The splendor of the KU campus, showing the Dyche Hall, Campanile, Fraser Hall and the Spencer Research Library, from behind Carruth-O'Leary Hall.
The University of Kansas offers some stunning vistas that fascinate many students.
Story by Jake Arnold Photos by Jarrett Lane
Potter Lake and the sprawling green on the north face of Mount Oread, as seen from the fourth floor of Snow Hall. In the distance, Memorial Stadium can be seen.
C
ommanding an awe-inspiring view of scenic eastern Kansas, Hogback Ridge towers roughly 200 feet above downtown Lawrence. From this lofty point, otherwise known as Mount Oread, University of Kansas students can enjoy a view in three directions from a variety of points.
"I just love the view because you can basically see everything," said Brian Kruse, Rose Hill junior. His favorite vantage point is from near the parking lot of Carruth-O'Leary Hall. "Sometimes I just sit on the grass and stare."
The imposing center of Lawrence began more than 300 million years ago, when limestone and shale collected at the bottom of a shallow sea covering eastern Kansas. Millemia of erosion and natural forces combined to form the future site of the University of Kansas.
From the time Kansas was organized as a territory, Lawrence was in competition for the site of a state university. Shortly after statehood in 1861, Kansas' founding fathers, lacking the financing and support for one state university, created three: a normal school in Emporia, an agricultural college in Manhattan and a university of undecided intent in Lawrence.
Once Lawrence had its university, it needed a site. Forty acres of Hogback Ridge were purchased from ex-governor Charles Robinson for half a block of city land, 10 acres on another part of Hogback and $600 cash.
The ridge's unofficial name,
Mount Oread, means any of a group
of mountain nymphs. The mount is
a layer of limestone over shale.
The limestone protects the shale,
which is more unstable and suscep-
tible to erosion. The erosion of the
sides of the hill left a ridge known
as a hogback — hence the name.
What better place to put a state university than on top of a hill, where it can be both self important and inconvenient. Despite the space and access limitations of being perched on a hill, the increased altitude does offer gorgeous vantage points.
Joe Suber, Topeka junior, enjoys the view toward Potter Lake on the walk toward Carruth-O'Leary.
"It's a peaceful, green, rolling view," he said. "It looks like a catalog cover — like college is supposed to be."
It wasn't always so nice.
When the first 55 students and three full-time faculty trudged up the barren, treeless hill on Sept. 12, 1866, the university wasn't actually on its lands. Lacking funds for a complete building, the school's founders built their first structure
on a foundation already in place about half a mile north of their 40 acres. Old North College, as the building and thus the entire university was called, was located where Gertrude Sellards Pearson-Corbin Hall is now.
rated from the rest of the region.
rated from the rest of the region. Old Fraser Hall was torn down in 1965, but a new Fraser was put up on the site. More than a statement of intellectual superiority, it is a nice place to watch the sunset from.
Chancellor
"It's beautiful.I just kind of sneak up there sometimes."
Tisha Brown, Prairie Village sophomore, noticed the view from
John Fraser decided that that wasn't good enough. In 1872, University Building, later called Fraser Hall, was built at the 1,030-foot summit of Mount Oread. A mammoth structure of limestone, it was intentionally built facing east, toward more civilized lands. Fraser wanted it to tower above Lawrence so that its scholars would be sepa-
Tisha Brown Prairie Village sophomore, on the view from Fraser Hall's sixth floor
a sixth floor window while bored at a psychology experiment one evening.
"It's beauti-ful," she said. "I just kind of sneak up there sometimes."
sophomore, likes the view from the fourth floor of Snow Hall looking toward Potter's Lake.
Many buildings on campus offer beautiful vistas.
"It looks like you are in some remote part of nature instead of a crowded campus," she said.
Julie Arvidson, Eudora
Chancellor John Marvin is largely to thank for the natural beauties of campus. In the late 1800s he was concerned that "the New University grounds, beautifully located and ample in extent, lie exposed as common pasture for stray cattle."
He initiated much of the landscaping of the Hill, such as planting Osage hedge rows and hundreds of trees. Marvin Grove on the east side of the Campanile is still enjoyed by students today.
But it is those high mountain vistas, whether from Mount Oread or Daisy Hill, that students really enjoy.
Elizabeth Taylor, Overland Park freshman, enjoys the night view from her room on the third floor of Ellsworth Residence Hall.
"At night, I can see the lights of Lawrence, and it is kind of like being in a big city if you imagine real hard," she said.
The University of Kansas is a wel come change for students from some of those flat Midwestern states.
Jessica Zellermayer, Skokie, Ill,
freshman, likes to look out toward
the Campanile from the third floor of
Watson library.
"Skokie is as flat as you can get," she said.
"It is a better view than Skokie."
Memorial Stadium, Dyche Hall and north Lawrence, as seen from the north stairwell of Fraser Hall's sixth floor.
KU Life
Lead Story
In March, eight Connecticut legislators and almost three dozen other guests became ill with diarrhea and stomach cramps from eating food at a reception sponsored by lobbyists for the Connecticut Food Association. Meanwhile, in Maine, a legislator introduced a bill to force lobbyists, while on duty in the State House, to wear oversized name tags of the same orange color as deer hunters' vests.
Science Fair
Twins Timothy Keys and Celeste Keys were born in New Orleans recently — Timothy on Oct. 15 and Celeste on Jan. 18. Doctors believe this gap between twins is unprecedented. A week before Celeste was born, a girl named Elisabetta was born in Rome, Italy, about two years after her mother had died. (The
non researchers explained that it was sexual activity that caused female fruit flies to die young. Sperm of super-virile fruit flies contains an additive that causes the female to become disinterested in sex for a while in order to give that sperm a head start at fertilization before the female mates again.
In February at a Veterans Administration facility in Jackson, Miss., Navy veteran Michael Martin received a paymaster-paid penile implant to cure his impotence. Martin had been released from prison 10 months earlier after serving four years for molesting two young girls. Said Martin, "My only wish for the future is that I be allowed my rights under the Constitution to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
mother's preserved embryo was implanted in the womb of Elisabetta's father's sister.)
■ In a January issue of the journal Nature, Lon-
In January, the European Commission of Human Rights agreed to investigate the case of three British men who were convicted of assault while participating in various consensual sadomasochistic sex acts. Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, had upheld a trial court's ruling that consent is not a defense to acts of bodily harm.
Latest Rights
In Denver in October, U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham ruled that imprisoned kidnapper Robert James Howard should be allowed to practice certain rituals associated with his religion of Satanism and that the prison should perhaps furnish Howard with a robe and incense. One of the rituals was a "destruction ritual," during which, according to Howard, he would visualize the death of an enemy and then convince himself, he would hope, not to carry out the killing.
In September, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a Montreal man was entitled to a new trial on the sexual assault charge brought against him for attacking a 65-year-old woman in a wheelchair. The court said the man was entitled to show that he should be acquitted because he was so intoxicated that he did not understand what he was doing. A few weeks later, in Alberta, Canada, a man was acquired of assaulting his wife, based explicitly on the Supreme Court's ruling.
In December, New York state Rep. Michael Nozzollo told reporters that the state spends $700,000 a year on estrogen for its 87 male prison inmates who want to become female. State law establishes a right to such hormone treatments for inmates, and some legislators fear that indigent transsexuals may be committing crimes in order to receive free treatment.