Presidential history comes to life for SMU inauguration
From Robert S. Hyer to R. Gerald Turner, this exhibition traces the legacy of SMU’s ten presidents through artifacts preserved in the SMU Archives at DeGolyer Library. Discover the leadership, vision, and milestones that have shaped the University’s history.
Brynn Price, communications and engagement specialist at SMU Libraries, interviewed University Archivist Ben Jenkins to learn more about the exhibit he curated in anticipation of the inauguration of President Jay C. Hartzell and related festivities.
What inspired you to become an archivist, and what brought you to SMU?
Ben: That’s a good question. When I was an undergraduate, one of my professors was actually an archivist at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Southern California. He had worked for the National Archives at a couple of different presidential libraries. He was actually on a pretty close first-name basis with Ronald Reagan, and he even helped to organize the Reagan library. He invited me to intern at the Nixon library, which is very close to where I went to college. While there, I just really fell in love with the idea of archives, of preserving historical documents, and making them available as much as possible. It’s a lot of fun. So much of what I did there was digitizing and taking old records locked away in analog formats and putting them out into the digital world. Because even when I did this in… I think I started in 2009… people already realized, “Well, digital’s here to stay – it’s how we need to communicate with people.” So, trying to take archives and put them in a digital setting has really spurred me, and I’ve been in the archives world ever since. I went to grad school a couple of times actually, to get all the credentials I needed to enter the field, and I have been an archivist professionally for about 10 years now.
As far as what attracted me to SMU, I’m just very impressed by the history and culture, and by the fact that it is thriving at a time when higher education is facing a number of challenges in the social, economic, and other realms. SMU seems to be navigating those challenges pretty expertly. The collections team is also really fantastic – I enjoy working with people in DeGolyer Library like Russell, Christina, Cynthia, Joel, and Kaitlin – our newest hire. They all specialize in a specific thing, and as a team, we function well together in preserving our institutional history, making all of the fantastic resources we have available to the modern 21st-century audience at SMU and beyond.
How did you decide which presidents and events to highlight in the exhibit, and were there any surprising or little-known stories you uncovered while researching?
Ben: I tried to focus on the ones with the longest tenure here and the earlier folks here for the foundation. For instance, I included Hiram Boaz, and although he wasn’t the first president, he was still instrumental in founding SMU. He was a major fundraiser in the 1910s, even before he became president, so I thought that deserved an acknowledgment in the exhibit.
There was a lot of focus on Willis Tate and especially on President Turner in the exhibit, because those two were the longest-serving presidents. Tate was here for a hair over 20 years, and of course President Turner achieved 30 years.
I really wanted to highlight those individuals, because frankly, while every president has had a major impact on the university, I found that those who were here longer, really contributed even more. Tate, for instance, helped steer the institution away from being just a small college and toward becoming a world-class university with numerous graduate programs.
Probably my favorite thing that I learned during this exhibit was that these guys all really talked to each other – they were all pretty good friends, on a first-name basis. I think I sent you that photograph of four presidents standing around a bust of Robert Hyer at the very beginning of the university, so that was really neat to see. They corresponded frequently; they would give each other copies of books… So that was an interesting, sort of fun fact to learn. It was almost a fraternity of former SMU presidents who kept in touch with each other.
What kind of experience do you hope visitors will have on the day of the inauguration when they see your exhibit? What else are you excited with the upcoming inauguration?
Ben: I’m excited to get people to think, “Hey, if this legacy of SMU stretches back a century, maybe I can be a part of it as well. Maybe I can leave behind some sort of record for the archives.”
To me, the archives are like the soul of whatever institution they’re part of, and they help you understand who you are, where you’ve been, what differentiates SMU from the plethora of colleges that we have here in North Texas… whether that is strolling through Fondren Library and seeing all of the cool Rees-Jones materials highlighted, or the presidential exhibit, just giving people a sense of SMU’s identity excites me.
About the archivist
Benjamin Jenkins, MLIS, Ph.D. is university archivist at Southern Methodist University. Before joining SMU, he was archivist at the University of La Verne in California and at the George W. Bush Presidential Library. He has written two books and multiple articles for peer-reviewed journals in history and archival studies.
Leading the Mustang Legacy: The Presidents of SMU is now available for viewing in the foyer of Fondren Library, and will continue to be available for the open houses on SMU’s inauguration day this Friday, September 12.
Photos from this post can be found in the SMU Campus Memories collection, housed in the SMU Archives.