Welcome to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library blog! As the special collections and archives library at the University of Kansas, Spencer is home to remarkable and diverse collections of rare and unique items. Explore the blog to learn about the work we do and the materials we collect.
Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!
KU students currently enrolling in spring classes can be glad that the process no longer involves the kinds of scenes shown in this week’s photographs.
Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services
As part of my Museum Studies student internship this summer, one of my assignments was to create and design an exhibit to be displayed in the North Gallery at Spencer Research Library from the beginning of August through mid-September. I had to choose a topic concerning KU history, one that I could easily pull materials from the archive to support as a concept. I thought back to the time I spent perusing the yearbooks while working on another research project. One topic that intrigued me, and remained in the back of my head for some time, was that of enrollment. It had never occurred to me to even consider the fact that enrollment had not always been digital and computerized. The process, procedure, the manual entry of data – it was all foreign to me. The immediate question became “how did the university handle the process of enrollment?”
In-progress installation of the exhibit. Click image to enlarge.
I began my research by investigating the enrollment process from as far back as the university records could reach. In order to fully understand the concept I took notes on each version of the enrollment procedure I could find in the primary sources. I created a step-by-step bullet point list for each major era (every ten to twenty years or so). Doing this helped me narrow the focus of the exhibit, focusing mostly on enrollment between the 1950s through the 1980s, with a brief section on the early history of the process.
Searching the archive for images and artifacts was the exciting part for me. I’ve selected some photographs taken by the Lawrence Journal-World, multiple pamphlets distributed to students during orientation, some class guides, and registration instructions, and I will include one of the card boxes from the era of IBM punch cards. Since I had limited space, my labels consist of basic descriptors of each artifact and a few expository labels that explain the enrollment process across the history of the university.
One of the two finished exhibit cases. Click image to enlarge.
My hope and intent for this exhibit is to instill the same fascination for a bygone method that I originally had when I began my research. I want to illustrate the complexities of this older version of a process that all students partake in – while hopefully remaining accurate to the memories of those who did participate in these older systems of enrollment. It’s an important aspect of KU history that I feel deserves its own exhibition.
Mallory Harrell
KU Museum Studies graduate student and University Archives intern
Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!
Today is Move-In Day, and new and returning Jayhawks are arriving on Mount Oread. This week’s post features a verbal description and visual depiction of what this looked like at the beginning of KU’s 1928-1929 academic year, according to the 1929 Jayhawker yearbook.
Happy greetings…hand shaking…taxis whizzing away loaded with newly arrived students…perspiring baggagemen swearing at an avalanche of trunks and suitcases…The sleepy town of Lawrence suddenly awakened to the realization that another nine months session had begun at K.U.
Selected pages from the 1929 Jayhawker yearbook. University Archives.
Call Number: LD 2697 .J3 1929. Click images to enlarge.
Subsequent pages in the yearbook describe the high points of the first week of freshman life at KU. Some events are familiar to modern students, for example participating in fraternity and sorority recruitment and learning about university customs and traditions. Other events – like taking a psychological examination, attending teas, and registering and enrolling for fall classes right before the beginning of the semester – would be foreign.
Selected pages from the 1929 Jayhawker yearbook. University Archives.
Call Number: LD 2697 .J3 1929. Click images to enlarge.
Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services
Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!
Starting tomorrow, continuing students at KU can enroll for their spring classes. This weeks’ photos highlight the process before computers and the Internet: paper course descriptions, timetables, and forms, plus lots and lots of walking and waiting in line…especially if the course you wanted was already full.
To help explain the photos, we’ve also included the enrollment procedures for the Spring 1974 term.
Students picking up paperwork in Hoch Auditorium, 1968.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 14/0 1968 Prints:
Office of Admissions/University Registrar (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
Finding departmental stations in Allen Fieldhouse, 1972.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 14/0 1972 Prints:
Office of Admissions/University Registrar (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
Picking up Class Cards at departmental stations in
Allen Fieldhouse, 1976. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 14/0 1976 Prints: Office of
Admissions/University Registrar (Photos). Click image to
enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
Enrollment procedures explained in the Timetable of Classes, Spring 1974 Enrollment Edition.
University Archives. Call Number: RG 14/0/3. Click image to enlarge.
Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services
Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant