INSIDE
A preview of Fashion Week
PAGE 2
Gay marriage discussion
PAGE 4
Rick Hart on move to Big East
PAGE 6
‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ review PAGE 5
WEDNESDAY
MARCH 27, 2013
Wednesday High 70, Low 45 Thursday High 73, Low 54
VOLUME 98 ISSUE 72 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
greek life
Sig Ep suspended for two years Julie Fancher Assignments Desk Editor jfancher@smu.edu
Rebecca Keay/The Daily Campus
The George W. Bush Presidential Center is set to open on April 25 and open to the public on May 1.
Professors voice opinions before Bush Library opens matthew costa Associate Sports Editor mcosta@smu.edu Less than a month remains before the opening of the latest in a long and storied history of presidential libraries upon SMU campus on April 25. Many professors have gone on record for or against the Bush Libraries’ presence here at the Hilltop, and many reasons still remain open to discussion, even with the opening just weeks away. “There was a lot of dispute at the beginning,” Ed Countryman,
distinguished professor of history at SMU, said. Countryman was a leading figure of a faculty senate that found itself divided on how to address the issues of an important and controversial presidency being embodied on this campus. “There was a deep split [in the senate] between whether or not we should oppose the institution altogether,” Countryman said. “I personally abstained from it and that kind of turned it.” The professor clarified some of his bigger concerns with the library by stating what could happen to
the overall funding of the school in specific areas that are still desperately needed. Presidential libraries have never come at a cheap price, and the $250 million Bush Center will be no exception. If funding for the library takes away from the university’s need to grow and further develop its present libraries, then standards for SMU’s central ideologies could become problematic. A voice of experience on this matter is the Director of the Center for Presidential History, professor Jeffrey Engel.
SMU officials made the decision to suspend the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity for two years Monday March 25. Kent Best, the Executive Director of News and Communication released a statement early Tuesday. “As of March 25, 2013, SMU has suspended for two years the Texas Upsilon Chapter of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity because of violations of the SMU Student Code of Conduct and University policies, as well as the standards and values of the fraternity itself. SMU expects its students to uphold high standards of personal and academic integrity. The University believes it is important to take this action and expects the young men of the fraternity to learn from this experience,” Best said. Suspensions normally last three years, but Sigma Phi Epsilon will only be
Engel spent the last eight and a half years at Texas A&M and was around the Bush Sr. Presidential Library enough to know what good has come to College Station since its arrival. “SMU is poised to become an open forum for discussions on a range of issues,” Engel said. Both Engel and Countryman expressed the ability of the library to be a major positive for the campus, provided that it remains as neutral as possible. According to chronicle.com,
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suspended for two. Sources close to the issue have said that the shortened suspension comes from all of the work Sigma Phi Epsilon has done for the SMU campus. The fraternity suspension comes from incidents that occurred from January onward. The details of several of the incidents have yet to be confirmed, but the Feb. 4th assault of another SMU student also played a role in their suspension. Members currently living in the Sigma Phi Epsilon house will be able to stay there for the rest of the year, but beginning in Fall 2013 the house will be used as a residence for any SMU students. The Daily Campus has contacted Sigma Phi Epsilon President Billy Hightower. Those requests for comment have not been returned at this time. The Daily Campus will continue to publish updates on smudailycampus.com as more information becomes available.
Christopher Saul/The Daily Campus
Current residents in the house are allowed to stay there this semester.
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UT Austin’s LBJ Library shares common characteristics with Bush Center
Eric Sheffield/The Daily Campus
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library is located on UT Austin’s campus.
