photo by: Peter Hancock

Dan Glickman, a former congressman from Wichita, and Kathleen Sebelius, a former governor and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, were the keynote speakers Saturday night at the Kansas Democratic Party's state convention in Topeka.

The Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas has created an advisory board and filled it with quite a few big names. Aside from the wisdom they have to share, I’m sure politically connected-types don’t hurt when recruiting speakers of the caliber who’ve previously visited KU through the Dole Institute (former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, plus foreign heads of state, to name a few).

The 18-person board will serve as the Dole Institute’s chief volunteer advisory group, providing support to promote and achieve its mission, according to a recent announcement from the institute. Board members will help select speakers, recommend program ideas and be accessible to Dole Institute Student Advisory Board members.

“Senator Dole and I are very proud to have this group advising us,” Dole Institute Director Bill Lacy said in the announcement. “It’s composed of national and local figures and is bipartisan and very diverse. All have supported us or participated in our programs, and they know and believe in our mission.”

photo by: Peter Hancock

Dan Glickman, a former congressman from Wichita, and Kathleen Sebelius, a former governor and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, were the keynote speakers Saturday night at the Kansas Democratic Party's state convention in Topeka.

Here’s a list of members of the new board, with descriptions from the Dole Institute. Notes in parentheses are mine. Board members will serve two- or three-year appointments upon their nomination.

• Rose Barfield (ret.) – former brigadier general, U.S. Army

• Shannon Brown – senior vice president and chief HR officer, Fedex Corporation

• Nancy Dwight – Republican strategist; former executive director, National Republican Congressional Committee

• Peter Fenn – Democratic strategist; president, Fenn Communications Group

• Joseph Gaylord – Republican strategist; former senior adviser to House Speaker Newt Gingrich

• Dan Glickman – former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. representative and director, Institute of Politics, Kennedy School at Harvard University

• Fred Logan – former chair, Kansas Board of Regents and Kansas GOP

• Marlon Marshall – Democratic strategist; former special assistant to President Barack Obama and deputy field director, Obama 2012 (Marshall, a KU grad, is now working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Here’s a Q&A I did with him back in November.)

• Bette Morris – president, Mark and Bette Morris Family Foundation

• Maynard Oliverius – former president and CEO, Stormont-Vail HealthCare

• Mike Pettit – former chief of staff and administrative assistant to Bob Dole

• John Pinegar – partner, Pinegar, Smith and Associates Inc.

• Edward Riss – investor

• Rebekah Romm – Republican strategist; former student coordinator, Dole Institute of Politics Student Advisory Board

• Kathleen Sebelius – former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and governor of Kansas

• Dolph Simons Jr. – chairman, The World Company (Simons was editor of the Journal-World, until Ogden Newspapers purchased the paper effective Aug. 1.)

• Jim Slattery – strategic counsel, Wiley Rein LLP; former U.S. representative

• Bill Lacy – director, Dole Institute

The board’s ex-officio members are KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little and Dole Institute associate director Barbara Ballard, who is also a Democratic member of the Kansas House of Representatives.

• Prize money update: In other Dole Institute news, former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum plans to give back the $25,000 cash award she received for the Dole Leadership Prize to be used for student programming at KU, the institute recently announced.

photo by: John Young

Former U.S. senators and longtime friends Nancy Kassebaum and Bob Dole speak about the time they served in Congress, as well as contemporary politics, on Saturday afternoon at the Dole Institute, 2350 Petefish Drive.

Kassebaum was named the winner of this year’s Dole Leadership Prize in [a surprise ceremony Sept. 17 at the Dole Institute][4]. The money will help fund the Dole Institute’s semi-annual Student Advisory Board program as well as the Pizza and Politics series, both key components of the Dole Institute’s student-led programming, according to the announcement.

The 2015 Dole Leadership Prize winner, President Bill Clinton, left his cash award with the Dole Institute to help a program on women in leadership.

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.

[3]: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2016/jun/17/simons-family-selling-journal-world-ogden-newspape/