In a piece for April's newsletter, the Strauss Center's new director, Francis J. Gavin, reflects on the creation of the Center and the great efforts made by many people to get it where it is today.
First things first -- I would like to kick off this month’s newsletter by sharing with you how deeply honored I am to be named the Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. While I am familiar to many of you through my work with the Strauss Center and the Next Generation Project, I am a new face to others. I am eager to engage all of you in the important work of thinking about how we can make the Strauss Center the best global policy institute around. It is an exciting if daunting time, and with your help, the Strauss Center will be at the center of our national and world’s debates about international affairs in the years to come.
I will have much more to say in the future about our exciting plans to expand and broaden the Strauss Center’s activities. But after being honored with the request to lead the Center, I reflected upon how we had gotten to where we are today. Few people know the whole story of the great efforts to make the Strauss Center a reality, but it is fascinating and involved hard work by a number of people. What is remarkable is how many people enthusiastically embraced the core mission of the Center – to prepare the next generation of global leaders and help the U.S. and the world meet the international challenges we will face in the years and decades to come, by producing practical, real-world solutions in an innovative, broad and respectful setting.
In the summer of 2004, Demetrius McDaniel, then a partner at the law firm Akin Gump, approached Joe Youngblood, the Executive Director of the LBJ Foundation, about making a gift to honor their firm’s founder and most important member, Robert Strauss. As you all know, Bob Strauss is a remarkable man, whose amazing career in both the public and private sector reflects the core values of civility, innovation and leadership. His wisdom and lifetime of service inspired all that we were to do.
Around the same time, a group of us in Austin had been discussing ways to increase and improve The University of Texas’s research, teaching and public outreach in global policy affairs. Led by retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman and then Dean of the Law School, Bill Powers, and inspired by the sage counsel of Elspeth Rostow, a small but enthusiastic cadre of “globalists” gathered for the now famous “Tarry House” lunches. During these lunches, Bob and Bill skillfully laid a foundation for building new international programs at UT. These two efforts came together in 2004/05, as the Strauss Center won the blessing and support of then President Larry Faulkner, Provost Sheldon Ekland-Olsen and Dean of Liberal Arts, Richard Larivierre.
Who took these great ideas and made them a reality? Many were involved, but no two were more important that Jim Langdon and Larry Temple. Jim and Larry are superb lawyers, great Texans, and protégés of Bob Strauss. More importantly, both share a passion for higher education and a desire to see The University of Texas second to none. Both have made creating and guaranteeing the success of the Strauss Center a full-time job over the past few years, and without them, none of this would have happened.
Others played a critical role as well. Dean Jim Steinberg’s visionary leadership and embrace of the global mission at the LBJ School helped put the Strauss Center on the national map. Jill Angelo and Laura Jones’ tireless efforts during our first two years allowed us to hit the ground running. People like Phil Bobbitt, Betty Sue Flowers and Drew Erdmann were constant sources of inspiration and ideas. And of course, Jim Lindsay, the Center’s first director, got us off to a good start. We are grateful for his hard workand wish him well as he returns to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Most important, of course, were the donors – people as diverse as Herb Allen, Ben Barnes, the friends of Mack Brown, Jon and Becky Brumley, Carlos Bulgheroni, Eleanor Crook, D.J. Kelly, Sukhan Kim, John Kleinheiz, Robert Rubin, Ron Steinhardt, Michael Waller and of course, Bob Strauss, his wonderful brother Ted Strauss and the whole Strauss family and the remarkable lawyers from Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, amongst many others. We were also fortunate to have the support of some terrific organizations, including the Annenberg Foundation, ATT, the Confidence Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Goldman Sachs and Vimpelcom, to name just a few. Each supported us with resources, but more importantly, with faith that a global affairs center in the middle of Texas could be as influential, and in some cases, more important, than the more established centers on the east and west coast. We hope to more than validate that faith in the months and years to come, and to expand our circle of friends.
In the meantime, thank you for your support and friendship. It is an honor beyond words to lead a center named after one of our great Americans, Bob Strauss, and to help an effort so many have done so much to make happen and which is vital to our state, our nation and our world. I look forward to working with all of you in making the Strauss Center an even bigger success.
Francis J. Gavin
