Hilltopics: Volume 3, Issue 14 Hilltopics Staff
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Southern Methodist University SMU Scholar Hilltopics University Honors Program 2-5-2007 Hilltopics: Volume 3, Issue 14 Hilltopics Staff Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.smu.edu/hilltopics Recommended Citation Hilltopics Staff, "Hilltopics: Volume 3, Issue 14" (2007). Hilltopics. 60. https://scholar.smu.edu/hilltopics/60 This document is brought to you for free and open access by the University Honors Program at SMU Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hilltopics by an authorized administrator of SMU Scholar. For more information, please visit http://digitalrepository.smu.edu. always 100% smu-written volume three, issue fourteen www.smu.edu/honors/hilltopics week of february 05, 2007 Hershel Chapin offers a letter to the Hilltopics staff about the library by Hershel Chapin all know that democracies donʼt get anything This article was inspired by Todd Batyʼs done until theyʼre pushed over the edge by “Faculty Uprisingover the Bush Presidential Li- some kind of massive pain-trigger. A large brary and Bush Institute: Too Little Too Late”” portion of the faculty reacted to this stimulus Hilltopics, 29 January 2007. It can be found at by getting as far away from the proposal as Culture: www.smu.edu/honors/hilltopics possible, ideologically—hence, the mysteri- Everyone knows SMU ous and sudden news making opposition. has style, but a new exhibit As far as “deadlines” are concerned, faculty Dear Hilltopics staff culture is very much like student culture in at the Meadows Museum Here is the answer to the question: “Why proves it. Read about all the that it encourages over-committing to many [are]... individuals that are... passionately activities, and forces individuals to procrasti- high fashion at the bottom opposed to the Bush complex just now voic- nate on tasks that appear distant. Simply put, of Bishop Blvd, page 3. ing their concerns?” they didnʼt see it coming, nor could they have The question Todd Baty asks in “Facul- seen it coming. Campus: ty Uprising... Too little too late” Owning up Want to know what deals with our f a c u l t y ʼ s the faculty members them- to this fact, c h a n g e d g o a l s . many of selves are saying about the Many pro- the faculty Bush Institute? Read what fessors will m e m b e r s admit that are kicking Dr. Newman has to say on they wel- page 2. themselves comed the for being presiden- Back Page: so easily Parcells is out as tial library trapped in Cowboys head coach. The when it was the clas- an idea in sic bait- question remains as to who the ab- will fill his shoes. Douglas and-switch stract. The marketing Hill suggests Jerry Jones g e n e r a l s c h e m e . look to someone besides p r i n c i p l e To further frontrunner Norv Turner, at work is complicate d i s t a n c e page 4. matters, many of these con- d i s t o r t s scientious individuals are a p p e a r - still quite conflicted about the ances. Try it on your friends, prestige of the library, in spite Be Heard: Hilltopics is always go ahead—the further you are, the of its undesirable component. more attractive somebody (or some- The faculty is a population with looking for good sub- thing) seems. Hence, the operating logic missions on virtually any crosscutting cleavages. back then was, “Surely SMU should be more Nevertheless, one thing can be topic. Email your ideas, deserving of such an honor than any other said of all the faculty members: they believe feedback, or articles to university.” the old business model is still functional—the [email protected]. The debate has shifted. It has gone from, Presidential Library preyed on the buyersʼ “Which school is better?” to, “Now that SMU insecurities, then peddled something they is top banana and our insecurities have been would never dream of wanting. The reality put to rest, should we really commit to this of the situation is the faculty membersʼ insti- important decision?” Many believe the an- tutional competitiveness (or collective pride/ swer to the latter was fixed by the resound- jealousy, however you look at it) may have ing answer to the former. gotten the best of them. The temporal scope has also shifted—the Regards, library decision will affect our university im- Hershel mediately instead of just sometime down the Hershel Chapin is a senior finance and French road. That means previous supporters of major; he also acts as the Coordinator of the the plan would be suddenly accountable for University Honors Program. the neo-conservative institute proposed—a painful proposition for many. If you recall, SMU Faculty Senate is a democracy, and we We welcome submissions from all members of the SMU