The Pharmacist / Spring 2022 / Volume 44 / Issue 2

Investing
theFuture
in
Endowed scholarships created through UIC’s IGNITE campaign demonstrate
B Y
D A N I E L P . S M I T H
the spirit and commitment of the College of Pharmacy community.
Jim and Phyllis White
Dr. Jerry and Judy Bauman
SINCE UIC LAUNCHED the university-wide
IGNITE campaign in 2017, alumni and friends of the
UIC College of Pharmacy have created 49 endowed
scholarships totaling more than $2.6 million.
Many of the scholarships nobly aim to ease the financial
burden of pharmacy education and reward those
committed to the profession and patient welfare. Some
honor former classmates or mentors. Some look to
propel careers in specific areas, such as rural pharmacy
or community practice. Others stimulate opportunities
for first-generation college students or those from
underrepresented backgrounds.
Whatever the scholarship’s criteria might be, the support
promises to have an undeniably positive impact on UIC
pharmacy students, a quarter of whom receive financial
support while pursuing their studies.
“These scholarships serve as a lasting legacy that will
long help bridge our students’ financial need gap,”
assures Ben Stickan, the college’s associate dean of
advancement.
With the addition of the 49 scholarships created through
the IGNITE campaign, the College of Pharmacy now
features 77 endowed scholarships. Stickan hopes the
college can reach 100 endowed scholarships when the
five-year INGITE campaign closes at the end of 2022.
“It’s an ambitious goal,” Stickan says. “But there’s a
spirit to our institution, and so many in our community
who recognize the importance and value of pharmacy
education at UIC and just how important this education
is to the students as well as the future of patient care.”
Here we highlight five recently endowed scholarships at
the College of Pharmacy:
JIM AND PHYLLIS WHITE SCHOLARSHIP
When Jim White, BS ’65, tells people he attended UIC on
a shoestring budget, they often dismiss the comment as
hyperbole.
Only White isn’t exaggerating.
“Literally, I had one pair of shoes, which I fixed with tape
and cardboard,” the 79-year-old White recalls.
White, who grew up in the central Illinois town of
Petersburg, attended UIC thanks in part to a scholarship
awarded by a physical therapy agency. (He thanks his
mother’s creative lobbying for that.) And he worked
throughout college, including earning cash by performing
in a singing trio with college roommates Bern Hapke,
BS ’65, and Dan Warfield, BS ’65, while also having the
good fortune of being “bailed out” a few times by former
College of Pharmacy dean George Webster.
White’s ability to endure and capture his degree
propelled a professional career that included positions
in corporate and institutional settings in addition
to establishing one of Illinois’s first hospital-based
community pharmacies.
“The excellent education and training I received at
UIC prepared me for the many diverse opportunities I
enjoyed in my career and helped create a life I never
could’ve imagined,” says White, who retired in 2017.
The upward mobility ignited by his UIC degree, in
fact, spurred White and his wife, Phyllis, to establish a
revocable trust and earmark a “worthwhile” percentage
of the funds to UIC. The resulting Jim and Phyllis White
Scholarship will support PharmD students with a
demonstrated financial need.
28 THE PHARMACIST PHARMACY.UIC.EDU