Stern’s Firm Will Design Bush Library at Southern Methodist U.

President Bush and his wife, Laura, have chosen Robert A.M. Stern Architects to design Mr. Bush’s presidential library, according to the student newspaper at Southern Methodist University, where the library is likely to be built.

The newspaper, The Daily Campus, says Mr. Stern met with the Bushes August 23 at their ranch in Crawford, Tex., after which they decided to choose his firm over two other finalists.

Mr. Stern, who is also dean of Yale University’s School of Architecture, is known for designing buildings along historical lines. Recent work for universities includes the Joan and Sanford Weill Hall at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Southern Methodist’s campus is primarily Georgian (shown here, the 2003 Blanton Student Services Center). Not everyone at the university is pleased by the plan to build the presidential library there. In March, the faculty senate took up the question of how the library will be governed (The Chronicle, March 16). In January, a group of faculty members asked for a “campuswide dialogue” about the library’s effect on the university (The Chronicle, January 26).