For her May Project, a young Camille Baughn volunteered at the Child Life Center at what was then the Wyler Children’s Hospital. The Child Life Center provided a place for hospitalized children to play and interact with other children during the day.
“Me and several other students were there to get the kids down from their room to the play center, to kind of guide their play, and make sure everything was cool,” Camille, now Dr. Baughn-Cunningham, said.
During her work at the Child Life Center, young Camille worked with a 3-year-old named Robert, who was battling cancer.
“To think of a 3-year-old having that experience,” she sighed. “He had never known what most 3-year-olds had known.”
Robert ultimately lost his fight with cancer, but working with him taught Dr. Baughn-Cunningham an essential lesson: She could provide support to people in impossible situations. It also helped inspire her to study psychology at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Baughn-Cunningham has always wanted to understand people, to hear their stories, and to help them navigate the difficult decisions they face every day.
Dr. Baughn-Cunningham grew up in Hyde Park, attending Lab from fourth grade until she graduated in 1984. She went on to receive a B.A. in behavioral science and a Ph.D in clinical psychology.
Dr. Baughn-Cunningham has always had an interest in working in educational settings, ever since a high school English class.
“My own experience as a student is what sparked that interest and really helped develop that love of learning and settings where learning is taking place,” Dr. Baughn-Cunningham said. “More specifically, I can vividly recall being in high school, and a particular English class that I was taking with a Lab teacher, Hal Hoffenkamp, and reading ‘Anna Karenina.’”
Dr. Baughn-Cunningham was fascinated by the forces that drove the character to make the choices that they made. She wanted to understand what motivated them, how their relationships worked.
“It not only kind of sparked my love of learning,” Dr. Baughn-Cunningham said, “but I think just kind of an interest in people and what motivates people, how people make difficult decisions, and really kind of sparked my interest in psychology and counseling.”
After working at DePaul for a year, Dr. Baughn-Cunningham felt a lack of stability and took a job as a counselor at Francis W. Parker School. Then a job at Lab opened up.
“I found out there was an open counseling position at Lab and I thought, ‘Hmm, what would that be like?’” Dr. Baughn-Cunningham said. “From one standpoint, it very much felt like coming home, or like a possibility of coming home in a lot of ways. But then I thought, there’s so much I don’t know. I’ve sat in the student experience, what’s it like to be a member of the faculty?”
When she came to Lab, a lot had changed since her high school days. At its core, it felt the same. There was the same emphasis on critical thinking and a love of learning, the same values of kindness and thoughtfulness, but it had changed a lot, from class size — Dr. Baughn-Cunningham graduated from a class of 100 students — to the emphasis around college.
“There’s a lot of similarities in terms of how students and teachers connect, and to really get to know the students that you have in your class, and that’s really a joy here,” Dr. Baughn-Cunningham said.
(Layla Flowers)
When Nicole Williams, Lab’s current director of diversity, equity and inclusion, began working at Lab in 2021, the world was just recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. She first met Dr. Baughn-Cunningham during pre-school planning sessions, where administrators and counselors plan for the coming school year.
“I met Dr. Baughn-Cunningham, like, my first week working here, and immediately she was just so warm and nice,” Dr. Williams said.
Today, Dr. Baughn-Cunningham petsits Dr. Williams’ dog, Mango-Rainbow. Dr. Williams thinks of Dr. Baughn-Cunningham as her dog’s godmother rather than a pet sitter.
“She and my dog are obsessed with each other,” Dr. Williams laughed. “I don’t let him get on the furniture at my house, and he runs right in their house and jumps on all the couches, and no one cares. And I’m like, this is your dog spa, because you cannot do this at home.”
Since high school, Dr. Baughn-Cunningham has helped people, in big or small ways. From providing a sense of normalcy and support to a child like Robert, to dog-sitting for her friends and colleagues, she does what she can to make the people around her feel cared for.
“I can tell you what I hope [my impact] will be,” Dr. Baughn-Cunningham said. “I will feel very satisfied. I would feel good knowing that people thought, ‘I felt really comfortable and understood connecting with Ms. Baughn-Cunningham.’ If people have felt that I have heard them, understood them, and maybe even been able to help them in some way, I would feel very good about that.”
