Campus Buildings Directory
1 floor
This 7,000-square-foot, $2.7 million building on the north side of the Kansas Union was dedicated April 25, 2008, and named in honor of Lisetta and Carmine Sabatini, parents of donors Frank Sabatini, who holds KU degrees in business and law, and Nella Sabatini Dinolfo. It was funded by a $1 million gift from the Sabatini Family Foundation of Topeka, student fees and other university sources. Designed by Gould Evans Associates, it houses staff and program offices, an auditorium and academic support and study rooms for students.
Margaret Amini: 50 women
Battenfeld: 48 men
Douthart: 48 women
Krehbiel: 50 men
Miller: 49 women
Pearson: 48 men
Grace Pearson: 48 men
Dennis E. Rieger: 50 women
Sellards: 47 women
Stephenson: 47 men
Watkins: 49 women
4 floors, basement
Capping the observance of the School of Pharmacy’s 125th year was the dedication Oct. 22, 2010, of its new building on west campus. The dark brick structure houses three auditoria, pharmacy skills and biochemistry laboratories, a library and resource center, classrooms, administrative and faculty offices, and a museum. An old-fashioned soda fountain is a feature of its Mortar and Pestle Café.
Treanor Architects of Lawrence incorporated energy-efficient elements into the design of the 110,000-square-foot building, whose landscape is maintained by the Native Medicinal Plant Research Program. It also has the only FEMA-standard storm shelter on campus.
Funding of $50 million in bonds from the state of Kansas included $4.5 million for a one-floor addition to the School of Pharmacy at the School of Medicine-Wichita. KU Endowment raised $5 million more.
Hadl Auditorium, Wagnon Student Athlete Center: 155
Kansas Union
Alderson Auditorium: 190
Ballroom: 700
Big 12 Room: 240
Woodruff Auditorium: 500
Lied Center of Kansas: 2,020
Bales Organ Recital Hall, Lied Center: 200
Murphy Hall
Crafton-Preyer Theatre: 1,160
Inge Theatre: 90-100
Swarthout Recital Hall: 350
Robert F. Baustian Theatre: 130
Spahr Engineering Auditorium, Eaton Hall: 250
Spencer Art Museum auditorium: 265
3 floors, basement
47 women
One of the three scholarship halls funded by the 1945 gift of Joseph R. Pearson of Corsicana, Texas, and his wife, Gertrude Sellards Pearson, a 1901 alumna, it is named in honor of her family. The hall, a Georgian-style brick, was built on the southeast edge of the Brynwood Manor estate and opened in fall 1952. It houses 47 women in four-person suites.
2034 Becker Drive 66047
2 floors
The center, originally dedicated Oct. 15, 2004, was renamed in honor of longtime professor and administrator Delbert M. Shankel on April 15, 2010.
Its original centerpiece was an 800-megahertz magnetic resonance spectrometer for use in medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry research. A $22.2-million, 44,000-square-foot addition to the west side was dedicated Oct. 23, 2008. Two new wings house the Specialized Chemistry Center and the labs and students of Blake Peterson, a Kansas Bioscience Authority Eminent Scholar.
The center also houses the Center of Excellence in Chemical Methodologies and Library Development; the High-Throughput Screening Laboratory; the Center for Cancer Experimental Therapeutics; and the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence.
Shankel came to KU as an assistant professor of microbiology in 1959. He has been chair of the Department of Microbiology, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, executive vice chancellor, acting chancellor (1980-81) and chancellor (1994-95). Among other appointments, he was interim director of intercollegiate athletics. He was named a Mortar Board Outstanding Educator three times and received the alumni association’s Ellsworth Medallion for Outstanding Service and its Distinguished Service Citation.
Clinton Parkway and Iowa Street
These intramural fields, designed by KU landscape architect Alton C. Thomas on land donated by KU Endowment, are named for Henry Shenk, KU athlete and alumnus who was chair of the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation 1941-72; he retired in 1976 and died in 1989.
