Former President of Kosovo Antifete Jahjaga smiles while pointing at a Kansas Jayhawk lapel pin with Chancellor Doug Girod of the University of Kansas.
The 2023 Dole Institute Wrapped
December 14, 2023 - Features
by Jackson DeAndrea | Administrative Associate for Institutional Initiatives
Welcome to your Dole Institute Wrapped—your recap of programs, engagement initiatives, and public outreach we conducted throughout the year.
Spring
This past spring, we continued our 20th Anniversary programming with engaging, powerful guests. Our spring semester Discussion Group series featured programs moderated by Fellows Dr. Qëndrim Gashi and Jerry Seib, and featured interviews with the former President of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga, and Secretaries of State Brad Raffensperger and Maggie Toulouse Oliver.
We also welcomed many other guests throughout the semester, including NPR’s Juana Summers for our Journalism & Politics Lecture in partnership with Kansas Public Radio in honor of their 70th anniversary, archivists and historians for our Presidential Lecture Series on the American First Lady, and Senators Trent Lott and Tom Daschle—both of whom helped break ground on our tribute earthwork of Senator Bob Dole.
Along the way, we engaged with record numbers of students from the University of Kansas and throughout the country, and audiences of all ages here in Lawrence.
The Dole Institute’s Student Advisory Board’s programming drew record numbers of KU students, including at monthly Pizza and Politics programs, and SAB Programs such as Brinner—the traditional kick-off to the semester where students gather for “breakfast for dinner” while viewing a student-led program. Thanks to a partnership with the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, a cohort of nine students traveled to Cambridge for a student exchange, learning about the politics and culture of another region through bipartisan conversations. We also welcomed a record crowd of over 1,000 community members to the Dole Institute for our annual White House-style Easter Egg Roll with Dole.
In addition to student engagement at home and throughout the country, our public education team was hard at work bringing the Dole Institute to schools throughout Kansas.
Using resources from the Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archives and Special Collections, our team traveled throughout the state to educate high school and middle school students about the importance of bipartisan civil discourse and civic participation. We also welcomed students to the Dole Institute who had the opportunity to tour the archives and participate in our community earthwork tile project for the Senator Bob Dole Tribute Earthwork.
Summer
On July 22, we celebrated a landmark occasion: the 20th anniversary of the Dole Institute of Politics and the centenary of Senator Bob Dole. The Landmark Celebration kicked off that morning with tributes to Senator Bob Dole and the Dole Institute, including speeches from Robin Dole and Governor Laura Kelly, and an official dedication of Stan Herd’s tribute earthwork of Senator Dole—which features raw materials from throughout the state and is bordered by over 1,000 tiles from Kansas school children and others who visited the Dole Institute in the spring.
The celebration continued with a flyover from members of the 435th Fighter Training Squadron from Randolph Air Force Base, special presentations from Kerry Tymchuk, Bill Lacy and Richard Norton Smith, and much more. Thank you to everyone who joined us in celebrating the occasion, and a special thank you to our volunteers and Landmark Celebration supporters. You can explore more highlights from the day and see how you can celebrate this landmark occasion by visiting our Landmark Celebration page.
Fall
Following the start of classes at the University of Kansas, we hit the ground running with our fall programming. Students and community members had the opportunity to engage with journalists, pollsters, government officials, and more as we held bipartisan discussions on contemporary issues. Forums throughout the semester brought journalists Ali Vitali and Seung Min Kim to the Institute for a preview of the 2024 presidential race; pollsters Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake came to the Institute for a conversation with former fellow Gerald Seib about their new book; and Visiting Fellow Katie Harbath conducted a workshop for students and a public program on digital democracy thanks to a new partnership with the Bipartisan Policy Center.
To close out the semester, we honored Katie Sowers at the annual Elizabeth Dole Women in Leadership Lecture—a series that features women who reach positions of leadership and break barriers.
Building on its successes from the spring semester, the Dole Institute’s Student Advisory Board reached record audiences thanks to new partnerships with departments and organizations at the University of Kansas. For the first time, we partnered with the School of Business to bring Pizza and Politics to Capitol Federal Hall and spoke with the State Director for Senator Jerry Moran, Alex Richard, about economic issues. We also partnered with the KU Swift Society to bring professors Brian Donovan and Hannah Wing to the Institute for a discussion on the influence and advocacy of Taylor Swift.
Additionally, we held another successful KU Civic Engagement Leadership Month thanks to members of the KU Civic Engagement Planning Committee, which included our 2023 Hemenway Awardees. The initiative brought former SAB members back to the Dole Institute for our annual Constitution Day program and registered over 50 new voters in Kansas.
Our public education team continued to build on existing partnerships and forged new ones, which allowed the Dole Institute to reach more audiences this semester. In October, we partnered with the KU Center for Community Outreach for another successful Trunk-or-Treat event. We also welcomed many organizations to the Institute for tours of our museum and archives.
Our archivists also engaged with record numbers of researchers, including Raina Hackett, who received a travel grant to conduct research for her graduate thesis, “Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and the Expansion of Food Assistance.”
And with that, your Dole Institute Wrapped has come to an end! Thank you to everyone who made this year one to remember, and a special thank you to our staff, student workers, volunteers, and Friends of the Dole Institute who make the work we do possible.
We encourage you to explore our Points of Pride publications, where you can see all we’ve accomplished throughout the year. Be on the lookout for our Fall 2023 issue, where you can learn more about what happened at the Dole Institute this past semester.
We’ll see you in 2024!
Jackson DeAndrea is an Administrative Associate for Institutional Initiatives at the Dole Institute of Politics, supporting the Institute’s daily operations and programs. Prior to that, Jackson was a Student Archive Assistant in the Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archives and Special Collections, and worked with the Institute’s archivists and public education manager to advance the Dole Institute’s mission. Jackson is an alumnus of the University of Kansas and was a member of the Dole Institute’s Student Advisory Board.
About the Dole Institute
The Dole Institute was dedicated on July 22, 2003, at the University of Kansas on Senator Bob Dole’s 80th birthday. Home to the personal archives of both Senator Bob and Senator Elizabeth Dole, with a museum facility on par with the U.S. Presidential libraries, the Dole Institute has been a vibrant political forum promoting civil discourse, civic engagement, and idea exchange across the political spectrum for 20 years.
The Dole Institute is committed to universal accessibility in all programs and resources. We are in the process of making all of our web projects fully accessible. An accessible version of the material represented on this site will be made available upon request. Please contact us at doleinstitute@ku.edu to request the material be made available in an accessible format, or for general assistance.