Longtime Medical Center Faculty Member Creates Endowment
Scholarship to benefit medical students, assist UMMC admissions committee
OXFORD, Miss. – A longtime employee of the University of Mississippi Medical Center hopes a scholarship he and his wife established will help relieve financial burdens faced by many medical students while also supporting those who recruit new med school candidates.
Steven Case retired from UMMC in 2015 after a 35-year career on the faculty, beginning as an assistant professor of biochemistry and ending as associate dean for medical school admissions. Along the way, he gained deep knowledge of students' financial hardships and the limited availability of scholarships.
"While calling out the name of each entering first-year medical student at the annual welcoming white coat ceremony, I often reflected on the diverse backgrounds from which these students came, ranging from children of medical school alumni to those who were the first in their families to attend college," Case recalled.
"Each traveled a unique path that contributed to the attributes and life experiences that the admissions committee saw in their potential to become both competent and compassionate physicians."
Steve Case (left) works in his biochemistry lab in the 1980s. (Middle) Case lectures first-year medical students in biochemistry class in the early 1980s. (Right) Case examines a strainer containing adult midges, which were raised in his biochemistry lab to study genes that encode proteins used by aquatic midge larvae to form underwater silk fibers. Submitted photos
With a $250,000 gift to Ole Miss, Case and his wife, Gay, have established the Steven T. and Gay Case Medical Student Scholarship Endowment.
Besides supporting students, the couple envisions the endowment giving more leverage to the UMMC admissions committee as it recruits incoming medical students who contribute to the diversity of their class in terms of demographic and personal attributes and varied life experiences.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UM vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, is one of Case's former students.
"I want to thank Gay and Steven for their vision to support medical education in our state, strengthening our efforts to train Mississippi's physician workforce for generations to come," she said. "I'm not surprised that they would make this type of thoughtful gift.
"I've known Steven since I was in medical school, and he's always shown himself to be a champion for the education of compassionate, well-trained physicians."
When the couple moved to Jackson in 1979 to accept Case's first position at UMMC, they thought it would be a three-year stint. Twenty years later, Steven Case found he had taught and advised hundreds of first-year medical students, directed a research laboratory and trained several doctoral students.
In 2000, he got an opportunity to change careers while keeping the same parking spot.
Steven Case served many years as associate dean for medical school admissions at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Submitted photo
"Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and medical school Dean Wallace Conerly allowed me to change from a teaching and research position to full-time administration as associate dean for medical school admissions," Case said. "This event was pivotal to my decision to remain at UMMC rather than accept a position elsewhere."
Case's final 15 years at the Medical Center entailed recruiting medical school applicants and chairing the medical school admissions committee. He also chaired the Association of American Medical College's national Committee on Admissions and served as a national spokesperson for holistic admissions review.
"Our three-year experiment expanded to three generations of family being raised in Mississippi," he said. "Our two children graduated from Ole Miss and our son's three daughters are now enrolled there."
Case knows firsthand how meaningful scholarships can be to students.
In 1965, using student loans and money from his parents, he became the first in his family to go to college. While pursuing a bachelor's degree in biology at Pennsylvania Military College – now Widener University – he met his future wife, who was enrolled in the Hahnemann Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia.
Case continued his higher education at Wilkes College, where he earned a master's degree in 1971, and at the University of Southern California, where he earned a doctorate in cellular and molecular biology in 1974.
"After a decade of retirement and reflection on this journey, my wife and I decided to endow a scholarship to acknowledge the decades of support that I received from the UMMC leadership during the research and administrative portions of my career, and the role that Ole Miss played and is continuing to play in the education and development of our children and grandchildren," Case said.
To learn more about Case's career at UMMC, click here.
To support the University of Mississippi Medical Center, click here or contact Meredith Aldridge, executive director of development, at mmaldridge@umc.edu or 601-815-7469.
Top: Gay (left) and Steve Case enjoy a morning on the Oxford campus of the University of Mississippi. Ventress Hall (background) served as Case's office away from the office when he needed to meet with prospective medical students in Oxford. Photo by Bill Dabney/UM Foundation