Dr. Rodney Harris of the Williams Baptist University history faculty been awarded a research grant from Wake Forest University.  Harris is receiving the Provost’s Grant for Library Research for 2019/20.

The grant is worth up to $1,500 and will cover the costs associated with visiting the Wake Forest campus for the purpose of conducting research in their Special Collections and Archives, held in the Z. Smith Reynolds Library.

The grant will allow Harris to continue his research and writing about the life and career of Lawrence Brooks Hays.  Hays was a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, chairman of the Christian Life Commission, U.S. congressman from Arkansas, two time candidate for governor of Arkansas and staff assistant to both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Hays also served as director of the Ecumenical Institute at Wake Forest University and chairman of the North Carolina Good Neighbor Council.   Part of the Brooks Hays papers are housed in Special Collections and Archives at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library.

Previously, Harris received a research grant to use the Hays papers at the Southern Baptist Library and Archives in Nashville, Tenn., and he has done extensive research within the Hays papers at the University of Arkansas.

Harris is assistant professor of history and political science at WBU.

Williams is a private, Christian university in Walnut Ridge.