Depending on whether President Bush gets re-elected this November, he could designate the location of his presidential library this fall or in four years.
Whatever the outcome of the election, the Texas A&M Board of Regents is hoping that when his term does end, he will pick Texas A&M, said Erle Nye, vice chairman of the board.
Nye said the board made a proposal at the time of Bush’s inauguration in January 2001.
“We tried to get it positioned on his desk when he arrived in the White House,” Nye said.
Nick Anthis, 2003-04 president of the Texas Aggie Democrats and a senior biochemistry major, said housing Bush’s library would be a stigma for A&M.
“Bush the second is going to go down in history as one of our worst presidents,” Anthis said. “I don’t think that’s anything A&M would want to be associated with.”
John Jackson, chairman of the A&M College Republicans and a senior political science major, said that another presidential library would benefit students.
“(Former President Bush’s) library has offered so many opportunities for A&M students to have different heads of state and important world leaders come to campus,” Jackson said. “I think another library at A&M would really increase that.”
Nye said the 2001 proposal was to let the president know that the regents would do what was necessary to support the library with a site, funding and commitments to academic programs.
“It simply was an early statement of willingness and desire to encourage the president to consider putting his library at the campus,” Nye said.
Nye said that so far, no progress has been made towards the board’s goal of housing the library at A&M.
“There is no action, no activity … nothing that we could report,” Nye said.
The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum officially opened in November 1997.
The White House announced in May 1991, more than a year before the next presidential election, that former President Bush had selected A&M as the site, according to the Bush Library.
Nye and Jackson said that housing two presidential libraries would set A&M apart from any other university.
“To have the two libraries co-located on the campus would be a wonderful combination,” Nye said.
Anthis said that already having one presidential library established would hurt A&M’s chances of getting another one.
“I think (getting another library) it’s highly unlikely,” Anthis said, “We already have one.”
Nye and Jackson said that Southern Methodist University and Baylor University have also expressed strong interest in housing the library. The University of Texas at Austin and the city of Arlington have also reportedly expressed interest.