The oldest academic building on the Kansas University campus is about to get new life.

Spooner Hall will be renovated into a new meeting space for professors studying the relationships between nature and culture.

The space — to be called “Commons” — will be renovated with a $200,000 gift from Tom and Jann Rudkin, KU alumni from Sunnyvale, Calif.

“The Commons will be a think tank, a forum, putting KU at the forefront of investigations into natural systems and human systems and their impacts on each other across the natural and social sciences, the arts and humanities,” said Leonard Krishtalka, director of the KU Natural History Museum. “Essentially, the Commons is about the sharing and integration of knowledge and ideas for the public good.”

The space will be a collaboration between the Natural History Museum and the Hall Center for the Humanities.

The Rudkins’ gift will open the main first-floor hall and install modern acoustics, lighting and furniture.

Architecture professor Barry Newton is working on the building plans. The project must be reviewed by the Campus Historic Preservation Board because the building is on the National Register of Historic Places. Work will begin in 2005.

Plans call for symposia, public lectures and programs in the space. One scheduled later this year, at another KU site, will focus on how research on biodiversity and human systems could help detect and counter agricultural bioterrorism.

“I think the Commons idea is very interesting and forward-looking,” Jann Rudkin said. “It’s something that very few people are doing at this point, with that interaction between the physical sciences and social sciences, getting them to talk to each other and share data with each other.”

The space previously housed the Museum of Anthropology, which KU closed in 2002. The museum’s collections, housed in Spooner Hall’s basement, will remain open to researchers.

Tom and Jann Rudkin are 1973 KU graduates who serve on the Natural History Museum board of directors.