Julie Fancher jfancher.smu.edu Eric Sheffield esheffield@smu.edu Lyndon Baines Johnson stepped before a joint session of Congress to a booming round of applause on the eve of Thanksgiving 1963. He waited for the clapping to subside then looks down, released a resigned sigh and began to speak. “All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today,” Johnson said. But he had to be there. He had to be there outside St. Matthew’s Cathedral two days earlier, marching alongside
heads of state and royal family members. He had to be there on Air Force One to take the oath of office and assume the responsibilities of a presidency that wasn’t supposed to be his. And now, nearly fifty years after that day, he’s still there. Johnson may be gone, but the legacy behind the man is housed at the University of Texas at Austin campus within the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. As the opening of the Bush Center draws near, details from other presidential libraries may shed light on what to expect when the center opens to the public on May 1.
Each president leaves a lasting impression on the country that he helped shape. Johnson is no exception. “He’s known as the Vietnam president,” Laura Eggert, the volunteer and visitor coordinator at the LBJ Library, said. But war is only a fraction of what Johnson accomplished between 1963 and 1968. He made tremendous leaps in civil rights and immigration laws. He established Medicare and Medicaid. He sent the first men to the moon by authorizing Apollo 8. “We want to make sure that people who come to the library understand all the legislation that President Johnson passed,” Eggert said. For example, the library allows visitors to walk in the president’s shoes through the events leading up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One exhibit includes old-style telephones that library-goers can pick up to listen to taped conversations between LBJ and Martin Luther King, Jr. These phone calls with the civil rights leader are just a small part of the 643 hours of recorded audio that the library added through renovations last year. According to Tina Houston, the deputy director of the LBJ Library, it’s common to renovate
presidential libraries every 10 years or so. The Johnson Library had gone over 20 years without seeing an update, so on Dec. 22, 2012, which would have been Lady Bird Johnson’s 100th birthday, a renovated library was open to the public. Many of these upgrades were made to keep up with changes in technology. Documents were digitized and posted online. High definition videos were added to each exhibit floor. Touch screens were added to displays. “The exhibits are more interactive, more technical and more friendly for families,” Eggert said. “Everything is new.” One of the main focuses in the redesign was making exhibits interesting for visitors of all ages. “We wanted kids to be actively involved in the exhibits,” Houston said. “From my point of view, its very important to make the library appeal to kids.” The renovations aim to spotlight not just the former president’s achievements, but also his personality. Johnson was known in the political world as a man who could see the light even in dark times. “Humor was a huge part of who LBJ was,” Eggert said. “And we think it’s important that people who come here know that.”
Within the library is a life-sized version of President Johnson that tells jokes to visitors, complete with animatronic hand motions and eyes. Library officials also say that Johnson loved political cartoons, even when he was the object of the satire, and thus, a large collection of these caricatures are on display in the library. Officials hope that these renovations are able to keep the nearly 40-year-old library up to par with what’s expected from the George W. Bush Presidential Center, the new library on the block. After all, the two aren’t that different. They’re both located on college campuses, they both include replicas of the Oval Office and the Situation Room as they were during the presidents’ time in office and they both were surrounded by controversy before their openings. “There were some protests by students and faculty that didn’t want [the LBJ Library] here,” Houston said. “Vietnam is the main reason.” This may sound all too familiar to those who followed SMU’s campaign to be home to the Bush Center. Many faculty, students and activist groups protested the arrival of the center, in large part
due to the Bush administration’s involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In a 2007 editorial in The Daily Campus, John C. McQueen, a 1966 SMU alum, said, “It is not too late to save Southern Methodist University from a fate worse than destruction – an association with a man who will forever be known for violating every tenet of democracy and our constitutional frame of government.” This is just one of thousands of comments speaking out against the 43rd President’s administration. However, a key difference is that the Bush Center, unlike the LBJ Library, chose to include a think-tank within its walls. UT Austin favored that an educational institution, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, be built next to the library when plans were coming together in the late 1960s. “The idea was that a school would help teach students, while still showing homage to Johnson,” Houston said. “[President Johnson] even taught at the school for a year.” It made sense for LBJ to attach the school to his library. After all, LBJ’s first job was as a schoolteacher, and education was a priority throughout his administration.
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