U M H B Y E S T E R Y E A R
BY CHRISTI MAYS
UMHB marks 50 years of going coeducational
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here were two conflicting schools of thought when Mary Hardin-Baylor College was contemplating going coeducational 50 years ago: “Better Dead than Coed”—On one hand, many alumnae, some faculty members, and even the members of the Board of Trustees abhorrently opposed the idea of their beloved all-women’s school allowing male students the same privileges that only women had enjoyed for the last 125 years. “Coed or Dead”—On the other hand, administrators were faced with an unsustainable deficit that was inching them closer every day to shutting the doors to the oldest women’s college this side of the Mississippi. They realized, the only means to save the college was to broaden its base of students by officially going coed and allowing men to finish their degrees at the school. “We had the alumnae literally throwing hissy fits, but the current students couldn’t have cared less if we went coed,” said Vicki (Higgason) McKay ’71, adding that some of the alumnae protested the move to go coed with signs that read: “Better Dead than Coed.” “Some of them got over it and came back around 10 or 15 years ago, but it took them a long time. They fought it because of the many years of traditions.” This past July 24, 2021, marked the 50-year anniversary when members of the board of trustees 14
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relented to call Mary Hardin-Baylor College “coeducational” and allowed men to finally walk across the stage to receive diplomas. How it All Started
Seeing men on campus attending classes wasn’t unusual. It had been the norm since 1922, when the acclaimed John C. Hardy had served as president. He created the “Campus Boys” program, a select group of 12 upstanding young men who lived on campus and worked in exchange for tuition. Throughout the years, other male “day students” were allowed to attend classes and obtain up to 90 hours of coursework. When the male students reached 90 hours, however, they had to finish their degrees elsewhere, and the nearest schools that offered bachelor’s degrees were in Austin and Waco. In the spring of 1968, the board of trustees recognized that it was a hardship for men to leave Belton to finish their schooling, especially when many of them were married and starting families. The board decided to allow men to be granted degrees “as a community service.” Men were finally allowed to finish their degrees at Mary Hardin-Baylor! However, because of the resistance, male graduates were not allowed to walk the graduation stage to receive their diplomas with their female classmates, but instead had “special arrangements.”
