Stanford Faculty Demands Details on Reagan Library

In a demonstration of growing faculty discontent with the proposed Ronald Reagan Library at Stanford University, the Stanford Faculty Senate on Thursday voted unanimously to demand a complete presentation of the library’s plans and purposes at a future Senate meeting.

During a lengthy late afternoon session, and in interviews before the meeting, several professors criticized the location and size of the library and expressed concern that it would become the site of right-wing political gatherings that would compromise the university’s independence.

In addition to calling for a full-scale discussion before library construction begins, the Faculty Senate also asked to be included in planning for the library and an adjacent museum.

And in a third resolution, the 55-member body, representing Stanford’s 1,300 regular faculty members, sharply criticized W. Glenn Campbell, director of Stanford’s semiautonomous Hoover Institution, for writing recently that the “entire university,” not just Hoover, can “boast” of its “Reagan connection.”

The Hoover Institution is a library and conservative “think tank” on the Stanford campus. Campbell is a friend and political supporter of the President who is now on leave to raise money for the Reagan Library.

“Such public statements by a university official run counter to the nonpartisan rationale offered by the Board of Trustees for siting the Reagan Presidential Library on this campus,” the faculty resolution said.

Acting university President James N. Rosse told the Senate that the faculty’s concerns would be reported to the trustees and to the team that is negotiating with the Ronald Reagan Foundation about details of the library and museum, but he did not promise that they would be heeded.

Thursday’s actions reflected growing suspicions about the library on the faculty’s part.

“We approved an archival library and a place for scholarly work, and now we see plans for a much larger library, a museum, a conference center and a major tourist attraction,” said H. Craig Heller, professor of biological sciences and former chairman of the Senate. “We’ve been had.”

Heller said “less than half” of the square footage would be devoted to archival or scholarly work and contended that “99% of the visitors will be tourists.” He added that he and his colleagues fear that the conference center included in plans for the library may turn into a forum for a “one-sided presentation of the President’s program.” Rosse told the Senate that Stanford’s negotiators will propose that a planned 350-seat auditorium be scaled down to a 200-seat “multipurpose” room that ordinarily would accommodate conferences of 50 or 60 people.

Although the faculty concerns have been voiced periodically ever since the Reagan Library was first proposed several years ago, they have become more urgent in recent weeks because of these developments:

- Changes in library plans to provide for a “presidential suite” for Reagan to use when he visits the library, and a horse trough around a courtyard fountain to evoke images of Reagan’s Santa Barbara ranch.

- Publication in Bay Area newspapers of photographs showing the model of a very large Reagan Library superimposed on, and completely dominating, the Stanford campus. A university spokesman said the composite photo was “way out of scale.”

- Comments by library architect Hugh Stubbins at a Washington news conference that he planned to use better material than the “very ugly” sandstone of most Stanford buildings--a color much beloved by many graduates--and that the red tile roof “will have a better tile on it than most Stanford buildings.”

- Publication of Campbell’s remarks in the introduction to the Hoover Institution’s 1986 annual report.

Because the Stanford trustees voted last June to approve the library and museum, “it is not only the Hoover Institution that can boast of a ‘Reagan connection’ but also the entire university,” he wrote. Trustees and Stanford administrators have said repeatedly that the university wants the Reagan Library because it is a valuable scholarly resource, not to “honor” the President.

A Stanford official said Thursday that the Faculty Senate resolution about Campbell was the first time in recent history that the faculty as a whole had criticized the comments of a university officer.

Neither the Faculty Senate nor the faculty as a whole has the power to enforce its demands, but many campus observers believe that the administration and the trustees will try to alleviate some of the professors’ concerns about the size and purposes of the Reagan Library, in order to achieve at least the semblance of consensus in support of this major addition to the campus.