The complex has eight fields for use by KU students and employees or by university and community groups to play football, rugby, soccer, field hockey or cricket; a jogging trail also is available. Recreation Services manages the fields, which were dedicated Sept. 27, 1980, and renovated in 2003.
See also: Pioneer Cemetary
2 floors
The research lab, dedicated May 6, 1996, is named for Dolph Simons Sr., longtime publisher of the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper and a key figure in bringing distinguished chemist Takeru Higuchi to the university. The $8.9 million building, designed by Glenn Livingood Penzler Miller Architects of Lawrence, houses laboratories and other research space, an auditorium, conference rooms and offices for researchers focused on cancer-fighting drugs.
1 floor, basement
The $1.1 million research center was designed by Hazard, Van Doren & Stallings of Topeka and dedicated May 5, 1978. It is named for Edward E. Smissman (1925-74), professor and chair of medicinal chemistry and University Distinguished Professor, and is part of the Higuchi Biosciences Research Area in west campus.
See also: Pioneer Cemetary
1300 Oread Ave. 66045
2 floors, basement
Dedicated Oct. 8, 1967, Smith Hall houses the Department of Religious Studies, faculty and administrative offices, classrooms and the William J. Moore Library. It occupies the site of Myers Hall, which had housed the Department of Religion since 1907.
Myers had been built on the site of the Rush farmhouse, purchased in 1901 by the Christian Women’s Board of Missions, Christian Church, to house the Kansas Bible Chair, offering courses in religious history and the Bible; the hall was also used as a social center and public lecture space. In the 1960s funds were raised privately and from affiliated denominations for construction of a new building, and Myers was demolished in 1966.
This building was designed by architect Charles L. Marshall of Topeka and named for Irma I. Smith of Macksville, Kan., a major donor. To incorporate images from the university seal, Marshall designed the large stained-glass window “Burning Bush” and a courtyard for a large bronze statue of Moses.
Smith Hall and the land it occupies were owned by the Christian Churches of Kansas and the Kansas Bible Chair until 1998, when the university bought them for $1.1 million. From 1977 to 1998 the university paid $1 a year for use of the hall by its Department of Religious Studies.
6 floors, basement
When it opened in 1930, “new” Snow Hall replaced the original limestone building of 1886 designed by John G. Haskell and named for Francis H. Snow, the natural history professor who became the fifth chancellor (1890-1901). The original building had seriously deteriorated by 1915 and was a lethal risk by the mid-1920s when funds were finally approved for a new science building. “Old Snow,” whose site was the northwest corner of the Watson Library lawn, was demolished in 1934. Salvaged stone was used to face the Military Science Building.
State Architect Charles Cuthbert and H.H. Lane of the zoology department collaborated to design the new Indiana limestone building in a modified Collegiate Gothic style. It housed the departments of botany, zoology, entomology and bacteriology; Snow’s renowned entomological collection; the botanical collection; classrooms; and labs.
Wings were added on the north in 1950 and 1958; a major renovation in 1989-90 converted the 1958 addition to classrooms and offices and added new space for the Snow Entomological Museum. The entomology collections have been moved to the Public Safety Building and to Dyche Hall. Many of the science divisions moved to Haworth Hall, and Snow now houses the Department of Mathematics; the Department of Economics; the environmental studies program; and architecture and urban design studios, faculty offices, craft shop and jury rooms.
See also: Haworth Hall; Military Science Building; Printing Services/Public Safety Building
1532 W. 15th St. 66045
2 floors
Pronounced: SPAR
The yellow-brick library, designed by Gould Evans Associates of Lawrence, was begun in 1984 and dedicated May 5, 1988. It is named for Charles E. Spahr, a 1934 engineering alumnus, emeritus chair and CEO of Standard Oil Co. of Ohio and KU benefactor who with his wife made a major endowment to the library. The two-story, 13,000-square-foot library holds about 70,000 books and serials and more than 350,000 microfiche items. It is connected by an enclosed walkway to the first floor of Learned Hall, the main engineering building, and shares a courtyard with Learned and Eaton halls. An addition was completed in fall 1990.
