Bob Dole to attend groundbreaking of institute building on KU campus

LAWRENCE -- Former Senate majority leader and presidential nominee Robert Dole will return to his alma mater this fall to break ground on the public policy institute bearing his name.

Dole and his wife, Elizabeth, will join Richard Norton Smith, the newly named director of the Robert J. Dole Institute for Public Service and Public Policy, KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway and other dignitaries at the ceremony.

The groundbreaking is scheduled for Oct. 5 at the site, located west of the Lied Center of Kansas on KU's West Campus. The hilltop location has sweeping views of the Wakarusa River valley. More details about the event will be announced later.

The $8 million, 28,000-square-foot Dole Institute building will house offices, meeting spaces and exhibits for the programs to be developed by the Institute, which will focus on major public service oand policy issues of the day. It will also house Senator Dole's archives -- more than 3,500 boxes of material -- for future study and use by students, scholars and the people of Kansas.

The building will feature a colonnade of smooth Kansas limestone and a reflecting pool, which recalls Washington's Tidal Basin area. A drawing of the building is available online at www.ku.edu/~fmkuhtml/dcm/dcmpics/dole_inst.jpg.

Until the building is completed in early 2003, the Dole Institute will be located in the Pinet House, located at 12th and Indiana streets, adjacent to the main campus. Dole's papers are stored in KU's Spencer Research Library.

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