No Faculty Opposition Expected if Reagan Library Is Built Near UCI

The chairman of the Academic Senate at UC Irvine said Wednesday that the Reagan presidential library would be “a good thing for historical scholars” and probably wouldn’t be opposed by the faculty if built off campus.

“I can’t speak for all the faculty, of course, but my guess is that there wouldn’t be any opposition (to an off-campus presidential library),” said Spencer Olin, who heads the UCI faculty-representative body.

On Tuesday, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation confirmed that it had approached the Irvine Co. last week about possibly locating the presidential library and adjoining public policy research center on private land owned by the company near UCI.

The foundation stressed, however, that the Irvine Co. land is just one of several sites under consideration in Southern California.

One administrative source at UCI, in remarks not for attribution, said that building a presidential library near campus, but not on it, “would be the ideal solution.”

This official said that under such an arrangement, the university community could benefit from a presidential library without worrying about whether it was “sponsoring or endorsing” a particular president.

By the same token, the official noted, the presidential library would not have to worry about possible university restrictions or faculty reactions.

Olin, in an interview Wednesday, said an off-campus presidential library would not directly arouse faculty concern as did the proposed Richard Nixon library four years ago.

In 1983, UCI was the prime candidate for the official Nixon library. But the sponsoring foundation dropped UCI as a prospect after UCI’s Academic Senate, by a 72-1 vote, passed a number of restrictions on the proposed library. The Nixon library was finally located on private land in San Clemente, in association with Chapman College of Orange.

“I don’t think there would be the problem we had four years ago,” said Olin, who is a history professor. “This (Reagan) library would not be on the UCI campus. Four years ago the faculty, and I was one of them, voted for what I thought were some very reasonable restrictions (on the proposed Nixon library). I was in favor of that library because as a historian I particularly see the value of such libraries. I certainly think the Reagan library would be an asset.

“Remember, it was recently written that President Reagan has been the most radical president in 50 years. Many scholars will be for years studying his record and his papers.”

Until this month, efforts were under way to locate the Reagan presidential library on the Stanford University campus in Northern California.

The sponsoring foundation, however, announced that it had dropped Stanford after disputes with faculty members and nearby Palo Alto property owners. The Reagan Presidential Foundation then said it would be seeking a site in Southern California.