KU News Release

LAWRENCE — The Robert J. Dole Archive and Special Collections has awarded more than $5,000 to 2011-12 research and travel grant recipients.

“We received many exemplary applicants for research awards this year, and I wish we had been able to fund each proposal,” said senior archivist Morgan Davis. “The two fellows and two travel grant recipients we selected are truly the best of the best. They will no doubt use materials in the Dole Archive to make important contributions in a variety of academic disciplines, and I am excited to be working with them.”

Dole Institute research fellows are awarded competitive funding each year to support projects involving use of the Robert J. Dole Archive and Special Collections.

The 2011-12 research fellows are Gary Aguir, associate professor of political science at South Dakota State University, for his project, “Congressional Responses to Constituent Casework Regarding Federal Bureaucracies,” and Ben Merriman, doctoral student in sociology at the University of Chicago, for his project, “Agricultural Subsidy and Rural Development in Kansas in the Post-war Period.”

The Dole Institute also awarded travel grants to encourage scholars to use the resources available at Dole Archive and defray costs associated with travel.

Travel grants have been awarded to Josh Ryan, doctoral student in political science at the University of Colorado-Boulder, for his project, “Post-Passage Bargaining and Resolution in Congress,” and David Hamilton Golland for work on a biography of Kansas native Arthur Fletcher.

The Dole Archive, located at the Dole Institute of Politics, contains the records of Sen. Bob Dole’s political career and is one of the largest collections of political materials outside of the presidential library system. The archive is open to the public for research use from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.