Following a wave of public support (including tributes from novelists Ann Beattie and Richard Russo) the Southern Methodist University provost said that SMU Press operations would halt on May 31–but offered hope that the university may “recreate the press” in a new incarnation.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the university’s provost Paul W. Ludden wrote an open letter about the press, offering a measure of hope about the future. Dallas News noted that SMU Press survives on a yearly budget of about $400,000–usually publishing around 10 books each year.
Here is an excerpt from the letter: “As a result of our initial decision to suspend operations, we have received many comments and offers of assistance to recreate the press in a positive, forward-looking manner … If the university is to have a press going forward, it needs to be a model for academic presses of the future within this digital age.”