The redbrick classical-style building, designed by Kiene and Bradley Architectural Partnership of Topeka, was dedicated May 14, 1983, in the centennial year of the Alumni Association. The association had been housed in Fraser and Strong halls, Sudler House and the Kansas Union before the new center was built. An alumni fund drive raised $4.2 million for construction, and the KU Endowment Association donated a site northeast of the Kansas Union. The building has reception areas; conference and meeting rooms; a lounge and library; a club and activity rooms for retired faculty; and administrative, programs, publications and records staff offices. The center is named in memory of K.S. "Boots" Adams, a former student who went to work for Phillips Petroleum in Bartlesville, Okla., in 1920 to earn enough money to complete his KU business degree and retired as chief executive officer. His widow and seven children, five of them KU alumni, were major donors. The retired faculty club is named for Paul Endacott, a 1923 engineering alumnus and basketball star who also was a key executive at Phillips. He, his wife and two sons, also alumni, donated the funds for it. Incorporated into the building are architectural elements salvaged from Old Fraser Hall: wrought-iron railings from the towers, doors used as paneling and balusters used as room dividers.
Pronounced: (NAY-smith)
The fieldhouse, which opened March 1, 1955, is named for Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, longtime basketball coach who played for and was trained by James Naismith, the game's founder, who was a longtime KU professor of physical culture and its first basketball coach. The fieldhouse and its basketball court, now named for Naismith, superseded the facilities at the original Robinson Gymnasium, built in 1907 and razed in the late 1960s, and Hoch Auditorium, where games were played from 1927 to 1955. Like those facilities, the fieldhouse also has been the site of concerts and university functions.
The fieldhouse, a limestone structure designed by State Architect Charles L. Marshall, seats 16,300 and has concession and media facilities. It houses athletics department media relations offices; systems information; facilities and events management; baseball, rowing and Spirit Squad coaches; men's and women's track offices; an Olympic sports equipment room; locker rooms for rowing, soccer, softball and men's and women's basketball teams and staff and officials; and athletics department human resources and other administrative offices.
It was renovated in 1974-75, including a new court floor, and again in 1993. In spring 2005 the exterior was cleaned and other renovations done before construction began on the two-story, 26,000-square-foot Booth Family Hall of Athletics on the east face, designed by HOK Sport+Venue+Event of Kansas City, Mo. The hall was made possible by donations from the children of Gilbert and Betty Booth, longtime KU supporters who lived near the fieldhouse. It opened Jan. 21, 2006, and houses a hall of fame for Kansas athletes and sports, with a special emphasis on the contributions of Naismith and Allen to KU’s basketball traditions. The hall also includes the ticket office; www.kustore.com; and donor, alumni and recruiting meeting rooms.
See also: Robinson Health and Physical Education Center; Budig Hall/Hoch Auditoria
Fieldhouse Complex:
Fieldhouse
Anderson Family Strength and Conditioning Center
Anschutz Sports Pavilion
Arrocha Ballpark
Booth Family Hall of Athletics
Football practice fields
Hoglund Ballpark
Horejsi Family Athletics Center
Jayhawk Soccer Complex
Parrott Athletic Center
Wagnon Student Athlete Center
Opened in 1989 and directly north of the fieldhouse, it also houses the parking department office.
Increasing demand for both educational and recreational sports facilities spurred the decision in the late 1990s to build a new student center. The $17 million facility south of Watkins Memorial Health Center, funded by student fees, was dedicated Sept. 25, 2003. In December 2007, it was named in honor of David A. Ambler, the longtime vice chancellor for student affairs who was a strong advocate for a new recreation fitness center.
The 98,000-square-foot center, conceived by Ken Ebert Design Group of Manhattan, has a suspended track, a rock-climbing wall, cardiovascular and resistance training equipment, weight rooms, aerobic and martial-arts studios and basketball, volleyball and racquetball courts. An addition of approximately 45,000 square feet should be completed in spring 2008. The Recreation Services offices also are housed in the center.
View Photo Library images of the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center
See also: Robinson Center and Shenk Sports ComplexPronounced: Uh-MEE-nee
Named for Koli K. "K.K." Amini, a 1949 petroleum engineering graduate whose gift of $1 million funded its construction, the hall was built in 1992. It houses 50 men in three- or four-person suites. Gould Evans Associates of Lawrence designed it and its twin, Margaret Amini Scholarship Hall.
Pronounced: Uh-MEE-nee
Named for Margaret Wenski Amini, 1946 journalism graduate who with her husband, K.K. Amini, gave $1.5 million for its construction, the hall opened in 2000. It houses 52 women and is the architectural twin of the adjacent K.K. Amini Scholarship Hall.
