Former President Bill Clinton will visit Lawrence next month, a source at Kansas University said Thursday.

Officials at the Dole Institute of Politics are expected to announce today or next week that Clinton will speak the evening of May 19 at the Lied Center. He also will participate in other events that day at KU.

Clinton will deliver the first-ever Dole Lecture at the institute.

Jonathan Earle, associate director of academic programming at the institute, said Thursday he couldn’t confirm the Clinton visit but that he would have an announcement about the Dole Lecture in the upcoming days.

“There’s nothing I can say now,” he said.

Dole Institute officials, including former director Richard Norton Smith, have discussed bringing the former president to campus for more than a year.

Smith initially intended to lure Clinton to the institute’s dedication ceremonies in July. But Smith later said he’d rather Clinton come at a different time because two former presidents, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, were scheduled to attend. Ford later backed out for health reasons.

Former Sen. Bob Dole, whose papers are kept at the institute, and Smith are thought to have been instrumental in convincing Clinton to come to Lawrence.

According to the institute’s Web site, the Dole Lecture will occur around April each year and involve a “nationally prominent figure” addressing “some aspect of contemporary politics or policy.”

Since leaving office in January 2001, Clinton has worked with the William J. Clinton Foundation on projects that deal with the worldwide HIV and AIDS pandemic, the economic empowerment of the poor, racial, ethnic and religious reconciliation in India, and the education and health of youths.

The Clinton foundation has offices in New York and Little Rock, Ark. Phone messages to the foundation were not returned Thursday.