Trinity University, an academically strong liberal arts and sciences institution in San Antonio, Tex., which closed its university press in the late 1980s, will reopen the press on July 15. The revival will be directed by former University of Georgia Press executive editor Barbara Ras, who will begin hiring a staff this summer. A launch date for its first list has not yet been set, but plans call for the press to initially publish six to eight new books per year with a staff of four or five. The emphasis will be on books about the Southwest and Mexico.
But why restart a closed university press when established ones elsewhere are having an array of difficulties? "We are certainly aware of those problems," said Char Miller, Trinity history professor and chair of the search committee that hired Ras, "and realize university press publishing is a risky business. Nevertheless, Trinity's model has shifted since the '80s from a university with graduate programs to one that's essentially undergraduate, and John Brazil, our president, decided that a press would be a signature marker of the university's intellectual mission. Fortunately, a donor came forward with an endowment to support his vision."
The "new" Trinity University Press will have a different focus than that of its predecessor. "It's thrilling," Ras said of her new position, "since I have the opportunity to build from the ground up a publishing program that will range from regional to literary and environmental books." Among the writers she has worked with are Barry Lopez, Rick Bass and Rebecca Solnit.
