Page 6 University Daily Kansan Thursday, Oct. 30, 1952
Coed Housing Mess Reaches Crisis
Coed Housing First Things First In KU Expansion
The housing problem at KU has reached a crisis. The time is past when we can shrug our shoulders.
The time has come when University officials, the board of regents, the people of Kansas, and the students at KU must take full realization of the problem.
First we must draw the problem up close and examine its every detail. Then we must shift it away from us and look at it in perspective.
spective. The problem must be analyzed from all angles before any final action is taken on the University's 10-year building plan by the board of regents.
After making the analysis, only one conclusion can be drawn. More than anything, this University needs housing for independent students.
We believe in the administration of the University, that it has the wisdom and foresight to study the construction need on the campus and legislate accordingly. But up to this time there has been a severe oversight.
severe oversight. For this reason we encourage the administration and the board of regents to make a thorough study of the situation before taking action for the benefit of the state, the University, and its future students.
We invite these men to come to Lawrence for a personal inspection of housing conditions as they exist here.
Let them then appropriate funds for the building program as they see fit. But let first things come first.
—Chuck Zuegner.
EEDS SAG IN UPPERCLASS DORMS—Crowded sleeping quarters and uncomfortable thin mattresses and cot springs are not conducive to good sleep. Repeated requests for better beds has brought no response from University authorities. Such conditions are familiar in the University's 10 upperclass women's dormitories. Kansan photo by Anthony
David S. Arthurs.
Editorial on Housing Wins Student Praise
Editor of the Daily Kansan:
In Friday's Kansan an editorial appeared which condemned the housing conditions in the dormitories for independent upperclass women. As the author of that editorial, I was very much interested in the reaction which it caused among these and other students. Their comments should be adequate proof that I was not just whistling in the dark.
I do not live in one of these houses, but a large number of women are forced to, and they don't like it.
One student, a resident of Hopkins hall, said, "Two years ago I lived at Corbin, then it was given to the freshmen. Last year I moved to Foster, then it was turned over to the freshmen. Now I'm living here
Three women who live in Locksley said that all reports of unsatisfactory conditions were underestimated.
This year, for several weeks, the women living in Carruth hall were without heat, and at the present time the radiators are in poor working order.
... all of us feel like unwanted relatives."
In many rooms in the dormitories, clothes and personal possessions are piled around the rooms in heaps—because there is closet space for only a few garments.
I received comments from numerous persons outside of these dormitories, and all of them feel that the University administration has used very poor judgment in allowing such a situation to exist. Most of them know of certain instances
CONGESTION AT OREAD—Men use newspapers for window shades and hang clothes from the ceiling of their 7 by 11-foot rooms from want of closet space at Oread hall. The re-vamped army barracks is the only University dormitory for independent men not receiving scholarships.
Kansas Must Look to Future In Initiating Building Plan
The University is faced with a dilemma in its recently publicized 10-year building problem.
Basically the question is, "Should the institution build more dormitories to house the increased enrollment which is expected to hit colleges the country over about 1960," or, "Should it build more classroom and laboratory facilities to train these anticipated 10,000 students?"
Nearly everyone recognizes the pinch. It takes money to build, whether it's housing facilities or instructional facilities. Apparently, there isn't enough cash and credit to do both.
The question is where will these youngsters live when they go to college. More specifically, where will they live if they come to the University of Kansas?
There were a lot of babies born during and after World War II. The first wave of these little cherubs will have attained college age by 1961.
Chancellor Murphy is facing another question side by side with the housing problem. That is, what will happen if we don't have the facilities to give adequately the instruction which they'll want?
Either way, an institution—instructional or otherwise—is going to lose business if a competitor has more to offer than the first party. KU could well be in the position of the merchant who loses accounts because the man next door offered better products and better services.
Other colleges and universities over the nation took a long gamble during the depression era. Labor and materials were cheap. Men were looking for work and there was money in the till. Furthermore, Uncle Sam was willing to foot the bill—or a major portion of it—on any public works project.
Administrators of these schools decided to use this tremendous bargain for dormitory facilities.
KU built the rock wall on North College hill.
For years, these new dorms stood empty. Often, they could not be filled even if the whole independent student body were required to live in them. They were, in fact, a financial burden to the institution which had built them.
Even Watkins and Corbin halls, which had been built in the 1920s, were seldom if ever fully occupied.
Then came the war, with the accompanying inflation and scarcity of materials. After that came the post-war rush, more inflation, and still a scarcity of materials. The cost of building kept on spiraling upward.
The University, nevertheless, built Pearson, Stephenson, Sellards, and Hodder halls, always looking twice at each dollar it spent.
"Now," says Irvin Youngberg, executive secretary of the Endowment association, "we wish we could build some more like them for what those cost us."
The wherewithal to do some of the drastically needed building is, according to University officials, almost in sight. We believe the chancellor's office is fully cognizant of the problems confronting him in regard to how the money will be spent.
We believe that the KU housing problem should be given more consideration by the people of Kansas. It's their University, and a great number of them have daughters and sons who will be considering a college education soon. A large number of these youngsters will come to KU.
What will the girl who enters the University in 1955 be offered in living facilities when she enrolls in September, 1956? Monchonsia? Kanza? Hopkins? Locksley? A private home? We certainly hope not.
where conditions are worse than those which I knew about.
Jim Baird.
In one room in a private home, the occupants are sleeping in sagging unpainted beds, and many of their personal possessions are stored in boxes stacked in the hallway—in the
room there is only aisle space between the beds.
The big question is "Why has this situation been allowed to come into existence?"
It's nice to have a large crop of freshmen, but when there is grave
danger of losing the upperclassmen,
then it's time to stop and give a little
consideration to their needs.
Jackie Jones
journalism senior
Asst. Managing Editor,
Daily Kansan