Aerial view of Summerfield Hall among other campus buildings in 1988. Source: University Archives

KU Business Centennial Celebrations: Honoring Summerfield Hall

Academic building was home to KU School of Business for more than five decades

As the KU School of Business celebrates 100 years of business excellence throughout the 2024–25 academic year, we honor the school’s previous home where ideas flourished and generations of Business Jayhawks got their start: Summerfield Hall.

Many alumni know Summerfield Hall as the home of the School of Business, where they studied with friends, took their business courses and, in its later years, enjoyed annual Back-to-School Barbecues.

“I have plenty of memories in Summerfield and interacting with other B-School students. One of my favorite memories is attending the back to school cook out and Dean Neeli being there talking to students and making us feel so welcome. My friends and I all worked hard and graduated together in Allen Fieldhouse. That was a bittersweet ending!! Rock Chalk.” — Submitted memory from Jessica Montoya, Class of 2014

A student reads an issue of the University Daily Kansan next to the “glass curtain” windows that were an original design feature of Summerfield Hall. Source: University Archives

The School of Business spent more than five decades in Summerfield Hall following its move from Strong Hall in 1959. The building was named in honor of KU benefactor Solon E. Summerfield, a Lawrence native whose father was a KU law professor. Summerfield earned his bachelor’s and law degrees at KU and later founded the Gotham Silk Hosiery Co. in New York.

Upon the move and opening of Summerfield Hall, which at the time was KU’s academic building with the largest number of classrooms, the school revamped its undergraduate program, and the Bachelor of Science in Business officially became effective.

“I remember eating lunch in the cafeteria at the new Summerfield Hall at the bottom of ‘The Hill,’ the South boundary of the campus, except for the new Allen Fieldhouse.” — Submitted memory from KU Business alumna Sharon Ward Lockwood Newell

Left: Students in one of the Summerfield classrooms with U-shaped tables and swivel chairs. Right: Students in Summerfield Hall’s Reading Room. Source: University Archives

Highlighted original features of Summerfield Hall

Source: Alumni Magazine, March 1960

• The number of classrooms when the building opened totaled 27, ranging from capacities of 20 to 162.
• The first floor housed the Computation Center, which was used by many KU research and mathematical divisions; the Secretarial Training Department; and student spaces, such as lounges, booths and tables.
• The second floor housed School of Business administrative offices, Department of Economics offices, the Center for Research in Business, interview rooms and a reading room.
• The third floor included faculty offices, graduate-student cubicles and classrooms.
• The fourth floor included Summerfield Hall’s 162-seat lecture room equipped for visual aids. The building also contained four “case study classrooms,” or “caserooms,” which seated 64 students. These rooms had concentric rows of U-shaped tables and swivel chairs, with each row on a riser, facilitating “reciprocal case discussion.” These were designed with influence from similar rooms at Harvard’s School of Business at the time.

Archive photos of students and classes in Summerfield Hall. Source: University Archives

After almost 30 years of steady growth within the School of Business, a need for more space within Summerfield emerged. Construction began in 1982 for a five-floor addition to the building along the western half of the south side, which was completed two years later, in spring of 1984. The addition was supported entirely by financial contributions made by 60 individuals, firms and foundations.

A perspective view of the Summerfield Hall addition. Source: University Archives

While this construction opened new doors for business education, the school had a continued need for more space as enrollment and programming continued to grow. On Oct. 4, 2012, the Capitol Federal Foundation of Topeka, Kansas, announced its $20 million gift toward construction of a new School of Business building, what is now known as Capitol Federal Hall.

In 2016 ahead of the school’s move to Capitol Federal Hall, KU Business faculty and staff shared memories of their time in Summerfield Hall.

Summerfield Hall has been instrumental to the KU School of Business and has played a significant role in shaping business education at KU throughout the school’s history.

Though the school has found a new space for modern challenges and opportunities for Business Jayhawks, the spirit of camaraderie and academic rigor that defined Summerfield Hall still lives on.

Submit your own KU School of Business memories at business.ku.edu/100.

Sources: KU Alumni Magazine, University Archives

By Lauryn Zebrowski