1301 Mississippi St. 66045
5 floors
The museum, dedicated in September 1977, was built with funds from the Kenneth A. and Helen F. Spencer Foundation. It is named for Helen Foresman Spencer, a student in the 1920s who married Kenneth A. Spencer, a 1926 graduate who founded a chemical company and the Midwest Research Institute of Kansas City, Mo. Like the Spencer Research Library, which she also funded, the museum was designed by architect Robert Jenks of Kansas City, a KU classmate, and built of white Indiana limestone.
Its galleries mount exhibits from the permanent collections and touring or special exhibits. Special strengths include medieval art; European and American paintings, sculpture and prints; photography; Japanese painting and prints; and quilts and textiles. It also houses the Art and Architecture Library; the Kress Foundation Department of Art History; an auditorium that seats 265; museum shop; and faculty and administrative offices.
4 floors
This neoclassical building, which opened in 1968, honors Kenneth A. Spencer (1902-60), a 1926 graduate who founded the Spencer Chemical Co. and the Midwest Research Institute of Kansas City, Mo. The library was built with a grant from his widow, Helen Foresman Spencer, who attended KU, and the family foundation. It was designed by architect Robert Jenks of Kansas City, a 1926 graduate, and built of white Indiana limestone. Its terrace adjoins Strong Hall to the south.
It houses the University Archives (chancellors’ papers, buildings, athletics, student life; publications, timetables, yearbooks; photographs and videotapes); the Kansas Collection (state and county depository, maps, genealogies, photographs, political literature, books and periodicals); and Special Collections (ancient, medieval, Renaissance, 18th-century, Irish, science and education resources).
See also: Spencer Museum of Art
2 floors, basement, sub-basement
The university’s first library, this Oread limestone and red sandstone building was designed in the Romanesque Revival style by Kansas City architect Henry van Brunt, who also designed the first chancellor’s residence immediately east of it. Both were built with the 1891 bequest of Boston leather merchant and philanthropist William B. Spooner, uncle of Francis H. Snow, an original faculty member and the fifth chancellor. Dedicated in October 1894, it was the library until 1924, when the much larger Watson Library opened.
In 1926 it became the Spooner-Thayer Museum of Art, housing collections that were a 1917 gift of Sallie Casey Thayer in memory of her late husband, Kansas City department-store magnate William B. Thayer of Emery, Bird, Thayer. These collections included ceramics, glassware, textiles and Asian paintings. In 1978, the artwork was moved to the new Spencer Museum of Art.
The Museum of Anthropology opened in Spooner in 1979; it was renamed the Anthropological Research and Cultural Collections in July 2005 and became part of the Biodiversity Institute in fall 2006.
In fall 2007, Spooner Commons was completed as a joint project of the Hall Center for the Humanities, the Biodiversity Institute and the Spencer Museum of Art. The space on the main level is used for meetings, workshops, symposia and lectures, and exhibits on the arts, sciences and humanities. The $500,000 project included new wiring, lighting and furnishings.
Renovations to the exterior of Spooner Hall, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, began in spring 2010 and were completed a year later. The work, by Nouveau Construction and Technology Services and the Western Construction Group, includes consolidating and patching deteriorated stone and replacing capstones that are beyond repair. The exterior was cleaned and waterproofed, and steel panels on upper walls wee repaired and coated to prevent further deterioration.
A courtyard on the south side of Spooner is named for Lawrence department-store owner Arthur D. Weaver.
