(5/17/21)
Rebecca Jean Ayars Baker, a member of the 1956 United States Olympic team and a recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Award from the University of Illinois College of Law, has passed away at the age of 84. She was part of a groundbreaking class of women when she enrolled at the University of Illinois College of Law in 1955. She entered law school at a time when women faced formidable obstacles in the legal profession: Harvard Law School had admitted its first female student only five years earlier, in 1950. Becky was one of only three women in a class of 300.