Baylor’s oldest new graduate receives long-awaited degree

Posted: 12/21/06

Baylor’s oldest new graduate
receives long-awaited degree

By Cynthia Jackson

Baylor University

SHREVEPORT, La.—The list of graduates at Baylor University’s December commencement included M.L. “Hub” Northen, who enrolled at the school 81 years earlier and left Baylor in 1929 one credit short of a degree.

Northen, who is 100 years old, was unable to attend the ceremony due to health concerns. But Terry Maness, dean of Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, told the assembly Northen is the oldest person ever to obtain a degree from Baylor.

Northen arrived at Baylor University in 1925 with $100 his parents had managed to save. He paid his tuition by cleaning Brooks Hall for 25 cents per hour. And for an extra 35 cents a day, he lit a fire at 3:30 a.m., so students could take their morning baths.

When the Great Depression hit in 1929, Northen quit school to begin fulltime work to help support his family financially. At the time, he lacked only one class credit to earn his degree.

Through the years, Northen organized Baylor alumni and supported the university’s sports recruiting efforts, but he never claimed to be a Baylor graduate.

But in 2004, when he and his wife, Annie Lee, moved to a care facility, his family discovered something while sorting through the Northens’ household items to prepare their house for sale.

“It was the biggest shock to all of us to find in a bunch of rolled-up documents a 1929 diploma of graduation for Marvin Lafayette Northen,” said grandson Gary Northen Jr.

He asked his grandfather about the diploma and learned it had been mailed by mistake.

“He then told me that he was one class short of the graduation requirements—a single chemistry class,” he said. “Although apparently an error on the part of the records department, since he did not attend graduation at the end of the quarter, the diploma was mailed to him at his home in Holland, Texas.”

His grandfather explained when he received it, he didn’t have enough money for postage to send it back to the university.

The grandson made some inquiries at Baylor, and that resulted in his grandfather being awarded a bachelor of business administration degree during Sunday morning services at Trinity Heights Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., Dec. 3.

The ceremony was a surprise to his grandfather and to the rest of the Northen family.

“I understand … that you have held on to a signed diploma proclaiming your degree from Baylor University,” David Pennington, interim chair and professor of chemistry, wrote in a letter to Northen. “But because of your honesty, you never claimed to have earned that degree because you lacked a single chemistry course, Chemistry 101.

“Therefore, it is my genuine pleasure to inform you that because of your honesty and 81 years of experience in the interim, you are hereby granted credit for Chemistry 101, fulfilling the last of your formal degree requirements for that BBA degree and legitimizing your status as a genuine graduate of Baylor University.”

Many letters poured in from old friends, Baylor supporters, Baylor officials and Baylor athletic coaches past and present, including legendary football coach Grant Teaff.

“There are supporters, and then there are people like Hub Northen,” Teaff wrote. “The kind of person who thinks every recruiting class is the best one ever recruited, and that every team, even if they stumble a little along the way, is the best team Baylor ever had.”

Baptist Standard Editor Emeritus Toby Druin also sent a letter of congratulations.

“Every conversation we have had has given me a deeper appreciation for the university and for your love of the school and the days you spent there and the esteem you have for it today,” Druin wrote. “I am sure that no one bleeds more green and gold than M.L. Northen.”

Baylor President Emeritus Hebert H. Reynolds wrote to Northen: “You are undoubtedly the most senior person to ever receive a Baylor degree after having diligently pursued this goal for the past 80 years! You have been one of Baylor’s finest stalwarts since the day you stepped on the campus in the 1920s, and all of us who have known you through the years have the utmost respect for you as a person, as well as a son of Baylor who has never wavered in your love and support of your beloved alma mater.”