Memorial Hall: Woman's Memorial Dormitory

Baylor University was the first coeducational university in the South, and only the second in the country. Even so, the education women received at Baylor for many years was fundamentally different than the men’s. Women stayed within the bounds of the more “feminine” degrees such as education or music, and access to on-campus organizations was severely limited. Female students were held to high standards and kept under close supervision by the Dean of Women. They had to adhere to a strict dress code (superintendents could remove undesirable clothing from student’s closets), attend Sunday school and church services every Sunday, sign out any time they left campus, observe a strict curfew, and keep good grades in order to be allowed to date, ride in a car, or leave campus.

As women’s rights activists made headway in the early twentieth century, coed institutions received more and more female applicants. Baylor was no exception. In the 1920s, Baylor received so many applications from women that they had to turn them away due to a lack of space. At the time, Georgia Burleson Hall and a few small annexes were the only women’s residential spaces on campus, and women who were not from Waco were not allowed to live off campus due to university administration’s desire to keep them protected and out of trouble. The male students, by comparison, were not subject to the same levels of supervision as the women and were trusted to live off campus. The ones that did live on campus were housed in then-brand-new Brooks Hall.

Despite being advertised as better than the accommodations at other universities, Burleson Hall was cramped, leaky, outdated, and only housed around 200 women, and the annexes could hold around 200 altogether. In the mid-1920s, the number of women enrolled at Baylor was around one thousand. In light of this space issue, President Samuel Palmer Brooks began planning the addition of a new women’s dormitory. The Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, having observed the piety and Christian attitudes of Baylor students, took an interest and pledged to help the university raise funds for this new building. They advertised in Waco newspapers to secure donations from the community, and sororities on campus aided them with fundraisers.

In 1928, a groundbreaking ceremony took place at the site of the new dormitory on the corner of Seventh and Speight. Baylor alumna, renowned author, and Columbia University professor Dorothy Scarborough addressed the spectators at this event. Scarborough emphasized the importance of remembering the exceptional women in Baylor’s history and made a commitment to be present at similar events in the future. Baylor administrators overseeing the project hoped that the groundbreaking might serve as a reminder to the community that the project was still underway, and hopefully inspire them to resume their donations, which had decreased significantly.

Woman’s Memorial Dormitory, named in honor of the Woman’s Missionary Union, was finished in 1930 and cost approximately $350,000. Securing funding for this project was no small feat, as at this time the country was suffering in the early days of the Great Depression. At this time, the building could house 245 women, and boasted a dining hall, a chapel, a study hall, and two banquet rooms. On October 15, 1930, the university suspended classes for two hours so that faculty, staff, and students could attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new dormitory. President Brooks, speaking at this ceremony, thanked the Woman’s Missionary Union for making the idea for the new dormitory into a reality, and further thanked all the women of Texas for their contributions to the project. Mrs. F. S. Davis, president of the Woman’s Missionary Union, also addressed the attendees, speaking of her hopes that the women of the dormitory would grow in their faith and be strong, Christian leaders in their community. “The fervent prayer,” she said, “that wells up from the heart of the Women’s Missionary Union today is that ‘our daughters may be as polished cornerstones after the similitude of a palace.’ For truly you, our daughters, are our glory and our crown.”

In 2005, Memorial and neighboring hall Alexander became home to the university’s Honors College Living and Learning Community, or HC-LLC (often called the Hick-Lick), with Memorial housing the women and Alexander housing the men. Four years later the university upgraded the community to the status of residential college. The Honors Residential College is known across campus for its tight-knit community, goofy traditions, and, in the words of one former Baylor professor,its “common love of uncommon things.” In 2023, the university renovated both Memorial and Alexander, updating facilities, rooms, and common spaces, as well as adding the new Carona Family Commons, a two-floor shared common area connecting the two buildings.

Woman’s Memorial Dormitory, now simply called Memorial Hall, has been a welcoming home away from home to Baylor women for almost 100 years. Memorial was instrumental in improving women’s access to education at Baylor when it was built, and the impact it and its founders had on the university is still visible.