Campus Buildings Directory

See Memorial Carillon and Campanile

1246 West Campus Road 66045-7505

Pronounced: kuh-RUTH

This building, opened in 1955 as a men's residence hall, was converted in 1965 to offices and classrooms for academic departments such as English, classics and Romance languages. Since 1986 it has housed the Department of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity, the comptroller’s office, Institutional Research and Planning and Design and Construction Management.

It is named for two longtime faculty members: William H. Carruth (1859-1924), who earned KU degrees in 1880 and 1883 and was a professor of German, a poet and a suffragist; and Raphael Dorman O’Leary (1866-1936), an 1893 alumnus and English professor.

The first Carruth Hall was the former chancellor’s residence at 14th and Louisiana, refurbished in 1939 as a scholarship hall for men, later for women. It was demolished in 1953, and Douthart Scholarship Hall was built on the site.

See also: Chancellor’s residence; Douthart Scholarship Hall

2445 W. Bob Billings Parkway 66049-3903

In September 1963, the university bought property, a house and a barn from the Chamney family, dairy farmers since 1910. The School of Fine Arts used the house in the early 1970s for interior design classes and craft studios; it now houses the Center for Design Research studio. The barn, now a modelshop/prototype lab, was a glassblowing studio. The barn was built in 1940; the house date is unknown.

1532 Lilac Lane 66044-3125

In 1912, Lawrence banker/landowner Jabez B. Watkins (1845-1921) built the three-story, 26-room house designed by W.J. Mitchell for himself and his wife, Elizabeth Miller Watkins. She lived in the home until her death in 1939, willing it to the university as a chancellor’s residence. It replaced the original brick chancellor’s residence at 1345 Louisiana St. Chancellor Deane W. Malott and his family were the first to live in the home. The first floor is used for receptions and other public functions; the upper stories are family living quarters.

Guest house
“The Rock Cottage”
1525 Louisiana St. 66044-4129

This small house on the grounds of the chancellor’s residence was constructed in the 1930s of stone left from construction of a retaining wall on the property. It was designed by architecture professor Verner F. Smith to be used by guests at “The Outlook” or their servants and was part of Mrs. Watkins’ bequest in 1939. In the housing shortage after World War II, faculty members lived there. In 1952 the university remodeled it as a guest house, furnishing it from estate bequests and museum holdings.

View Photo Library images of Chancellor’s residence “The Outlook”

See also: Watkins scholarship hall; Miller scholarship hall; Twente Hall

1001 Sunnyside Ave. 66045-7520

This concrete building, designed by Hollis and Miller of Overland Park and dedicated Oct. 14, 1978, cost $4 million. It consolidated academic and data-management computer services from other buildings, notably Summerfield Hall. It houses several information technology services, including the help desk; repair, training, coaching and support services; data processing and management services; academic and Web enterprise services; and technical and security services.

See also: Summerfield Hall

1515 St. Andrews Drive 66047-1625

PKG Design Group of Lawrence built this 34,000-square-foot building in 1980 as the corporate headquarters for Maupintour Inc., an international travel agency. The university purchased it for $3.2 million in 1998 to consolidate its continuing education programs and offices. The division had used several campus buildings, including the former Pi Beta Phi sorority house and three trailers north of Kansas Union; Varsity House, 11th and Indiana; and the former Lawrence post office, 645 New Hampshire, which it bought in 1965 and sold in 1998 for about $425,800.

The building houses administrative offices and classrooms for undergraduate, graduate and professional development courses; distance learning and independent study programs; and development, degree and certification programs in engineering, law, law enforcement, fire and rescue training, public management, medicine, history and education. It also offers courses in Topeka, Greater Kansas City and Lawrence. The affiliated Osher Lifelong Learning Institute offers classes, lectures and forums at the center and other locations.

View Photo Library images of Continuing Education Building

420 W. 11th St. 66045-7619

Opened in 1923 as the first residence hall at KU, the women’s hall was named—despite her protests—in honor of Alberta Corbin, an 1893 alumna and professor of German who was a suffragist leader, first university “adviser of women” and an advocate of women’s housing. The original “south” building, designed by State Architect Ray Gamble in the English colonial style, was on the site of the university’s first building, North College (1866). In 1951 North Corbin, housing 180 more women, opened; in 1958 the buildings were connected, and both were renovated in the 1990s. The student housing department is based in Corbin.

See also: Gertrude Sellards Pearson/Corbin Residence Hall Complex; Mount Oread

1346 Louisiana St. 66044-3491

The 1892 home of Juanita Strait, bequeathed to KU Endowment at her death in 2002, has been refurbished as a community center for the scholarship halls that surround it. The office of the scholarship-halls complex director also is in the building. Juanita Strait, a longtime piano teacher, was the widow of Reginald Strait, a physical education professor, and she befriended many scholarship-hall students. Renovations included foundation work; new plumbing, wiring, roof, siding, windows and porches; and a patio and fountain. These are funded by a $300,000 gift from Tom and Jann Crawford Rudkin, KU alumni from Sunnyvale, Calif., who lived in scholarship halls while students. The center will be named for Jann Rudkin’s mother, Wilna “Willie” Crawford, at its dedication April 21, 2007.