The ongoing effort to revitalize older scholarship halls at Kansas University is a smart investment in a unique and special student community.

The first two scholarship halls — Miller and Watkins — were established in the 1920s for women students thanks to financing from one of the community’s most generous early philanthropists, Elizabeth Miller Watkins. The first men’s hall, Battenfeld, was opened in 1940. The scholarship hall system more than doubled during the 1950s with construction of Douthart and Sellards halls for women and Pearson, Stephenson and Grace Pearson for men. Several other buildings served as scholarship halls for periods ranging from a few years to a few decades, but after the closing of Jolliffe Hall in 1969, the scholarship hall community on the east side of campus was made up of the eight halls, which housed about 400 students.

The halls are cooperative living groups in which residents cook, clean and perform other duties in exchange for reduced housing fees. Each hall houses about 50 students who become a close-knit group within their own hall and part of the larger scholarship hall community. KU officials say some other universities have one or two scholarship halls, but KU is the only school they know of that has a whole system of halls.

Former residents, who wanted future KU students to enjoy the special atmosphere of that living arrangement, fueled a resurgence in the scholarship hall system in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Four new halls — K.K. Amini, Margaret Amini, Krehbiel and Rieger were built — all with major donations from former scholarship hall residents.

KU now is in the middle of a $15 million project to upgrade the older scholarship halls. Stephenson, Pearson, Sellards and Douthart were renovated in 2014 and 2015, and construction currently is underway at Miller and Watkins. Grace Pearson and Battenfeld are scheduled for upgrades in the next two years. According to KU officials, the goal of the heating, cooling, plumbing and electrical improvements is to keep the older halls in operation for 30 or 40 years.

Hopefully, they will be part of KU for much longer than that. The scholarship hall system is a unique asset that deserves the support of KU officials and alumni.