Former U.S. Senator donates papers to University of Alabama

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WBRC) - U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama may have retired, but his many years in Congress will live on for decades.

The retired senator has donated all his Senate papers to the University of Alabama, a topic that was part of the UA quarterly board of trustees meeting today in Birmingham. Those papers, more than 40 years worth, will become the driving force behind the Shelby Institute For Policy and Leadership.

Right now those papers are sitting in boxes on campus at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Trustees say considering all that the former senator has done for the state, this will become prime material for students to get an idea of Shelby’s leadership style in Washington, kind of a like a civics course up close for political science students.

University of Alabama Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. Jim Dalton says UA will bring in around 20 students per year into the program.

“We are renovating Tuomey Hall which will be a center for that. We’ll allow students access to the papers and, more importantly perhaps, our faculty access to those papers,” said Dalton. “I see a great deal of research come out of that, just looking at the way he handled matters, his leadership in those matters, navigate the politics of it.”

Dr. Dalton says the hard copies are currently in the university’s archival building but will eventually be digitized which will take some time. Afterall, we’re talking a very large of volume of papers.

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