and the alumni office are closed, not to reopen until the end of the decade.
The Baylor Centennial Foundation begins soliciting funding for the new Student Union Building. The group launches the
magazine in October 1938. The magazine is published by Baylor University, and the title refers to the university's upcoming centennial in 1945. Subscriptions are $1 a year.
The Baylor Ex-Students Association is legally incorporated, but without a full-time director.
, the name being a phrase from the school's alma mater, and the first issue under that title comes out in October 1946. The magazine is now produced by the Baylor Ex-Students Association, which in the spring of 1946 appoints its first full-time executive secretary, Jack Dillard. In a letter to alumni dated June 20, 1946, Dillard writes, "Your Association, for the first time, is operating separately from Baylor University itself. The history of all outstanding Ex-Students groups shows that they operate best when separate from the university." Dillard serves as the editor of the
. The magazine is sent only to members of the association, and memberships dues are set at $3 per individual, or $5 per family.
The Baylor Ex-Students Association is reorganized as the Baylor University Alumni Association, and a new dues-paying membership system is established. Individual annual memberships are set at $15 a year, and life memberships are set at $200. The distribution of the
is reduced to members only.
The Baylor University Alumni Association is legally incorporated as an nonprofit organization and moves from the Student Union Building to the new Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center.
Mayes Behrman (alumni secretary)
Louise E. Willis (alumni secretary)
Jack H. Dillard (executive secretary)
Graves Blanton (executive secretary and executive director)
Mart Cole (executive director)
George Stokes (executive director)
Raymond Vickrey (executive director '72-77)
James F. Cole (executive vice president)
Ray Burchette Jr. (executive vice president)
Mark Kimbell (executive vice president)
Randy Lofgren (executive vice president)
P. Oswin Chrisman (executive vice president)
Jeff Kilgore (executive vice president/CEO)
George Cowden III
Susie Grier Jaynes
Fred R. Norton Jr.
W. Pruitt Ashworth
Joseph O. Seeber IV
Neal T. "Buddy" Jones
Bob Anne McMullan Senter
Lyndon L. Olson
J. Kent Newsom
Judy Pruett Battles
Gary S. Nash
Abner V. McCall
Ray Burchette Jr.
Randall H. Fields
Jack K. Dillard
Charles Thompson
Gordon L. Hollon
Roger D. Edens
Don G. Baker
Dr. William R. Carden
William R. Crocker
P. Oswin Chrisman
Vernon G. Garrett
Gale L. Galloway
Dorothy Barfield Kronzer
James F. Cole
Charles B. McGregor
Sam D. Johnson
George M. Cowden
Stonie R. Cotten
H. J. Flanders Jr.
Will D. Davis
John G. Heard
Norris E. Clark
H. Hart Nance
Charles Crenshaw
Van Doren Goodall
Abner V. McCall
Ben H. Williams
T. E. Sanderford
Ross M. Sams
A. Grady Yates
J. W. Patterson Jr.
Raymond L. Dillard
Horace K. Jackson
Milford O. Rouse
G. H. Penland
W. N. Naman
K. H. Aynesworth
Frank E. Burkhalter
Earl B. Smyth
D. K. Martin
H. S. Garrett
Joseph W. Hale
O. L. Bodenhamer
Joseph H. Burt
James R. Jenkins
John B. Fisher
E. R. Nash Jr.
Frank E. Burkhalter
W. B. Denson
J. B. Holt
George W. McDaniel
Harvey Carroll
Here are some excerpts from the archives that address the association's mission and history.
1859: The birth of an alumni association
"Baylor had barely begun to produce graduates when President Rufus C. Burleson set to work to organize them. The university's first diplomate, Stephen Decatur Rowe, received his A.B. degree in 1854. By the time of commencement in [June] 1859, the year in which Burleson announced his creation of an alumni association, a total of forty-two former students—twenty-three men and nineteen women—qualified for membership in it.
Aware that his young and struggling school would require its graduates' assistance for publicity, recruitment, and financial support, Burleson probably also knew that he would have no difficulty in marshaling its alumni for the cause. . . .
No surviving evidence indicates that Burleson went so far as to initiate a formal means of rallying Baylor's alumni. Instead, he probably relied upon his personal contact and correspondence with them. He did, however, include the names of all of the school's graduates in the annual catalogues, perhaps as a means of making them known to prospective students and their parents, who might wish to contact them for personal endorsements."
Kent Keeth, "Looking Back at Baylor," Baylor Line
, April 1987
1879: A resolution
"Tuesday P.M., June 10, 1879. Association met pursuant to adjournment. Prayer by Chaplain. The committee appointed to draft resolutions reported the following:
Resolved 1st. That the Alumni of Baylor University will pledge themselves at all times, and under all circumstances, and everywhere, to maintain, defend, and support, by all means in their power, the original design of the founders of the Institution, to make it a true educational establishment of the highest grade."
"Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Alumni Association of Baylor University," Independence, Texas, June 10-12, 1879
1932: A temporary silence
"While the Baylor University Alumni Association had been formed at about the time of the first official Homecoming in 1909, it had few resources in its early years. Certainly, it was in no position to initiate its own publication. . . .
At last, in April 1925, a magazine devoted exclusively to alumni concerns commenced publication. The
Baylor Monthly was the official organ of the 'Alumni Office,' and editor J. M. Dawson noted that 'this is the publication that we long have sought and mourned because we had it not.' Beginning with a circulation of five thousand, it included a regular feature by President Samuel Palmer Brooks, stories about campus events and athletics, letters from alumni, and news of such happenings as marriages, births, and deaths. . . .
As it happened, the
Monthly itself did not long survive Brooks. The Depression was nearing its nadir, and Baylor was forced to seek economics. In October 1931, the trustees reduced the publication from a monthly to a quarterly schedule, and the following February they voted to eliminate it entirely. On June 1, 1932, the Alumni Office closed down."
Kent Keeth, "Looking Back at Baylor," Baylor Line
, June 1987
1938: Filling a need
In 1936, as the Baylor Centennial Foundation began to solicit funding for the new union building, its officials quickly discovered that they lacked any comprehensive listing of potential donors. Worse yet, many of the alumni whom they did succeed in locating had become disaffected with Baylor, feeling cut off from and abandoned by their alma mater. Fence mending was the order of the day, and a new magazine could provide the means.
Looking ahead seven years to the time when Baylor would become Texas's first university to celebrate its centennial, planners christened their new publication the
Baylor Century, dedicating it to the reinvolvement of former Baylorites in the university's affairs. 'The demand for the magazine has become insistent,' wrote its editor, Dr. Charles D. Johnson, in the premier issue in October 1938."
Kent Keeth, "Looking Back at Baylor," Baylor Line
, September 1987
1946: A new era
"Baylor's Ex-Students' Association has launched an aggressive, far-reaching program to enlarge and strengthen itself and with this issue of the
Baylor Line, successor to the
Baylor Century, the Ex-Students' Association [legally incorporated in 1942] has taken over publication of the official magazine.
Long considered an outstanding need for Baylor has been a closely-knit, active, and wide-awake Ex-Students' organization. Leaders of the Association moved in that direction last spring with the appointment of the first full-time executive secretary in the Association's history [Jack Dillard]. And for the first time in history, the Association is operating separately from the University itself....
The Board of Governors of the Association voted recently to set membership dues of the organization at $3 per year for each individual, or $5 a year for family membership, which includes man and wife, both Baylor exes. This was done so that the organization might become self-sustaining. . . .
In connection with membership fees, the natural question is, 'What will one get out of membership in the Baylor Ex-Students' Association?' It is agreed that the three most important advantages are:
- The satisfaction of working in a voluntary organization, greatly strengthened and enlarged, with other loyal and interested exes for the welfare and progress of Baylor University.
- Receiving the Baylor Line at least nine times a year, with news of exes from all over the country and news of Baylor.
- First chance at football tickets."
"Ex-Students' Association Launches Enlargement Program; Sets Dues," inaugural issue of the Baylor Line
, October 1946
1976: New name, new organization
"In a meeting of the Baylor Ex-Students' Association April 30 [1976], the board of directors approved a change of the organization's name to the Baylor Alumni Association and made it a dues-paying group.
Mrs. Dorothy Kronzer, president, said Thursday that the association has been financed by the university. Since the association now finances itself, an equal amount of money, formerly needed to support the association, is freed for the administration to use in pursuit of its academic goals. Mrs. Kronzer said she had spoken with many of the alumni who graduated last year, most of whom favored the changes. However, many of the older graduates disagree with the changes.
Raymond Vickery, executive director of the association, said the new system of membership would provide Baylor alumni with a greater sense of belonging. He said most of the alumni questioned about the change said they felt the association would be stronger if a member had to pay to belong.
The association's annual dues will be $15, Mrs. Kronzer said, but only a $10 due will be required of alumni for the first three years after their graduation. Mrs. Kronzer said a life membership will cost $200, but if it is obtained after the first of the year, the life membership will cost $250. For an additional $50, Mrs. Kronzer said, an alumnus' spouse may receive a life membership. . . .
In addition to the name change and the conversion to the dues system, Mrs. Kronzer said a new alumni center is to be built on University Parks Drive near the Environmental Studies Building."
"Directors Rename Exes Group to Baylor Alumni Association," Baylor Lariat
, November 5, 1976
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