A Family Legacy

By: Jack Crager

Meryl Baurmash often visited the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine (CDM) when she was growing up. “My father would take my sister and me to the dental school,” she recalls. “There were these long mahogany benches where the patients would sit and wait for oral surgery, and I distinctly remember the green tile walls. I started going there when I was about five years old.”

Now Meryl Baurmash, DDS '85, Ortho '88, is continuing to honor the memory of her father, Harold D. Baurmash, DDS '48, Ortho '53, by leaving a significant bequest intention in her will that will add value to the endowed scholarship she established in his name at CDM. “I wanted to leave something for his legacy, because he trained a lot of people and inspired a lot of pupils,” she says. “I also felt that Columbia gave me all these wonderful opportunities that I wouldn't have otherwise had in my lifetime, and that it was time to do something for students. I wanted to give something back—so that we can perpetuate the dental profession.”

Baurmash—who taught orthodontics at the University of Pennsylvania for 20 years and is now a dental practitioner based in New York City—wants to help her alma mater continue to attract stellar talent. “If we can lower the cost, we're going to get students to come to Columbia who are the best and the brightest,” she says. “If we can help make them feel secure that they can pay back their debt, then they can pay it forward. It's about making a difference now, and also investing in what people are going to do in the future.”

While Baurmash specifically supports scholarship funding, she encourages all kinds of legacy giving. “We have a tendency to only recognize or reward people who give really big gifts, but every gift counts,” she notes, “Some people may want to give to research. We need the monies that come in from charitable donations to actually run our institutions. It's all about gratitude and helping the entire collective.”

And in Baurmash’s view, it’s about creating one’s own legacy as well. “Some folks collect art,” she says with a laugh. “Even though I'd love to collect valuable paintings, I'm giving charitably. So what do you value? What do you want to contribute to the world? To me, it’s not the art or the Mercedes Benz or the jewelry. It’s the legacy. At the end of the day, what are people going to remember you by?”

Baurmash says that generosity is especially crucial given the current state of the world: “I think legacy giving is going to be a trend. With the financial situation the way it is, it gives people a comfort level. I also think that coronavirus did something substantial to our society. It's allowed us to become a little bit more open and caring about other people, and not just about ourselves. So we should continue that: We should show kindness and understanding and we should help each other out, and that's really how we become a better society, a better community, a better profession, a better institution—or a better person.”