Grassley gift cements UNI as ‘repository of his public papers’

Building on its existing collection of political papers from U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the University of Northern Iowa announced Wednesday the long-serving senator will make another gift leaving the university with a complete collection of papers from his entire career spanning 60-plus years.

Grassley — Iowa’s longest-serving U.S. senator, the longest-serving Republican senator in history and senior member of the U.S. Senate, serving as its president pro tempore emeritus — with his wife, Barbara Grassley, also announced plans Wednesday to amend their previous endowed professorship intention to allow UNI to fill the position now.

“The gifts of papers and endowed professorship are a tremendous testament to the value of our mission to educate curious and engaged future leaders, committed to public service,” UNI President Mark Nook said in a statement. “They provide an unmatched resource for students, faculty, and the public.”

‘Repository of his public papers’

Grassley, 90, was born in 1933 on a farm in Butler County. He graduated in 1955 from UNI, where he also earned a master’s in political science in 1956. He then pursued graduate work at the University of Iowa until being elected to the Iowa Legislature in 1958.

Iowans in 1974 sent Grassley to the U.S. House and then in 1980 to the U.S. Senate — where he’s accumulated 43 years of continuous service. After his most recent re-election in 2022, Grassley filed paperwork to run again in 2028 — when he would be 95.

In a UNI news release from June 3, 1988, the campus announced Grassley had chosen UNI’s Rod Library “as the official repository of his public papers” as “one small way I can acknowledge UNI’s influence in my life,” Grassley said at the time.

Calling UNI a “common people’s university with a no-nonsense get-the-job-done approach to education,” Grassley in 1988 said, “So you understand why I’m happy to pass the possession, care, control, and preservation of the official papers of my 30 years of public life to my favorite university.”

The goal, from the outset, was to make the materials available for research.

“Who knows,” Grassley said in 1988, “these papers may just collect decades of dust, or they may help a young Leland Sage of the 21st century unlock the political history of the 1970s and 1980s.” Sage was a UNI professor who taught Grassley and, in the senator’s words, “unlocked the political history of the 1880s and 1890s through the papers of Senator Allison.”

To date, UNI has received 248 boxes of Grassley’s pre-Senate documents and materials through 1980, the first of which arrived in 1986, according to UNI spokesman Pete Moris, who said the rest will come once his Senate service concludes.

Grassley documents in UNI possession now — including “constituent correspondence” from 1976 to 1980; returned questionnaires from 1975 to 1978; and folders with information about abortion, private schools, collective bargaining and other broad topics — equate to 310 linear feet, according to Moris.

First Grassley endowed professor

Chuck and Barbara Grassley in 2008 first announced intentions to endow a professorship in the UNI Department of Political Science. Since amending the funding model, the endowment now is fully vested, allowing UNI to fill the position — making Donna Hoffman the first Chuck and Barbara Grassley professor of political science.

The Grassley family has not authorized the UNI Foundation to disclose the amount they’ve given or committed for the professorship, according to Moris.

“Senator and Mrs. Grassley’s gift confirms their trust in our commitment to preparing the next generation of public servants and citizens who understand that the continued functioning of our democracy isn’t automatic, but requires concerted effort and education,” said a statement from Hoffman, a nationally-known scholar of presidential rhetoric who said she’s “honored” to be the first Grassley political science professor.

“It’s more important than ever that students learn to rigorously analyze political issues and develop the ability to discuss them with others, including those with whom they disagree,” Grassley said in a statement. “Barbara and I hope the endowed professorship will help the Department of Political Science continue its excellent work in promoting civil discourse and preparing the next generation of Iowa’s leaders.”

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