS --Southern Methodist University professors on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected a plan to hold a faculty-wide vote on whether the campus should host a partisan think-tank as part of George W. Bush's presidential library.
Faculty Senate President Rhonda Blair said it was defeated because the measure was too narrow, asking professors if they approved or disapproved of the partisan institute, which would report to the Bush Foundation, not SMU. The issue may be discussed again next week, Blair said.
A petition signed by 175 of SMU's 600 professors had called for the vote. Some professors have said the think tank would hurt SMU's reputation because it would further the ideas of the Bush administration.
"It seems to me this is a historic moment for the university, and we need to know where the faculty as a whole stand on the Bush institute," said Benjamin H. Johnson, an assistant history professor.
SMU President Gerald Turner has said the library, museum and institute are a package deal. He, trustees and other professors have said all three would benefit the university.
SMU became the apparent winner in the library competition in December when the site selection committee said it was entering into further talks with the 11,000-student private university, which is first lady Laura Bush's alma mater. The Bushes are Methodists.
A final decision is expected within months after Bush receives a recommendation from the committee, which recently started talks with Turner.
Meanwhile, dueling library petitions have been circulating.
Some 500 people, mostly students, signed a petition supporting the library, museum and think tank during a one-day campus petition drive last week, according to the organizers, SMU Young Conservatives of Texas.
An online petition organized by a group of Methodist ministers calling for SMU to drop the library bid had garnered nearly 10,300 signatures as of Wednesday night, three weeks after it began. Some signatures and comments are from supporters.