See also: Watson Library; Spencer Museum of Art; The Bedazzler; The Owl; The Water Carrier; Weaver Courtyard1400 Lilac Lane 66044
3 floors, basement
10 units
The apartment building was made possible by a bequest from Elizabeth Sprague (1874-1960), head of the home economics department 1914-41, in memory of her sister Amelia, an artist and designer. Retired faculty members live in the redbrick building, completed in 1960.
It occupies a historic campus site. Charles Robinson, a founder of Lawrence and first governor of Kansas, sold the property to grocer H.W. Baker, who built a 24-room house that in 1890 he sold to fellow Quantrill raid survivor Brinton Webb Woodward, owner of Round Corner Drugs. Woodward enlarged the house, adding a notable art gallery, and named the house and grounds Brynwood Manor.
At the end of World War I, the Acacia Fraternity bought the house and property but by 1939 could no longer maintain them. They were acquired by Olin Templin of the Endowment Association, who had long hoped to develop scholarship halls for men such as Watkins and Miller women’s halls. The house was refurbished and opened as Templin Hall, a scholarship residence for 38 men, in fall 1940; it and Battenfeld Hall were the first of several scholarship halls at Alumni Place, as the Woodward property was renamed. Templin housed men, women and, during World War II, Navy officer trainees; it was demolished in 1959.
See also: Battenfeld Scholarship Hall; Templin Residence Hall
3 floors, basement
Pronounced: STOFF-er
The building houses the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications; administrative and faculty offices; classrooms; the Journalism Resource Center; Kansas Scholastic Press Association; Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism; Journalism Career Center; Bremner Editing Center; William Allen White Foundation; and the editorial and advertising offices, newsroom and adviser for the University Daily Kansan. The Stan and Madeline Stauffer Multimedia Newsroom, which provides editing, broadcast and newsroom facilities, was dedicated Oct. 1, 2004, in the Dole Human Development Center, adjacent to Stauffer-Flint.
The hall was built in 1897-98 with a $21,000 gift from George A. Fowler, a Kansas City meatpacker and rancher, in honor of his father. Kansas City architects Walter C. Root and George W. Siemens designed the Oread limestone building, distinguished by a tower at the east end, as a practical shop and studio for engineering students. In 1949 a new shop was built south of Marvin and Lindley halls on Naismith Drive. The original building was remodeled, and the School of Journalism and the University Press moved in 1952 from the decrepit Chemistry/Medical Hall (“the Shack”) near Watson Library, which they had occupied since 1923. The building was renamed in honor of longtime journalism professor Leon N. Flint, department chair 1916-41.
The Department of Journalism was established in the College in 1909; Flint had helped initiate the program in 1903. In 1945 the department was named the William Allen White School of Journalism and Public Information in honor of the late Emporia publisher/editor/alumnus. In 1981 Topeka media magnate Oscar Stauffer donated $1 million for a complete renovation designed by Gould Evans Associates of Lawrence; the building was renamed to honor him as well as Flint in 1982.
See also: Marvin Hall; Art and Design Building; University Press; Dole Human Development Center
3 floors, basement
47 men
Opened in fall 1951, the hall houses 47 men in two-person suites. Designed by Raymond Coolidge, it was partly funded by Mrs. Lyle Stephenson in memory of her husband, a Kansas City insurance salesman and amateur entomologist. It was built on the eastern edge of the Brynwood estate property obtained from Acacia fraternity by Olin Templin in 1939.
25 buildings, 283 apartments
Pronounced: STOFF-er
This complex of 283 apartments in 25 buildings was opened in 1957 and named for Ellis B. Stouffer (1884-1965), dean of the Graduate School 1922-45 and dean of the university 1945-51. It houses students who are married or who have children living with them. Units having one, two or three bedrooms are available. Continuing renovations will enlarge the complex into buildings having two three-bedroom units and six two-bedroom units (from the existing 12 apartments per building). Playgrounds, a children’s library and a laundry are available.
