Slawson Hall

Slawson Hall is the south tower of the $78.5 million Earth, Energy & Environment Center, which opened in 2018.

Slawson Hall was made possible by a $16 million gift from the family of the late Donald Slawson of Wichita, founder of an oil and gas exploration firm and a 1955 KU graduate. It focuses on technology transfer, providing practical applications for discoveries and developments in engineering and geology.

The Beren Petroleum Center in Slawson is a 232-seat auditorium for small conferences of industry professionals and KU's Kansas Geological Survey, Tertiary Oil Recovery Program, KU Innovation & Collaboration, and other entities. Slawson features smaller glass-enclosed conference rooms and collaborative spaces surrounding the atrium.

The atrium showcases suspended casts of a 45-foot fossilized mosasaur chasing a 5-foot protostega, a precursor of the turtle, through what was a vast inland sea covering Kansas and much of the Great Plains during the Cretaceous era.

The original of the mosasaur fossil was discovered by C.D. Bunker and KU associates in Logan County, Kansas, in 1911 and has long been displayed at the KU Natural History Museum.The protostega was recovered by KU alumnus and Triebold Paleontology curator Anthony Maltese near Quinter in 2011.