The Baylor Line

From strict 9 p.m. curfews to apartment living near campus, the way Baylor students experience independence has changed dramatically over the decades. 🏠

This Classic from 1991 follows two generations of the same Baylor family: Tommye Lou Vines Davis, who came to Baylor in 1962 when women had curfews and cars were off-limits for freshman girls, and her daughter Christi, navigating off-campus apartment life and a whole new set of pressures in the early '90s.

It's a fascinating look at how Baylor's approach to student life evolved — from strict rules to a philosophy of education, support, and what administrators called "redemptive" discipline — as the University worked to prepare students for adulthood in a changing world.

A must-read for anyone curious about how campus life at Baylor has shifted across generations. 💚💛

🔗 Read here:

Out of Sight, But Not Out of Mind - The Baylor Line The trend toward off-campus living has created new challenges for administrators who help students deal with the hazards of young adulthood.

During World War II, Texas housed 120 POW camps holding 79,000 German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners — and Baylor University was one of 103 American universities that offered these prisoners higher education.
Baylor Latin professor Dr. Walter Howard Juniper took a leave of absence to serve as a U.S. military officer overseeing the "re-education" of German POWs, delivering weekly German-language radio addresses on democracy and American values. Prisoners nicknamed the camp's PA system "Juniper's Terror from the Air."
It's a lesser-known chapter of Baylor's history, one that reveals the complicated role academics played during wartime. Read here: https://baylorline.com/german-pows-in-texas/

Who knew the first bridge permanent across the Brazos River in Waco would become home to an iconic Baylor tradition: tortilla tossing!

Today, the bridge is only for pedestrian crossings, though its history as an integral thoroughfare begins long before Baylor moved to Waco. Baylor students have adopted it for the tradition of tortilla tossing. The goal is simple: toss a tortilla from the bridge and land it on one of the pylons emerging from the river below. The reward? Campus lore has it that a successful landing could grant the tosser graduation in four years, a Baylor soulmate, or a wedding ring by spring.

Until 1870, there was no bridge spanning the entire Brazos River, leading travelers, merchants, and cattle drivers on the Chisholm Trail to rely on dangerous shallow fords or ferries to cross. Plans to construct a bridge across the Brazos emerged in 1866, and the Texas State Legislature granted a charter that would establish the Waco Bridge Company. The private company was allowed a monopoly on transportation across the river for the next 25 years.

It was determined that a steel cable suspension bridge would be best suited for the project, and Thomas M. Griffith, a civil engineer from New York, was hired. By 1870, the bridge was complete. At the time of its completion, it was the longest suspension bridge west of the Mississippi River.

The bridge had economic benefits for the community. In the decades that followed, Waco became the capital for cotton and cattle trade in Central Texas. However, in 1913, many Wacoans called for the bridge’s removal — complaining that it was unsightly. But instead, the city, by then in ownership of the bridge, gave it a makeover, re-flooring it, stuccoing over the brick, and replacing the wooden trusses with steel.

So next time you’re walking the Waco Suspension Bridge, be sure to stop and take a second look to see if you can find any tortillas floating in the waters below.

Ever heard the lore? Legend says you'll meet the love of your life on a Baylor swing 🐻💛✨
Swing by and find out for yourself 😉

Did you know LBJ has a Baylor connection that goes back over 100 years? 👀
When President Lyndon B. Johnson received an honorary degree at Baylor's 1965 Commencement, it wasn't just any honor — it was a homecoming of sorts. LBJ's great-grandfather, George Washington Baines, once served as Baylor's president during one of the University's most difficult chapters: the Civil War years.
Baines held the school together through incredible hardship, and over a century later, his descendant stood on Baylor soil to receive a degree presented by... another one of Baines' great-grandsons. Talk about full circle. 💚💛
It's a story of faith, family, and the deep roots that tie the Baylor family together across generations.

The Commencement That Began a Century Ago - The Baylor Line This May - June 1965 Classic traces back the remarkable Baylor connection behind President Lyndon B. Johnson's honorary degree at the 1965 Commencement.

Before he became an American war hero, Gen. Beaumont Bonaparte Buck was the first Commandant of the Baylor Cadets in the 1890s, building the program from the ground up.
Decades later, Buck would lead American troops into the pivotal Battle of Berzy-le-Sec during WWI, reportedly carrying nothing but a bamboo riding crop as he moved along the front lines under heavy German fire.
His life afterward was just as eventful, including a scandalous will that made headlines even after his death. 🔗 Read his full story via this link: https://baylorline.com/beaumont-bonaparte-buck/

When Will Loewen decided to major in film and digital media at Baylor, he'd heard all the horror stories — cutthroat competition, students refusing to help each other, an industry built on climbing over people to get ahead. What he found instead was a family.
This July, multiple students from Baylor's Film and Digital Media Department had their work featured in the Waco Independent Film Festival, a nationally recognized festival celebrating its 10th anniversary. Loewen and fellow student Charles Featherston both credit the department's collaborative spirit — and Baylor's own Black Glasses Film Festival — with helping get their work in front of the right people.
"Filmmaking is an impossible solo task," Loewen said. "But everyone, especially at Baylor, they just come together. No one gets paid, but we do it because we all love each other and we all support the art and we support each other."
Read here: https://baylorline.com/the-film-family/

If there is one thing former President Pat Neff knew about Baylor’s centennial celebration in 1945, it’s that he wanted it to be BIG! So big, in fact, that he began the planning process seven years before the big day.

Neff decided to celebrate Baylor’s centennial with a new Student Union Building, creating the Centennial Foundation as early as 1938 to begin raising funds for construction. To spark further interest, he also relaunched the discontinued Baylor Alumni magazine, the “Baylor Monthly,” under a new, more timely title, the “Baylor Century.”

But of course, planning the best centennial celebration possible was not a task Neff could pull off on his own. In 1940, he appointed Lily M. Russell, the dean of women, as director of the centennial celebration, and she hit the ground running.

Even after the United States entered World War II in 1941, planning continued, though it had to adapt to the circumstances.

“The university will, however, take note of this great anniversary, war or no war, adapting plans to suit conditions,” said Russell.

And the war certainly did call for adaptations. Rationing, travel restrictions, and a shortage of hotel rooms made plans for the original centennial gathering at Baylor’s first campus in Independence impossible. As the war went on, people began to wonder if it would be possible to hold the 1945 centennial celebration at all.

But as the war slowed, they were able to pull it off! Celebrations lasted from February through May in 1945 and included ceremonies, recitals, speeches, and dinners, all culminating in commencement festivities. As a contribution, the senior class dedicated the Centennial Monument — made of stones from the original Baylor campus in Independence. It was exactly the kind of spectacular spectacle that President Neff had imagined.

https://baylorline.com/planning-the-centennial/