Signing the agreement between SMU and the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation are (from left) Carl Sewell, chair of the SMU Board of Trustees; SMU President R. Gerald Turner; Donald L. Evans, chair of the Bush Foundation and of the Library Site Selection Committee; and Mark Langdale, president of the Bush Foundation.
With SMU’s selection as the site of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, Museum and Institute, Texas will become the only state in the nation to house three presidential libraries. SMU will join UT-Austin, which houses the Lyndon Baines Johnson library, and Texas A&M, location of the George H.W. Bush library, to form a unique trio of facilities for historic research. The George W. Bush Foundation announced SMU’s selection February 22.
“I look forward to the day when both the general public and scholars come and explore the important and challenging issues our nation has faced during my presidency,” President George W. Bush said in a letter to SMU President R. Gerald Turner.
The agreement between SMU and the Bush Foundation states that the University was chosen because of its excellent academic reputation; presence in Dallas; strong support of the University’s leaders, alumni and friends; and willingness to
lease land for the project.
“It’s a great honor for SMU to be chosen as the site of this tremendous resource for historical research, dialogue and public programs,” Turner said. “At SMU, these resources will benefit from proximity to our strong academic programs, a tradition of open dialogue, experience hosting world leaders and a central location in a global American city. We thank President Bush for entrusting this important long-term resource to our community, and for the opportunity for SMU to serve the nation in this special way.”
The presidential library will be located on the east side of the main SMU campus, adjacent to North Central Expressway (U.S. Highway 75) and SMU Boulevard. The exact location will be determined based on design specifications.
The Bush library will contain documents and artifacts; the museum will provide permanent and traveling exhibits; and an independent public policy institute will host officials, scholars and others as fellows for research and symposia. Once constructed, the library and museum will be operated by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), an independent federal agency. The institute will be operated by the Bush Foundation and identified accordingly. Interactions between SMU and the institute could include joint programming and concurrent appointments, following the usual procedures for University appointments, if an institute fellow qualifies to teach at SMU, or if an SMU professor wishes to serve as an institute fellow. The agreement between SMU and the Foundation affirms that any relationship between the two will recognize “SMU’s commitment to open inquiry and academic freedom within the University.”
“The presidential library will offer unmatched opportunities to interact with officials who have shaped public policy in this era and with scholars who will write its history,” said Gary Evans, professor of electrical engineering, president of the Faculty Senate and SMU Board of Trustees member. “The resources and programs will be invaluable to national and international scholars, including those at SMU.”
Betty Sue Flowers, director of the LBJ Library and Museum at UT-Austin, congratulated SMU, saying, “The LBJ Library was the first presidential library to be located on a university campus. Thirty-five years later, I think the UT community and the scholars, government officials and museum visitors who come to us from around the world would agree that the partnership has been enormously beneficial to both the library and the university.”
Fund-raising for the Bush Presidential Center will be conducted by the George W. Bush Foundation in collaboration with SMU. For the past two years, SMU has been in the “quiet phase” of its next major gifts campaign, to be launched publicly in September 2008, for endowments supporting students, faculty, academic programs and the campus experience. “Working with the fund-raising effort of the Bush Foundation will introduce us to new audiences who otherwise would not learn about SMU,” Turner said.
SMU was among eight competitors for the Bush Presidential Library. SMU’s Board of Trustees Library Committee was co-chaired by Turner and Ray L. Hunt (’65) and included Board chair Carl Sewell (’66) and trustees Jeanne L. Phillips (’76) and Michael Boone (’64, ’67). The committee consulted regularly with the full Board of Trustees, which includes representatives from the faculty, student body, alumni board and The United Methodist Church.