Jayhawk Boulevard’s first public artwork honoring a woman will be a bronze statue of Elizabeth Miller Watkins, one of KU’s foundational benefactors, soon to stand in the grassy space north of Fraser Hall, facing the “Uncle Jimmy” Green statue in front of Lippincott Hall.
Funded by Kitchen 8—the alumnae society of Watkins and Miller scholarship halls—as well as KU Endowment and much-needed private giving that is still underway, the project is tentatively scheduled to be completed in late spring.
An unveiling of an early study by sculptor E. Spencer Schubert was a highlight of the Watkins Hall 100th anniversary weekend, Sept. 4-6. The scholarship hall was Mrs. Watkins’ first gift to KU and opened Sept. 14, 1926. The hall’s centennial event also included a reception at the Jayhawk Welcome Center, an open house, and a tour of an exhibition dedicated to Mrs. Watkins at the downtown museum that bears her name.
Sculptor E. Spencer Schubert shares his design for the forthcoming Elizabeth Miller Watkins statue and discusses the symbolism within it:
Elizabeth Miller Watkins, the grande dame of philanthropy at KU, left to the University and Lawrence immense wealth, two hospitals, two scholarship halls, the Outlook, a beautiful bank building now home to the Watkins Museum of History, and, even more invaluable, fundamental ideals that helped point our path forward: affordable student housing, imperative access to education and health care, private giving for the good of all.
In their 2023 book, The Life and Legacy of Elizabeth Miller Watkins: A Pioneering Philanthropist, authors Mary Dresser Burchill, c’62, and Norma Decker Hoagland, c’75, detail Mrs. Watkins’ remarkable life and towering contributions. After her husband, JB, died in 1921, Mrs. Watkins inherited, according to Burchill and Hoagland, an estate estimated at $2.4 million. At her death, in 1939, the estate, even after two decades of exceptional generosity, was worth about $3 million.
“She built, equipped, and furnished Watkins Hall, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Lawrence Memorial’s nurses’ home, Watkins Memorial Hospital, Miller Hall, Watkins Memorial’s nurses’ home, and the guest cottage, not to mention additions to several of these projects,” Burchill and Hoagland write. “There can be no doubt she was a successful businesswoman, ahead of her time. She not only survived the Great Depression of the 1930s, but came through with more money than when she started.”
In November 1971, longtime KU Endowment executive Irvin E. Youngberg extolled Mrs. Watkins’ lasting impact: “The benefactions of one person, Mrs. Elizabeth Watkins, probably have done more to make the University of Kansas what it is now than the efforts and benefactions of any one” else. “For what has been done, as well as for what will be done, Kansans will be forever indebted to a good and generous lady for her wise and farsighted philanthropy at their university.”
In a recent interview with Crimson & Blue, Hoagland—a Watkins Hall alumna—encouraged all KU alumni and friends to consider honoring Mrs. Watkins’ legacy by contributing to the new statue’s fund. Kitchen 8 and KU Endowment have so far raised about $100,000; another $100,000 is still needed.
“She was thinking about all of us 100 years ago,” Hoagland says of Mrs. Watkins, “and she is an emblem of all the women at KU who didn’t get credit, whose work behind the scenes, on behalf of men, was never seen or appreciated. It’s time.”
To contribute in Mrs. Watkins’ honor, visit KU Endowment’s giving page. Further information about the project and an address for mailing donation checks can be found on the Kitchen 8 website. Donations can also be made in person at the Watkins Museum of History, 1047 Massachusetts St.
Chris Lazzarino, j’86, is associate editor of Crimson & Blue.
