Powerful Medicine: Henry Spring '77

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Powerful Medicine: Henry Spring '77

With his bequest to Utica College as part of the Heritage Society, Spring wants to ensure future students—especially students of color with an interest in medicine—have access to the same educational opportunities that propelled his success.

When Henry Spring stepped onto Utica College’s campus in 1973, he had a vision.

“I wanted to graduate from the pre-med program, go on to medical school, and become a doctor,” he says.

It was a dream he’d had since a summer job at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City as a teenager introduced him to the medical world.

“I was mesmerized,” he recalls. “I walked through the halls and thought to myself, ‘this is what I want to do.’”

After graduating from UC’s biology/pre-med program, he went on to achieve his dream and then some. Spring ’77 attended medical school at Boston University and is now an obstetrician-gynecologist in Fort Sam Houston, Texas—where he’s still focused on the future.

“Black people have always been a small percentage of those who succeed and move into the life sciences, especially as physicians,” he says. “One thing that has become more onerous is the financial burden that Black students have to overcome just to be players in the game. I want my gift to ease some of that burden through the undergraduate years.”

Today, with his gift to Utica College, Henry Spring has another familiar vision: that of a young Black student succeeding at UC, going on to medical school, and becoming a medical doctor.

“That,” he says, “is what inspires me.”