View Photo Library images of Margaret Amini Scholarship Hall
Named for Dana, a 1959 business graduate, and Sue Anderson of Los Angeles and their family, longtime KU supporters and its chief donors, the 42,000-square-foot facility at the northwest corner of Anschutz Sports Pavilion was dedicated April 19, 2003. It is used by all athletic department sports and houses the strength and conditioning department staff offices; weight, exercise and conditioning rooms; and conference and tutoring rooms.
Pronounced: AN-shoots
Dedicated Oct. 7, 1989, it is named in honor of Marian and Fred Anschutz, parents of Philip Anschutz of Denver, a 1961 alumnus who with his wife, Nancy, gave $6.5 million for an endowed library acquisitions fund. Peckham Guyton Albers and Viets Inc. of Overland Park were the architects. It houses scientific and technology holdings and is a Regional Federal Depository for U.S. documents and an official depository library for the United Nations and the European Union. It also houses GIS and data services; instructional services; and the T.R. Smith Map Collection.
View Photo Library images of Anschutz Library
See also: Anschutz Sports Pavilion
Pronounced: AN-shoots
The pavilion is named for Fred Anschutz, a 1933 alumnus who was its chief donor, and was dedicated Oct. 27, 1984. It houses practice areas for football, track, softball/baseball and soccer; the Ray Evans Football Field and Bill Easton Track practice areas; and the Shaffer-Holland Strength Center, superseded in March 2003 by the Anderson Family Strength and Conditioning Center.
See also: Anschutz Library; Anderson Family Strength and Conditioning Center
Jayhawker Towers: 800 male and female students
Sprague Apartments: 10 units; retired faculty
Stouffer Place: 25 buildings, renovation to eight apartments per building; married students and those with children
Sunflower Apartments: 19 units; faculty, staff, visiting professors
Pronounced “uh-ROKE-uh”
In November 2002, alumnus Cheryl Womack pledged $2 million for construction of a women’s softball stadium southeast of Allen Fieldhouse, replacing Jayhawk Field. Womack, of Mission Hills, Kan., who has a 1975 bachelor’s in elementary education, is the CEO of VCW Holding Company LLC; the ball field is named for her father, Demostenes Arrocha, a Panamanian immigrant. Sports PLAN Studio of Kansas City, Mo., designed the field, which has dugouts, batting cages and drill areas and a computerized scoreboard. It was dedicated May 1, 2004. Future upgrades are to include permanent seating for 800, field lighting, press box and media facilities, restrooms, locker rooms and training facilities.
The School of Music and Fine Arts was founded in 1891; it merged the Department of Music, established in 1877, and the Department of Art, established in 1885. Courses in drawing, painting, piano, violin, voice and other fine arts had been offered from KU's earliest years, but none of the various disciplines had a permanent home. For several decades the music teachers were paid only, or mostly, by individual student fees, and the visual arts were taught as second or third subjects by faculty hired for other courses.
Between 1893 and 1917 the school was housed in the increasingly decrepit North College, the university's first building, until that was declared unfit for occupation. Rooms in the basement and first floor of the new Administration Building (later Strong Hall) were used by music; visual arts had studios and classrooms on the top floor. By the early 1970s space in about a dozen campus buildings was being used, including Bailey Annex, Memorial Stadium, Flint Hall, Chamney House and Barn, the Wesley Building and a duplex on 14th Street.
The music and dance department moved into the newly completed Murphy Hall in 1957, sharing performing space with the University Theatre but having its own wing for faculty studios, rehearsal rooms and administrative offices. Visual arts faculty committees began serious planning about 1970, and funding was approved in 1975 for a building. Its design was by Paul Krause, a 1956 alumnus and principal at Horner and Krause of Kansas City, Kan., but construction estimates had to be redone to meet the budget, delaying the project. Construction began in 1977 on the hilltop south of Marvin Hall. The new building of red brick, an open plan over steel trusses, had 115,000 square feet; it absorbed "new" Fowler Shops, which had opened in 1949, adding about 26,600 square feet. Old mechanical engineering shops were razed to make way for the $5.75 million project, dedicated April 9, 1978.
The building houses design, painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, industrial and interior design, weaving, metalsmithing/jewelry and printing studios and labs; faculty and staff offices in art and design; and a faculty/student exhibition gallery. (Occupational therapy, long a division of the school, remained in Blake and Twente halls until being folded into programs at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.) Serious problems with ventilation of toxic fumes from oils, varnishes and other artists' media were addressed by major repairs in 1983.
View Photo Library images of Art & Design Building
See also: Marvin Hall; Marvin Studios; Murphy Hall; Stauffer-Flint Hall; Learned Hall; Mount Oread
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