Naked Orientation: When Yale Freshmen Were Photographed Nude
Campus Files: Scandals, Secrets & Crimes at American Universities
Audacy
4.5 • 7.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
For decades, freshman orientation came with an unusual requirement: students had to pose for a photograph - completely naked.
It wasn’t a fringe practice. Colleges across the country, including several Ivy League schools, did it.
Why? And what happened to all those photos?
For a transcript of this episode: https://bit.ly/campusfiles-transcripts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Jill Schlesinger, CBS News, business analyst, certified financial planner, and the host of the Jill on Money podcast. |
| 0:07.8 | With the new year upon us, there's no better time to take control of your financial life. |
| 0:13.6 | And the Jill on Money podcast is here to help. |
| 0:16.6 | It's your questions that make it possible for me to provide unconventional and I hope entertaining insights on your money, and more importantly, on your life. |
| 0:25.5 | Follow and listen to Jill on Money wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:34.5 | One afternoon in the late 1970s, a Yale employee noticed a locked door in the gym. |
| 0:41.3 | He was curious, so he opened it. |
| 0:45.5 | The room looked like it hadn't been touched for decades. |
| 0:49.5 | Inside, he found boxes, stacks of them. |
| 0:54.1 | And inside those boxes, photographs. |
| 0:57.0 | Thousands of photographs of naked young men shot from the front, side, and profiles. |
| 1:04.0 | The employee didn't know what to make of it, so he brought the athletic director down to see. |
| 1:10.0 | The director didn't know either. |
| 1:12.6 | But after some digging, they realized they'd uncovered the remnants of a strange chapter of Yale's history. |
| 1:18.6 | And they acted quickly. Every photograph was shredded. |
| 1:22.6 | Then, for extra precaution, the shreds were burned, all to ensure that no recognizable images |
| 1:29.4 | of these Yale students would survive. |
| 1:32.5 | They wanted to make it all disappear, |
| 1:34.9 | but that history wouldn't stay hidden for long. |
| 1:43.1 | I'm Margo Gray. This week on Campus Files, the forgotten history of poster photos on America's college campuses. |
| 1:55.0 | I grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and you will never find a place more homogeneous or more boringly normal than Fargo. |
| 2:09.1 | This is Richard Seneca. By his senior year of high school in 1965, he was more than ready to leave his hometown of Fargo, North Dakota behind. |
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