News and Progress

Couple's love of teaching leads to boost for future doctors

Gift will fund chair at School of Medicine

Oct. 16, 2009

Dr. George Huggins, MD '63, and his wife, Jean Baker, BS ED '66, committed $1.1 million of their estate to the MU School of Medicine. The funds will be used to enhance women's health care by establishing a chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women's Health. An additional gift will provide scholarships for students in the School of Medicine.

George Huggins and Jean Baker left Mizzou four decades ago filled with inspiration. He had graduated with his doctor of medicine degree and completed his residency. She had earned a degree in education. The passion and commitment to education the couple experienced at Mizzou stayed with them throughout their lives. Now retired, Huggins, MD'63, and Baker, BS Ed '66, are giving back. They have committed $1.1 million of their estate to the MU School of Medicine.

The couple's gift will establish the George Huggins and Jean Baker Endowed Chair in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women's Health. The fund will provide permanent, recurring resources that will allow the School of Medicine to enhance teaching, research and patient care. Their gift also will create the George Huggins and Jean Baker Endowed Scholarship Fund.

"When I was in medical school and a junior faculty person, there was a lot of protected time for full-time faculty to not only research, but to teach," says Huggins, who has taught at three medical schools and retired as chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. "Unfortunately, that has changed over the years. By endowing a significant portion of a faculty salary, we hope to free up time for more teaching."

Huggins and Baker met at Mizzou when he was a medical student and she was a student nurse. After graduation, their lives went different directions for many years. Then Baker wrote to Huggins when her mother was sick, asking him for a reference for a physician. As it turned out, Huggins had trained the physician in question. Huggins and Baker continued corresponding, and a marriage bloomed out of the Mizzou connection made in the 1960s.

They are longtime advocates of higher education. Baker has established two scholarship endowments at Mizzou. "I knew all my life that education was important," she says. "It's important to me to help people who might not be able to go to school on their own. By giving, I set an example for my family, my children, to give back."

It's a sentiment Huggins echoes. "When it came time to go to medical school, my folks and I didn't have enough money [for me] to go to a private school, although I'd been accepted to several places," Huggins says. "I owe my ability to become a physician to the people at Missouri and to the taxpayers. Over the years, we were all taught in the family to give back. This is a payback I never would have been a physician had it not been for the opportunity I had at Missouri."

The couple's gift was announced during a ceremony at the University of Missouri on Oct. 16. Several of Huggins' colleagues attended. Listen now to remarks from MU Chancellor Brady Deaton, Huggins and Baker.