One of the features that the university prides itself in today is its small class sizes and the personal attention it allows professors to give to students. But imagine being a campus boy during the 50 years they roamed the grounds from 1921 to 1971. Not only were the classes small but the ratio of females to males at the “all-women’s” college was probably better than 20 to 1 in many classes.

Every year there was a handful of campus boys who in exchange for doing work that was deemed unsuitable for the young ladies got to be the only young men living and taking classes on campus.

The program officially began in 1922 when Dr. J.C. Hardy, president of Baylor College, initiated it to help needy young men of good character obtain an education.

The young men took classes alongside the young women but after three years they were required to transfer to another university to complete their undergraduate studies.

It wasn’t until 1968 that the first male, James P. Smith, graduated from the school. Smith wasn’t even a campus boy. He was a soldier, but concessions were made for him because his opportunity to transfer to finish out his coursework was limited.

While he earned a degree, Smith did not walk the stage with the women graduates of 1968. Instead, he was handed his degree over a desk at Fort Hood.

In all, 265 young men held the distinction of being campus boys. They all lived on the second floor of a carpenter shop in quarters affectionately known as “the shack.”

“There were like 10 of us guys who lived on campus at that time,” said Bobby Johnson, one of the last campus boys who now serves as director of alumni development. “I fired the boilers on campus. I got up at 4 a.m. and worked until 7 a.m.”

In addition, campus boys maintained the grounds, unloaded coal from rail cars, milked cows, fed hogs, unstopped drains and fixed leaky faucets. Before refrigeration technology, they moved 300-pound blocks of ice to strategic locations around campus.

Campus boys also served as night watchmen, working in three shifts, punching a clock hourly at 10 different locations.

In 1983, more than 50 years after Dr. C.L. York had been a campus boy, he could still recall where each of the 10 stations were located, according to a campus publication.

“I got an education here from books, fine teachers and also from hard work,” York, who is now deceased, said in 1983. “I would liked to have taken a bachelor’s degree here, but that was not possible.”

One former campus boy, Chester Stork, said campus boys’ saved many lives on Jan. 26, 1929, when Luther Hall on campus erupted into flames and burned to the ground. More than 200 coeds who lived in the building escaped unhurt.

Campus boys “sounded the alarm and routed students” from the burning building, according to writings from 1980 attributed to Stork.

“A number of the guys went on to become pastors, doctors, teachers, administrators,” said Betty Sue Beebe, director of alumni development. “They went on to do a lot of things and become valuable members of their communities.”

In the mid-1930s E.G. Townsend, a dean at the school, wrote down eight conditions aimed at helping campus boys clearly understand their place on campus.

The first sentence on the documents says, “You are not to assume the position of a co-ed.”

The document admonished campus boys to not linger at drinking fountains or other places where girls might congregate, not take part in any group or class activities, not to use the tennis courts at the same time as the girls and to not allow any “love cases” to develop.

Campus boys were allowed the same dating privileges of any other young man and many relationships did blossom.

“There was not a whole lot to do on this campus back in 1967,” Johnson said, recalling his days as a campus boy. “My wife and I met our freshman year, dated all four years and married in 1971.”

Many of the campus boys would probably admit today that the best work they did was not in the classroom or through their campus jobs.

Their best work was likely the wooing they did to make their future wives interested in somebody who lived in “the shack.”