Editor’s Note: For now over 75 years, The Baylor Line has been publishing vivid storytelling from across the Baylor Family. I don’t think our archives full of deep, inspirational features should live solely on shelves, so we are bringing them back to life in BL Classics. This January-February 1970 Classic highlights the importance of Baylor Alumni staying in the loop of Baylor news to help current and prospective students.
Baylor graduate Rev. Carl Scott, a minister in New Mexico, each year sends students to visit Baylor or brings them to the campus himself. Casso March, legal council to the National Labor Relations Board and a Baylor Law School graduate from Cincinnati, Ohio, has been valuable in student recruiting. He provides $200 each year for the best debater.
“I was mostly influenced in coming to Baylor by ex-students,” Larry Smith, former Baylor student said. “They were always talking about athletics and what was going on at Baylor. You never can tell when a word, even a small word, might catch the ear of a young man or young woman making this step toward college.”
Shortly after Smith stepped out of his cap and gown, Baylor began drawing up plans for a full-time recruiting office to be headed by a coordinator of student counseling. In January, Smith was appointed to the job, which proved to be custom tailored for him, even a job for which he had seen a need before he came to Baylor. “When I was a junior in high school in Fort Worth — Carter Riverside — so often I wondered why there were no Baylor information bulletins in the counselor’s office. The opinion I had of Baylor as a high school student was that only the very rich, the very smart and the very religious went to Baylor. This began my dream that maybe some day Baylor would have a recruiting office so that other kids wouldn’t get the same wrong- impressions.
“During my Baylor days, working in a club that did public relations work with high school students, I again realized Baylor was not being represented to these students.
“After being in law school for two quarters, my dream became a reality when I was chosen to do the job of recruiting for which I had seen the need during high school.”
Dressed in a corduroy bush jacket, olive shirt and plaid slacks, Smith presents a contemporary image to young people he meets. He said an important part of his job is actively recruiting prospective students from high schools, junior colleges and Baptist churches by making an accurate and interesting presentation of what Baylor has to offer. “One of my goals is to ‘tell it like it is,’ to represent Baylor honestly and frankly. It’s been my experience in dealing with high school students in my church and in my club work, that students do not want to be presented with romantic ideas, especially about their future educations. I will attempt to represent every facet of Baylor as it really is.”
Much of his busy schedule includes running from the Office of Admissions to the Ex-Student’s Association or over to the Office of Development. Smith said, “I’ve traded my dress shoes in for track- shoes. My hope is to coordinate all recruiting by the Ex-Students Association, the Parents League, athletic offices and other Baylor enthusiasts. However, my organizing will go only so far as each Baylor ex, parent and friend will cooperate with me.
“I can be at only one place at a time. Our ex-students are scattered across the United States and can help to guide and in some cases persuade high school students into finding out just what Baylor has to offer.
“Over and over high school students are influenced by what a school teacher, an uncle, an aunt, a doctor or a pastor says about his college. I would encourage ex-students to be very willing to talk about Baylor, even before they are. asked. I would encourage ex-students to contact me when they realize Baylor has not been represented in a high school, church or junior college in their area. I will be calling on ex-students to be my follow-up guides. I will call on these people to contact high school students who have expressed an acknowledgeable interest in Baylor.
“I would suggest ex-students try to be aware of changes at Baylor so that when I call on them to help, they will know how to answer students’ questions. There is a need for exes to know, to kind of do their homework.
“We are lucky to have such an organization as the Ex-Students Association because it helps exes to take an active part in the school that contributed so much to their own maturity.
“I might be the coordinator of this, but I will have to have many ex-officio assistants. You will probably see that the key word is ‘cooperation’ — a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. . .”
Tom Parrish, vice president for development described the value of ex-students in recruiting this way : “Baylor exes can give a personal testimony about the value of a Baylor education that no one else can give. They are good judges of Baylor’s weaknesses as well as strengths. They are good judges of what kind of students would fit into Baylor and be happy here.”
He said former students at Baylor can tell why attending the university was worth the difference in tuition costs. “Recent graduates will also know what Baylor has to offer in aid and student employment. They are in a position to dispel erroneous ideas about costs and erroneous notions, such as that you have to be an academic giant to attend Baylor.”
Observations about ex-student recruiting were also made by the ex-students administration. Ray Vickrey, assistant director, said, “Baylor doesn’t have everything for every student. But for many people we have a good educational program that will help them live effectively in the world and broaden their horizons.
“Our best recruiting method is to find out what the student needs and tell him what we have to offer — be honest with him. If Baylor has been misrepresented, it could be a disillusioning experience. This idea about recruiting being hard sell is ridiculous. Hard sell will ultimately cost us the students we really want.”
The personal touch in past student recruiting reflects the individual emphasis on campus and has become increasingly important for future recruiting. Vickrey said, “We have been instinctively doing the things which are the ‘in’ things to do. I think Baylor has done a lot of things right in its approach to students. It has a kind of warmth. . . .
“We need to make an effort to examine what we have done right and concentrate on that. The day Baylor loses its personal touch, Baylor loses its uniqueness.”
According to Dr. George Stokes, director of the Ex-Students Association, former students who keep up with current information on enrollment requirements and share their knowledge with prospective students make excellent recruiters. “Exes know more about Baylor than people who haven’t been here. They have derived the benefit from an education here and should be able to tell better what Baylor has to offer.
“Ex-students can go to career days in their areas cheaper than we can send representatives. We can’t send somebody to Utah, but if we have an ex-student up there, he can do the job for Baylor.
“Many a student has come to Baylor because an ex-student became interested and said, ‘You ought to check into it.’ ”
