Campus Buildings Directory

1555 Irving Hill Road 66045

Named for donor Ken Wagnon and built in 1992, it was renovated in 1995 and 2005. It houses the offices of the athletic director and senior administrative staff; men’s and women’s basketball coaches; football coaches; the Dean Nesmith Training Room; the Hale Student Achievement Center; Hadl Auditorium (seats 155) and the Dolph Simons Jr. Media Room; and football meeting rooms, locker room and equipment room.

See also: Allen Fieldhouse Complex

See individual listings:

Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics
Kansas Union
Korean War Memorial
Memorial Carillon and Campanile
Memorial Drive
Memorial Stadium
Vietnam War Memorial

1540 Sunflower Road 66045-7618

Elizabeth M. Watkins donated funds for a 1937 residence hall for nurses working at Watkins Memorial Hospital, immediately north; it served that purpose until 1974. The stone building was designed by State Architect Raymond Coolidge. It housed the Hall Center for the Humanities from 1984 to 2005. The School of Social Welfare now uses the facility for several programs.

1200 Schwegler Drive 66045-7559

By the 1960s, the university had outgrown the facilities of Watkins Memorial Hospital, opened in January 1932. The hospital, the gift of Elizabeth Miller Watkins and named for her late husband, could not be expanded because of its hillside site, so a larger, more modern hospital was planned for the playing fields southeast of Robinson Center. George Hampton and Associates of Wichita and State Architect Kenneth R. McCain designed the dark brick building with medical director Raymond A. Schwegler. It cost $3.65 million, paid largely by student fees, and retained the original name.

Its 60,000 square feet included 34 inpatient beds; a clinic; a laboratory and X-ray facilities; a pharmacy; allergy and immunization, physical therapy and psychiatric treatment areas; and administrative and business offices. The Ralph I. Canuteson Memorial Library is named for the first student health director (1928-65). In 1988 the facility’s name was changed to Watkins Memorial Health Center.

A major expansion and renovation costing $5.6 million, designed by Lawrence R. Good and Associates of Lawrence and completed in 1997 created more physicians’ examining rooms, a gynecology and men’s clinic, and an urgent care clinic. The health center offers treatment and educational programs in general medicine, sports medicine, nutrition, allergy management, physical therapy, immunizations and radiology. Its Wellness Resource Center offers education and support in nutrition, fitness, alcohol and drug use, sexual behavior and stress management. A portion of a mural of sunflowers and Jayhawks created by Marjorie Whitney, chair of the design department in the 1920s, was salvaged from old Watkins and mounted in the new building. Furnishings she designed, including an original bed and screens, are exhibited, as are other memorabilia.

See also: Twente Hall; Chancellor’s residence

1506 Lilac Lane 66044-3194

In 1925, Elizabeth Miller Watkins gave $75,000 to fully fund the first KU women’s scholarship hall, to be named for her late husband, Lawrence banker Jabez B. Watkins. She also donated the land on Lilac Lane adjacent to her home, “The Outlook.” The residents had to demonstrate financial need and academic ability and agree to share all domestic duties. Thomas Williamson designed the yellow-brick, colonial-style hall. The seven kitchen/dining areas in the basement were shared by seven women each; the hall also has a living room, sleeping porches and study rooms. It houses 49 women.

View Photo Library images of Watkins Scholarship Hall

See also: Miller Hall; Chancellor’s residence

1425 Jayhawk Blvd. 66045-7544

Opened Sept. 11, 1924, this collegiate Gothic-style limestone building was named for Carrie M. Watson, an 1877 and 1880 alumna who was university librarian 1887-1921. It was designed by George L. Chandler and State Architect Ray L. Gamble. Five structural additions were done between 1938 and 1963; chronic crowding and disorganization began to be alleviated by the completion of Spencer Research Library in 1968 and Anschutz Library in 1989. Watson now houses collections in social sciences, humanities, education, journalism and social welfare; administrative and processing offices; conservation laboratory; and computer classrooms.

The lawn in front of the library was the site of the first Snow Hall, dedicated Nov. 16, 1886, and torn down in 1933.

View Photo Library images of Watson Library

See also: Spooner Hall

1445 Jayhawk Blvd. 66045-7590

In the 1960s Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe (1960-69) began lobbying for a central humanities classroom/office building that would unite departments scattered all over campus. By 1969, Haworth Hall and its neighbor Robinson Gymnasium, both opened before 1910 in the heart of campus, were razed in preparation for the new building. Initially a Wichita architecture firm planned a 25-story building with parking; lack of money and the loss of federal funding made a less imposing structure necessary. Architects Horst, Terrill and Karst of Topeka designed a four-story, cast-concrete modernist building set into the hillside. (In the two years the site stood empty, it was dubbed “Wescoe Hole” and was a meeting place for, among others, Vietnam War protestors.) Construction began in May 1971 and the first classes were offered in fall 1973. The $7.8 million hall, named for Wescoe, was dedicated April 20, 1974.

It houses about 60 classrooms; lecture halls named for College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean George R. Waggoner and Graduate School Dean William P. Albrecht; 300 faculty offices; nine liberal-arts departments—English, history, philosophy, classics, French and Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, and East Asian, Germanic and Slavic languages and literatures; the Haitian Studies Institute; the International Studies master’s program; the Ermal Garinger Academic Resource Center, a languages lab; the Writing Center; the Word Processing Center; and the Wescoe Terrace Food Court.

Work is proceeding on a 24,000-square-foot remodeling of the southwest side of Wescoe, enclosing two floors of terraces and creating about 80 offices and meeting rooms for the departments of history and Spanish & Portuguese. The $3.5-million project is expected to be completed by fall 2007.

View Photo Library images of Wescoe Hall

See also: Haworth Hall; Robinson Health and Physical Education Center

1314 Jayhawk Blvd. 66045-3176

In September 1954 the Wesley Foundation Student Center opened in a brick and concrete building funded by the United Methodist Church and private donors. Like Myers Hall immediately to the west, it was organized to provide religious, educational and cultural support to university students. It had an auditorium and stage; a chapel; meeting and recreation rooms; lounges; a kitchen; offices; and a three-bedroom apartment for a resident director. In the late 1960s it was also used for design studios, art classes, and faculty and staff offices.

In 1972 the building and grounds were renovated and opened in August as the Hilltop Child Development Center, a direct response to demands by activists for better support services for women faculty, staff and students. To help regularize the center’s finances, the university bought the Wesley Building in 1977; Hilltop moved to its new building near the Burge Union in August 2000.

University Relations, which had been housed next door to the south in the former Faculty Club/Oread Training High School, moved in 2001. It had been there since January 1976, when the Endowment Association moved to Youngberg Hall in West Campus.

University Relations was created in 1974 by merging the public-relations/speechwriting division of University Relations, established in 1957 and affiliated with the chancellor’s staff; the News Bureau, established in 1899 and until the 1940s overseen by the Department of Journalism; and the Photo and Graphic Arts Bureau.

Its present News and Public Issues and Publications divisions provide news and feature stories, photographs and video and audio reports to newspapers and radio and TV stations; reports of achievements and activities to students’ hometown newspapers; academic catalogs; viewbooks, brochures and newsletters; faculty/staff publications and directories; the university calendar; and university Web design.

The News Bureau and University Relations had offices in Strong Hall until 1970, when the News Bureau moved to a stone house at 14th and Louisiana. In 1974 it moved to Carruth-O’Leary, then in 1976 into the former Endowment offices.

See also: Smith Hall; Hilltop Child Development Center