Margo Gray

Thousands of photographs of naked young men shot from the front, side, and profiles.

The employee didn't know what to make of it, so he brought the athletic director down to see.

The director didn't know either.

But after some digging, they realized they'd uncovered the remnants of a strange chapter of Yale's history, and they acted quickly.

Every photograph was shredded.

Then, for extra precaution, the shreds were burned, all to ensure that no recognizable images of these Yale students would survive.

They wanted to make it all disappear, but that history wouldn't stay hidden for long.

I'm Margo Gray.

This week on Campus Files, the forgotten history of poster photos on America's college campuses.

This is Richard Seneschal.

By his senior year of high school in 1965, he was more than ready to leave his hometown of Fargo, North Dakota behind.

He had the credentials.

He was a national merit scholar, top of his class, but that didn't make the college application process any less daunting.

But Richard did just fine on his own.

He applied to seven Ivy League schools in Stanford and got into all of them.

He ended up picking Yale.

He wanted to be an architect, and a brand new Yale building had just graced the cover of Time magazine.

So in September 1965, he and his dad packed up the car and drove east to New Haven, Connecticut.

Two days and 1,500 miles later, Richard and his dad arrived at Yale.

It was one of those perfect early fall days.