About Pearson

What is a Scholarship Hall?

The 'Schol Halls' at KU are a unique living option. Residents selected to live in the 12 scholarship halls pay about $1,600 less each year (a form of 'scholarship') than their residence hall counterparts. In these small cooperative houses, residents complete 4-6 hours of household tasks like cooking or cleaning each week, and they're also self-governing involvement is a strong tradition in the Schol Halls.

The application process is competitive. Each prospective resident's materials are reviewed and ranked based on academic achievement (GPA and test scores), financial need, and involvement in school or community activities.

Facilities

Pearson offers 2-person rooms, with communal-floor bathrooms. The hall has a central study/living room, dining room, computer room, kitchen/full-access pantry, and a rec room equipped with a pool table, ping-pong table, large screen TV and electronics.

All rooms are equipped with Ethernet connections to the KU campus network and phone connections.

Traditions

Lupi Day

These words will forever excite and unify the men of Pearson Hall ... a little more than is probably healthy. They comprise a hallowed verse that, throughout the school year, keeps perfect time for the Schol Hall community's weekly clock.

Lupi Day is perhaps the best known Pearson tradition. Every Thursday night the men congregate on the Pearson deck. At 11:55 PM they yell out the Lupi Day Chant (see above) to their brother and sister halls. Then the halls are greeted individually, to which that hall will either reply, gaining a cheer from the Pearsonites, or not, which usually can be followed by a solemn boo. Then the chant is repeated. When all is done, the residents invite the other halls to come and socialize and eat donuts in the dining room.

It all started sometime in the early 1990s, the story goes. Two revolutionary Pearsonites with a vision and a fairly high blood alcohol level (OFF CAMPUS) happened to be on the fire escape one Thursday night. The clock was just passing midnight and going on into Friday. In a moment of inspiration and pure genius, they lifted their voices and started what is now the most frequent and most widely appreciated of the Schol Hall traditions!

Random? Yes. Crazy? Maybe. But if you find yourself awake one Thursday night at 11:55, take a break, go outside, and scream at the Pearsonites.

Pearson Lawn Rock-A-Thon

Previously known as Bands in the Sand, (until our lawn died from the sand), the Rock-A-Thon is an annual event where the Personites organize live entertainment on their front lawn, and invite the Schol Hall community to have dinner on the hill and enjoy the afternoon. The musical montage is usually comprised of residents and their bands, or of other local bands that are interested.

Breakfast, Shmeckfast

This great tradition happens once or twice a semester. The men of Pearson invite the wonderful ladies of two women's Schol Halls to a midnight breakfast banquet. The guys cook and, serve, and have live musical entertainment from some of the residents. The events and conversation in the dining room usually carries on until the wee hours of the morning.

History

Joseph R. Pearson

Initiation of the men's scholarship hall system was made possible by a gift of $70,000 by the Battenfeld family as a memorial to John Battenfeld, a University student who was fatally injured in an automobile accident. As a result of this gift, Battenfeld, the first scholarship hall, was built. The system was to give prospective men students who were financially unable to attend KU a chance to live together on a cooperative basis. Scholarship winners were selected on a basis of character, academic, and extra-curricular activities, as well as financial need, and were required to maintain a 1.5 grade point average.

The next step in the program was the purchase of two houses in the 1100 block of Louisiana Street. The first of the two, Sterling hall, was first occupied in the spring semester of 1949. Oliver, across the street from Sterling, was opened in the fall of the same year. In 1950 the men in Sterling moved into Jolliffe Hall and Sterling-Oliver was combined into one organization. In the meantime plans were announced for the construction of two new scholarship halls on Alumni Place, an eight acre tract of land which was purchased in 1940 by the Endowment Association through the contributions of many Kansas University alumni. Stephenson was built and furnished as the result of a gift of $90,000 from the estate of Lyle Stephenson, a Kansas City insurance man, and financial assistance from the Endowment Association. At the commencement in 1945, a gift of $200,000 from Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Pearson of Corsicana, Texas, was announced. As a result of the gift a women's scholarship hall and a men's scholarship hall were built. When construction of the houses was started, the Pearsons increased the gift to cover the rise in building costs over the 1945 level. Plans for the new buildings were designed by former state architect, Raymond Coolidge, KU - 1924.

Contracts totaling $170,000 were let to the Martin K. Eby construction company of Wichita in November, 1950, for the construction of Pearson Hall. Completion of the hall was delayed because of rainy weather and the flood of 1951. Pearson Hall was ready for occupation at the beginning of the 1952-1953 school year, and the men from Sterling-Oliver moved into the new hall, bringing with them many of the operating routines of old Sterling-Oliver.

The establishment of Pearson Hall on Alumni Place with Stephenson, Douthart, Templin, Battenfeld, Watkins, Miller, Sellards, and Jolliffe dormitories and scholarship halls for men and women surrounding it on all sides has not allowed it to remain entirely aloof of activities taking place on Alumni Place. Difficulties arising within the hall combined with unfriendly rivalries with neighboring hall caused Pearson Hall to go through a depression during the spring of 1956 which will not be soon forgotten by those involved. The next fall brought back less than half of the old men and Pearson Hall began anew. To say that the state of the hall in the spring of 1957 was an improvement over the previous year indicated very little praise. It is hoped, however, that improvements will be made each year and that "hall spirit" will eventually become a continuing tradition - not just something for which a special attempt must be made.

It is clear that a fraternal group, such as a scholarship hall, gains its unity from the devotion and love that each member gives that hall. To expect and encourage "hall spirit" should be the main concern of each member of Pearson.