See also: Apartments
3 floors, basement, sub-basement
Surging enrollments after 1900 made a new administration and classroom building necessary, and Chancellor Frank H. Strong (1902-1920) began petitioning the legislature for funding. St. Louis architect Montrose Pallen McArdle was hired to design the building that Strong and the regents hoped would be “the center of the University architecture as well as the University life.” State Architect John Stanton, art professor William A. Griffith and College Dean Olin Templin advised. McArdle’s grandiose, $500,000 Classical Renaissance design had pillars, a rotunda, an art gallery and a classical museum. The Legislature balked, and the plans were scaled back, although echoes of the original exist; it now has a Classical Revival style.
Construction began on the east wing of the Administration Building in 1909; it was occupied by seven departments in 1911. Because of budget constraints, “West Ad” and “Center Ad” were completed in stages, ending in January 1924. The 130-room building, faced in buff terra cotta, housed the Graduate School and the schools of fine arts and business; the departments of drawing/painting/design, psychology, mathematics, economics and philosophy; the chancellor’s and registrar’s offices; a chapel; and an auditorium. It was renamed for sixth chancellor Strong in 1934, after his death; in 1998 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Major renovations and upgrading were done in 1998. Strong now houses the offices and support staff for the chancellor, provost and registrar; the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the vice provosts for information services, for research and graduate studies, and for Student Success; the associate vice provosts for International Programs; the Academic Achievement and Access Center; University Governance; and several student programs and services in advising, tutoring, financial aid, and disability needs. The third-floor auditorium is named for chemistry professor and longtime department chair Raymond Q. Brewster.
Structural Biology Center
1132 W. 11th St. 66044
This building was originally the garage of the home bequeathed to KU by the estate of Dr. Mervin T. Sudler (1874-1956), Lawrence physician, professor of anatomy, and dean of the Medical School 1921-24. The adjacent home, built in 1927, is now the Max Kade Center for German-American Studies.
This native stone structure was built about 1861 as a stable on property owned by James H. Lane (1814-66), prominent abolitionist and one of Kansas' first senators after statehood in January 1861. He was general of the Kansas Brigade in the Civil War and a chief target of William C. Quantrill's raid on Lawrence in August 1863. He escaped the raiders by hiding in a cornfield near his home at Eighth and Mississippi streets.
From 1975 to May 2010 the building was known as "the Shack" and housed the student radio station KJHK-FM; the station moved to new studios on the third floor of the Kansas Union. Plans call for remodeling the building for offices and meeting space.
See also: Max Kade Center
5 floors
When it was dedicated April 9, 1960, this five-story yellow-buff brick building, designed by State Architect John Brink, was notable for the glass curtain wall on its south face. It occupies the site of eight World War II temporary buildings used as Sunnyside Apartments for married students. The School of Business, founded in 1924, is housed there, as are undergraduate programs in accounting, business administration, finance, information systems, management and marketing; master’s, joint master’s and doctoral programs; student support services; administrative and faculty offices; the Career Services Center, the Center for International Business Education and Research, the Ernst and Young Center for Auditing Research and Advanced Technology and the International Center for Ethics in Business; and the Richard S. Howey Reading Room, named for an emeritus professor of economics. A five-story addition, designed by Nearing and Staats of Mission and built by private donations, was dedicated Nov. 4, 1983.
Summerfield also was initially designed to house the University Computation Center, superseded in 1978 by the Computer Services Facility to the east. That space was redesigned for classrooms and offices in the early 1980s. The building is named for Solon E. Summerfield (1877-1947), a Lawrence native whose father was a KU law professor. Summerfield earned bachelor’s and law degrees (1899, 1901) at KU and later moved to New York, where he founded the Gotham Silk Hosiery Co. In 1929 he endowed the Summerfield scholarship program for men.
See also: Computer Services Facility
1 floor, basement
19 units
The two-bedroom units provide one-year housing for new faculty, unclassified staff, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars. The brick, side-by-side duplexes were built in 1955.
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