George Baker ’74
2024 Bell Ringer Award
Citation for George Baker ’74
For fifty years, you have served Hamilton creatively, selflessly, and enthusiastically — some might say fanatically — with a continual and consistent focus on what’s best for the College and its students. Not surprisingly, then, Joan Stewart called you the “embodiment of love and loyalty” when you were presented with the 2013 Jeff Little ’71 Volunteer of the Year Award.
Maybe that’s because your relationship with Hamilton always seems to come full circle. A few examples:
- You majored in government; now you return occasionally with a colleague to teach a course in the department.
- The Washington Semester that you attended as an undergraduate now benefits from your assistance, counsel, and encouragement, including when you spearheaded and served as de facto host of the program’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2019.
- You began supporting the Hamilton Fund soon after graduating; eventually you chaired the annual fundraising campaign from 2007 to 2009 while serving as an alumni trustee.
- The programs of the regional Alumni Association that you attended after moving to the nation’s capital ultimately served as a springboard to you becoming regional chair of that model alumni chapter. Eventually you served as president of the Alumni Association where you instituted the Alexander Hamilton Birthday parties that continue to be held across the U.S. and around the world each year on or around January 11.
- And finally, in your role as president of the Alumni Association, you were the presenter of Hamilton’s highest alumni honor; today you are its latest recipient.
Wrote one admirer, “Among the giants who have roamed our quadrangles — [and] mindful of the length, breadth, and depth of his commitment to Hamilton — George Baker is in a class by himself.” Perhaps that’s because you’re still guided by three questions first put to you by professors Eugene Lewis and Warren Wright:
- Is this true?
- Have you done your best?
- Have you been honest with yourself?
For George Baker, Carissima is not simply the College’s alma mater, but a greeting of deep affection to be shared whenever and wherever one encounters a fellow Hamiltonian. And so, in awarding you Hamilton’s highest award — and in honor of you becoming the first person in College history to be both a Bell Ringer and a Volunteer of the Year — we say congratulations, thank you … and Carissima!
Presented by John J. Christopher ’83, P’14
President, Alumni Association
June 8, 2024
