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When Jimmy Allen opened the letter with his freshman year housing assignment and saw McCollum Hall, it wasn't long before he had requested to be switched to Templin Hall.

             "I wanted an environment I could study in," said Allen, Prairie Village sophomore.

            Only three residence halls for traditional students had a grade point average over a 3.0 for the fall 2008 semester: Corbin Hall with 3.03, Templin with 3.36 and the scholarship halls with 3.37.  The fall 2008 GPA for the entire freshmen class was 2.635.

This bar graph shows the different GPAs among the residence halls on campus from the fall of 2008.

Templin and the scholarship halls have certain criteria for the students admitted to live there.  Templin requires residents to maintain a 3.25 grade point average.  Students interested in the scholarship halls prepare an additional application with essays and recommendation letters.

The Department of Student Housing said that putting these students together does put them at an advantage for grades.

"If you've got a group  of folks that have been brought together as scholars, chances are that's probably going to be a more scholarly environment just by the nature of their individual interests and backgrounds," Diana Robertson said.

Robertson is the director of student housing.  She said that the smaller populations of Templin and the scholarship halls also help raise the average.  Templin has 277 students and the 11 scholarship halls each have about 50 students living in each.

Lewis Hall, located on Daisy Hill with Templin, has fewer residents than Templin with a population of 272.  Lewis also has a lower GPA of 2.85.

"Another thing that's interesting about Templin is that people keep to themselves and are very quiet," Stephanie Jian said.  "It's a pretty insular community."

Jian, Lawrence freshman, chose to live in Templin because of its academic reputation.  She has found that meeting people is not as easy in Templin as the other residence halls and that Templin residents are not as social.

"My experience just going to dorms like McCollum is that you meet people a lot more openly just because everyone is really close together," Jian said.  "Your doors are open you see your neighbors all the time."

Located on Daisy Hill, McCollum Hall has the lowest GPA, 2.38, and the highest population, 887, of the residence halls.

Allen said he heard it had a reputation for being cramped, loud and a place for students without academic motivation.

"I didn't really want that," he said.  "[Templin] is a good study environment and just seems to attract the best students."

Jian said the choice between the academic and social environment is difficult for any student.  Being social could be fun, but it could also be a distraction.

Templin definitely veers away from distraction.  Jian didn't see her neighbors from across the hall until this April

"I think there's a trade-off," she said.  "If you want to be more social it would be good for you to be at McCollum."

Robertson said students with academic scholarships or in the honors program are given priority consideration for Templin.

The honors program does tip off its participants to what is offered at Templin and the scholarship halls.  Mark Daly, associate director for the honors program, also said it's important for freshmen to find something other than a roof over their heads plus the meal plan.

"But we do definitely bring up the scholarship halls are there and what they have to offer," Daly said.  "Or Templin with the GPA component."

Daly said that at one time the scholarship hall population was nearly 60% honors students, but is unsure what the numbers are now.

Kelsie Lange has lived in Hashinger Hall, McCollum and Watkins Scholarship Hall.  She sees a palpable difference between the type of students in the scholarship halls and residence halls.

"[The scholarship halls] are more geared toward motivated students, seeing as you have to write essays and get recommendations to get accepted," the Lawrence sophomore said. "Scholarship halls are for people who are more interested in academics, community, cooking and cleaning."

Robertson said that it's difficult to control the environment in residence halls.  The size and the variance of students create an unpredictable dynamic that changes floor to floor and hall to hall.

"Some students begin to find where they live to be the place that they can study; others don't study in that environment," Robertson said.

The Department of Student Housing  placed Academic Resource Centers  and Writers' Roosts in several of the dorms to give students a place to work and to encourage academic success.

"We want to balance [academics] with the residence halls being the place students where students can come to relax, unwind," Robertson said.  "It is their home."

The scholarship halls tout community living as one of their unique features.  This community feeling is because of their smaller population and one of the distinctions scholarship halls have from the residence halls.

"I think it's harder to just drop off the face of the earth in the scholarship halls than it is in the dorms, especially somewhere like McCollum where you could just be one of a hundred," Paul Spacek said.

Spacek, Topeka junior, has lived in the scholarship halls since his freshman year.  He said that putting dedicated students in a community setting is helpful for success, but that scholarship halls and Templin carry a reputation.

"I think some people have that stigma about honors dorms, that people think they're better," he said.

Daly said he saw this reputation also but that for students with higher academic standards opportunities like the scholarship halls and Templin are good to have available.

With such diverse students, diverse in the sense of level of preparedness and level of motivation, he said, different niches are necessary.

 "I think it's good that there is a place or a few buildings where students who really want to be able to take their studies a little more seriously than the average student at KU can go," Daly said.

Robertson said that the scholarship halls and Templin generally have more requests than space allows but don't keep records of the exact numbers of students turned away.

Daly said this "theme-based housing" may create groups among residents, but that is just part of human nature.

Allen appreciated that aspect of Templin.  Living there his freshman year was good for his grades.

"Those who are more scholarly or academically-geared end up living there," he said.

"I have to keep authoritative around them," Joe Warren said.  "If they start to mess around, it's because I've relaxed around them.  They take a lot of discipline."

Warren is a platoon leader in the National Guard, but he's not talking about soldiers.  He's talking about horses.

When Warren isn't on active duty, he's a police officer in Lexington, Ky., in the mounted division.  He also trains horses to work with other officers.

"It is similar to training soldiers," he said.  "Some react positively to discipline, some don't.  You have to figure out what makes a soldier tick."

