‘Really easy’ decision to give surprise estate gift to UIC Nursing
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Chris Whippo, BSN ’73, MS ’88, calls it “one of those surprise stories.”
When her longtime friend, Jean Stout, died in December 2022, Whippo was designated to manage Stout’s more than half-million dollar estate.
And although Stout, a former medical office administrator, had left no instructions, Whippo says it was “a really easy” decision to make a significant gift to the UIC College of Nursing with the money.
“Jean had a history of giving to the College of Nursing,” Whippo says.
The gift of $500,000 will support three areas that were important to Stout. It will establish a Jean Stout Faculty Scholar, allowing the college to hire or retain an outstanding faculty member. It will contribute to the Dean’s Catalyst Fund, which gives the dean flexibility to recruit and retain faculty. And it will allow the college to purchase simulation lab equipment for its campus in Urbana, where Stout lived.
Urbana campus director Krista Jones, DNP ’11, MS ’07, RN, PHNA-BC, FAAN, says she is “overcome with gratitude” for the donation, which will be put toward the purchase of the campus’ first infant and pediatric high-fidelity simulators and accompanying software, computers and monitors.
The new equipment will enable faculty to build “real life scenarios” that will give students experience and confidence carrying for infants and children, Jones says.
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UIC Nursing at the center
Whippo and Stout’s friendship began at a UIC Nursing event in Champaign-Urbana in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Whippo remembers wondering what had brought Stout there. After all, Stout was not an alumna or a nurse.
“She told me, ‘I’ve always valued what nurses do. I don’t think enough credit is given to them. I decided I was going to give donations to nurses, and I picked out the [UIC] College of Nursing,’” recalls Whippo, who worked as an admissions counselor and advisor on the UIC Nursing-Urbana campus for 13 years.
Indeed, during her life, Stout made annual charitable gift annuities to establish the Jean C. Stout Nursing Scholarship, which supports UIC Nursing students in the PhD program.
“She was kind of a forward thinker, in that she knew we’re going to need nurses, so let’s get nurses educated [with advanced degrees] so that we can train more nurses,” Whippo says. “She was right on target.”
Over the years, Stout and Whippo became better friends, connecting over their shared support and visits to Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
Even though Stout herself was not a nurse, “she knew the difference a nurse can make,” Whippo says. In addition to her work in a medical office, Stout was also a hospice volunteer and had been hospitalized for illnesses of her own, all places where she encountered nurses.
“The [UIC] College of Nursing is really at the center of it all,” Whippo says. “It’s kind of amazing, right? To meet at a college event and then have all of this unfold.”