This picture is undated but it captures a very specific moment in Academic Quad history:
What you instantly see is the short (maybe recently replanted?) hedges but also note two other things: the hedges still close off part of the east and west sides and the trees aren’t Italian cypresses but instead yews of some kind.
It’s the yews that give me the latest possible date for the shot. Here’s a Thresher article from December 1983 about their removal and relocation:
It’s hard not to feel some small stirrings of pity for the Building and Grounds Committee.
Bonus: 
Since these are the short hedges, and the newer hedge configuration, we know that the picture can be no earlier than 1981 or 1982. I don’t remember exactly which year it was when they went to the lower hedges, but those years are my best guesses. And if I had to pick one, I’d probably say 1982.
It was the fall of 1981, quite close to the end of the semester. I remember seeing an overview from the office of Katherine Drew in Fondren Library.
The cypresses were replaced by yews due to Carla which were then replaced by cypresses due to Alicia which now need to be replaced due to Harvey.
There’s a certain grandeur about it, no?
1.Yank’em all out.
2. Put in Bald Cypress.
3. Two years later they’re bigger and sturdier than the Italians ever will be.
4. Profit!
Ugh… No.
I have a personal, deep and abiding loathing of bald cypress trees, having had to deal with their miserable roots and knees for all of the years that I lived in Swamp Castle.
Singing “It’s the Circle of Life…”
Yew trees are gone and so is the bow material ( I know they weren’t English yew) 😊
They dug out the old privet hedges first week of March, 1980…