Just like his horses.

"Some horses are real sensitive," he said.  "The horse that I'm training right now, Rookie, is like that."

When Warren described working with his horses, it sounded like working with a stubborn child.

"It's not something you're going to do and see results overnight," he said.  "You start back from the basics and you go 1-2-3."

It didn't surprise Warren's mother that her son ended up working with horses or people.   Karen Houchens has seen her son's magnetism.

One Christmas when Warren's niece was only three or four months old, no one could get her to stop crying.  Houchens' Yorkie, in turn, "had to match that baby" and wouldn't stop crying either.

"Joe laid down on the couch with the baby stretched out on his chest," Houchens said. "He pulled the dog up there and had them both asleep soon."

Warren's coworkers also recognize his talent and his tolerance with the animals.

Dan Edge has worked with Warren for four of the 23 years he's been with the Lexington Police Department.

"He's good with the horses," Edge said. "If you're not patient with it, you end up with some problems down the road with an animal."

Warren's ease with soldiers and horses both have family ties.

He grew up on his grandparents' farm, surrounded by cattle, hogs and horses, and he came from three generations of military men in his family.

"My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my dad had made a career out of it," Warren said.  "So it wasn't really that big of a stretch for me."

Warren went to Iraq for Desert Storm and went back for 12 months starting in January 2005.

He oversaw daily operations and went out on patrol two to three times a week.

"I was out there in the middle of it with everybody else," Warren said.

Houchens has seen his natural leadership since he was young and his two younger brothers followed him everywhere.

"Joey is a risk taker," Houchens said.  "I see that now in especially the police work."

His comradery with animals is something else Houchens has seen in Warren since an early age.

"I think his personality in general just makes animals draw toward him."

Warren is just personable and outgoing, she said, and gets along with people and animals.

            "They don't fear him," she said.  "He just has a calming effect."

Warren appears to approach his military duties in the same way.  Patrolling the streets of Baghdad, flying helicopters, going through basic training: he mentions all this casually.  He enjoys the excitement.

Warren's police coworker, Heather Catt, said that he's the same way around the horses.

"When a horse is misbehaving, Joe doesn't lose his cool," Catt said.  "He works well under pressure."

Going through training can be exhausting and Warren isn't all work and no play.  He understands reprieves are needed in the training process.

"They'd rather sit and eat grass all day."

He's talking about the horses, not the soldiers.

Hannah Croissant didn't think a landlord would suggest that she and her roommates ignore a city ordinance.

"He said that three people could sign the lease and the fourth person would just live there and still pay the rent," said Croissant, Merriam sophomore.  "If the cops came, the fourth person would just move out for a couple of days.  I thought it was sketchy, but I wasn't going to disagree with a landlord."

Since August 2004, Lawrence City Ordinance Number 7326, Article 13,  has prohibited the lease of a property to more than three unrelated people in a residential zoning district.  Much of the housing surrounding the University of Kansas campus falls into this zoning.  These areas are popular among students who want to be near campus.

It is the responsibility of the property owner to make sure the property is in compliance with the ordinance said Brian Jimenez, Code Enforcement Manager for the City of Lawrence.

"The property owner is putting the tenant at risk if they ignore the ordinance," Jimenez said.

Jimenez says many students are unaware or do not understand the ordinance, like Croissant.  He also points out that over 50 percent of housing stock in Lawrence is rental property.  The zoning ordinance is there to keep maintain a residential character for residential zone, said John Miller, staff attorney for the City of Lawrence.

"A single family dwelling with an occupancy of 16 would not keep the character of a residential neighborhood," Miller said.

An assumption might be that there is a concern with the college student lifestyle. This is what City Prosecutor Jerry Little proposed.

"The impetus behind [the ordinance]? I have no idea," Little said.  "Probably neighbors complaining about college students partying and taking up parking."

Jimenez disagreed.

"I think it's all about density and zoning," he said.

The city must zone different areas of the city for different purposes, he said.  Different zones range from industrial to commercial to different variations of residential.

Too many people living in one area would be an issue of sanity and health, Jimenez said.

Rental properties will be inspected every three years to ensure this.  Neighbor complaints are the most common way the city discovers a property that is in violation of the ordinance however.

"It doesn't take long for neighbors to figure out a house is over-occupied," Jimenez said.

Jimenez's office receives 15-20 complaints a year, and he admits that they are "sporadic."

A letter of notice is sent if a property is in violation.  The occupants have a set amount of time to fix the situation.  This means some will have to move out of the property.

"We'll work with people to get their house into compliance," Jimenez said.  "We understand it's a disruption of their lives."

Little thinks that violating the ordinance is not hard to get away with.

"It's hard to enforce without physically going into a residence and counting bedrooms and people sleeping there," he said.

In the last two years, Little has not had to prosecute anyone for violating the ordinance due to Jimenez's aim to cooperate with residents.  This is lucky for violators because fines between $250 and $1,000 could be issued.

"The city does take it seriously," Miller said.  "They will investigate the violation and issue it to the prosecutor if there isn't compliance."

As recently as February, a property at 2813 Maine Court, two miles from campus, was in violation of the ordinance.  Jimenez said his office doesn't record the names of the tenants, but that some did have to move out.

Jimenez urges students to check with his office, Neighborhoods & Planning, before signing leases.  City zoning can also be checked on the interactive map.

"If there's a landlord out there saying 'Don't worry about [the ordinance],' then that will be in violation and I don't even know if the lease is valid," he said.