Book chronicles housing history

Finding a place to live was no easy task for students who coped with KU's early 20th-century growing pains. Enterprising Jayhawks relied on hard work, luck and often the kindness of strangers. More than 900 alumni recall their adventures in student housing in a new book, Making Do & Getting Through: KU Co-ops, Halls and Houses 1919 – 1966. The Historic Mount Oread Fund and the KU department of student housing will publish the joint project in April.

Fred McElhenie, g'61, a student-housing administrator for more than 40 years, wrote the large-format hardcover volume, distributed by Oread Books in the Kansas Union. A portion of the proceeds from sales will benefit the Historic Mount Oread Fund and the Fred McElhenie Scholarship Fund. A book-signing will be announced later in the spring.

Filled with historic photos and anecdotes, Making Do & Getting Through chronicles the development of halls, houses and cooperatives from the early years—when Greek houses were among the few organized settings—through the building boom following World War II. For more than 60 years after KU's founding, students who arrived in Lawrence before classes began in September often had to "make do" in accommodations that would make today's students shudder. During the Great Depression, they sometimes lived in hovels, carrying their possessions in a single suitcase.

Following World War II, the GI Bill students provided a catalyst for the remarkable growth of universities across the nation. At KU, Chancellor Deane Malott enlisted a recently discharged veteran, Irvin Youngberg, to help solve the critical housing shortage.

Making Do & Getting Through tracks the sometimes painful, sometimes humorous evolution of varous living styles with the help of residents who agreed that their housing experiences were less about the quality of the building than about the camaraderie. Some tell of the rigid rules and regulations that applied to women and minority students. Memories and photos also reveal the lighter side of college housing life—beloved houseparents, "possum stew," "panty raids" and other pranks. But most would say "making do and getting through" changed them in profound, positive ways and that they wouldn't have done it any differently.

Fred McElhenie is a semi-retired researcher and writer for the department of student housing. He received a bachelor's degree from Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Mo., and a master's degree from KU. In his 44-year career at KU, he has served as dean of men, assistant director of Centennial College, director of residential programs and associate director of student housing for the Office of Residence Life. He was a finalist for Unclassified Employee of the Year in 1979, 1981, 1984 and 1990 and received the CLAS award in 1998.