UT names center for ex-Gov. Bill Clements

AUSTIN ( KXAN) — The University of Texas at Austin is establishing a new center named for Texas' first post-Reconstruction Republican governor.

The William P. Clements Jr. Center on History, Strategy and Statecraft will train leaders in the history of national security and diplomacy and to honor the businessman-turned-politician.

Clements died in 2011 at 94.

UT says the center’s leadership will include some of the nation's top diplomatic and international historians -- many of them already faculty members at the Austin campus.

It will offer courses and study-abroad opportunities for undergraduates and graduates; provide research grants and fellowships for promising young scholars as well as distinguished faculty members; and sponsor research, lectures and forums on history and statecraft.

"Bill Clements would be humbled and honored that a leading international center named for him would be established at the leading state university of his beloved Texas to honor his legacy, train future American leaders in how to serve their country with excellence in the national security arena, and buttress America's strong, moral leadership of world affairs,” said George Seay, the chairman of the board of advisers for the new center and Clements' grandson.

The university said it established the center in cooperation with the Clements family. It will be financially supported in part by the Clements family, which has given an initial gift of $2.5 million.