A Unique Honor at Johns Hopkins University for Benjamin Carson

Benjamin S. Carson, one of the nation’s foremost pediatric neurosurgeons, was appointed to an endowed professorship at Johns Hopkins University, a professorship which bears his name. Carson, who has served on the faculty at Johns Hopkins since 1984, is the first scholar to fill the Benjamin S. Carson and Dr. Evelyn Spiro Professorship in Pediatric Neurosurgery.

Evelyn Spiro, a nurse, and her philanthropist husband, Donald, were among the donors providing money for the endowed chair. Also contributing to the fund was Ernest Bates, who in 1958 was the first African American to graduate from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Sciences. Bates went on to medical school at the University of Rochester and was among the first three African Americans to be board-certified in neurosurgery.