community. Letters to the editor should be up to 300 words in response to a previously published article. Contributions should be articles of up to 300-600 words on any topic or in response to another article. Please email your submission to [email protected] by Wednesday at 7:00 PM to be included in the following weekʼs publication. Special deadlines will be observed for breaking campus events. The opinions expressed in Hilltopics are those of the authors solely and do not reflect the beliefs of Hilltopics or any other entity. As such, Hilltopics does not publish anonymous articles. page 2 week of february 05, 2007 Professor defends faculty objections and responds to Baty on Bush Institute controversy by Dr. Beth Newman First the Daily Campus castigated the faculty for its slow http://bushlibraryblog.wordpress.com/). Briefly, the fellows response to the proposed Bush Library package; now Todd appointed to institutes--“think tanks” as they are popularly Baty of Hilltopics has joined in the cry. Meanwhile, the Stu- known—are selected because they subscribe to a particular dent Senate has passed a resolution supporting the Bush Li- ideological perspective. Academic inquiry at a university is brary, having rushed to judgment without a real understand- not necessarily disinterested—indeed, my training in the hu- ing of the issues involved. But in a way I canʼt blame the manities makes me skeptical about whether the institution- Senate for not having a clearer understanding of many of the alized pursuit of knowledge can ever be utterly free of bias; issues, since there are still so many unanswered questions but members of a university faculty are not pre-selected to about the shape that the library-museum-institute complex serve an explicit agenda. This contrast was articulated with will take. chilling candor by a Bush associate who told the New York And that is why faculty who oppose the Bush Library pro- Times Magazine in October, 2004: ʻʼWeʼre an empire now, posal waited until December of 2006 to begin voicing our and when we act, we create our own reality. And while youʼre concerns: we could not object knowledgeably and judiciously studying that reality to something whose details were kept tightly under wraps —judiciously, as you will—weʼll act again, creating other for the better part of six years, unless we were objecting, new realities, which you can study too, and thatʼs how things reflexively, to the presence of the Bush Library under any will sort out. Weʼre historyʼs actors . and you, all of you, circumstances. will be left to just study what we do.ʼʼ It should be clear by now that faculty opposition has ad- The original proposal SMU made to the Bush adminis- dressed itself primarily to the accompanying Bush Institute, tration did not mention an institute. But the White House which was not part of SMUʼs original proposal. (In fairness, rejected SMUʼs proposal of a Bush school (similar to Cox, I should point out that the faculty is not united in its oppo- Law, Dedman, Meadows, Engineering, and the new School of sition, but that opposition is a great deal stronger than the Education and Human Development), whose faculty would be administration has acknowledged.) Faculty members under- hired and retained according to normal academic protocols. stand the value of an archive and a library. Even those of They proposed the institute in its place. This was not until us who oppose President Bushʼs policies have understood, July, 2005, and even then, only a few insiders very close to either viscerally, intellectually, or both, that partisan oppo- the process knew anything about it. President Turner first sition to George W. Bush should not stand in the way of a mentioned the proposed institute at an open meeting of the major acquisition for SMU that could eventually provide for Faculty Senate on December 6, 2006. The plan did not the production and dissemination of important knowl- become widely known until President Turner an- edge—though probably not in the lifetime of anyone nounced that SMU had been named the sole currently teaching or studying at SMU, thanks to finalist for the library. That announcement Bushʼs Executive Order #13233. (This order gives came on December 21, 2006—two days be- a President, his family, or any “series or group fore SMU closed down for winter break, and of alternative representatives,” almost unlimited nearly two weeks after the official end of power to withhold documents relevant to his the term. Why did we wait until December term in office as long as they choose to do so.) to begin expressing our concerns? Be- Nevertheless, I am persuaded cause it wasnʼt until then that that the library would be good the objectionable aspects of for SMU in the long run.