A generation of people living during the 1960s and 1970s could say that they’ve seen it all happen in front of their very own eyes. The Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the gay rights movement, and the Watergate scandal. During this tumultuous time in the nation, a young boy in Bonne Terre, MO., would begin his impactful tenure in political science.
In 1968, while playing tetherball with a friend at the playground, the boy and his friend began talking about politics. They would get into a heated argument about which candidate to support, with his friend supporting George Wallace, the governor of Alabama and the candidate for the American Independent Party during the 1968 election. Wallace was a well-known racist and a politician who actively supported segregation between whites and blacks. The boy couldn’t believe his friend supported such a figure, being very aware of what was going on in the country at that time. That boy’s name: John Robert Baker.
Baker, now a 66-year-old professor at Wittenberg University in his final semester of teaching before retirement, is a man passionate about the work that he does. A man who is determined to teach students the purpose of political science, challenging them in class discussions but also always there to lend a hand to helping his students understand.
Baker started his time at Wittenberg in 1987, fresh out of completing his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri. He would get several offers from key research institutions, such as New Mexico State University and Ohio University. For any aspiring professor, a small liberal arts institution would not likely be their first choice. For Baker, however, Wittenberg was the perfect fit.
“I wanted to interact with undergraduates, have a much closer connection with students like I had as an undergrad,” Baker said. “I could have made more money right out the gate taking one of those other positions, but it wasn’t really about that.”
Baker originally entered college as a music major and chose Central Methodist University for his bachelor’s degree because it had a good conservatory. He also ran cross-country and was granted a scholarship at the school as a student athlete, but there was a problem.
“The very first day I got on campus as a new student, I went to see the department chair in music,” Baker said. “And he informed me that all music majors must march in the marching band. But I said, ‘I can’t do that because I’ll be at the cross-country meet during a lot of the home football games,’ and he said ‘Well, you need to think about another major, don’t you?’”
And so, Baker ended up choosing to become a political science major. However, he still joined the university’s jazz band playing the trombone. His parents bought him a silver one during his high school days, and he found it “pretty cool.”
“It was beautiful,” Baker said wistfully. “But I wasn’t playing it in grad school, and I was a poor grad student and so I sold the darn thing, and I needed the money, but I was really sad to do it.”
Baker didn’t play the instrument for 20 years afterwards, until his wife, Dr. Mary Jo Groves, surprised him with a new trombone for his 50th birthday, and found that he couldn’t even play it after such a long absence. In 2009, he got lessons from a fellow music professor at Wittenberg and joined the university’s jazz band until it got eliminated along with several other institutions during the school’s budget cuts in 2024.
Baker holds a high standard that “teaching is #1,” emphasizing that if you can’t teach very well, you’re not going to last very long. In his time as a professor at Wittenberg, he has seen a shift in the student body’s political culture, which has greatly diversified in a world of extreme polarization in the United States’ political system. Baker enjoys the discourse and challenges students’ assumptions and pushes them to defend their opinions while being respesctful about them.
“(It) has generated a lot more differences, a lot more discussion, a lot more debate, a lot more disagreement, which is challenging in itself because you want to make sure your classroom is a safe space,” Baker noted. “So, you’ve got to correct students when maybe they’ve been articulating something that’s not actually true.”
Baker’s role as an encouraging mentor to his students has left a lasting impact. As a college student himself, he took on an internship as an assistant city manager in a city a half hour away from Central Methodist University in Fayette, MO., where he would learn valuable skills about government and community leadership. Later, in 1994, as a professor at Wittenberg, he created a local government internship program sponsored by the International City County Management Association that would travel to a city hosting his group of 6 to 15 students.
Students doing these excursions had significant powerful experiences in working and understanding how local government operates, how it works, and the impact it has on the lives of the community. Baker, with a proud look on his face, said he’s had students over the years come back and tell him the experience was life-changing, and acknowledged his role as a mentor.
“It’s a great thing to know you’re doing something that is helpful to people.”
Wittenberg junior psychology major Jamie Triolo said that Baker helped her understand different perspectives of politics and how political figures have a role in shaping that perspective. Triolo recalled a moment where Baker expressed encouragement and empathy towards her last semester.
“There was a day where I was going through a really hard time and missed two quizzes,” Triolo said. “I told him through email I was really sorry and didn’t want him to think I was not trying, but he told me he can tell I work hard in class and always show up, which I really appreciated.”
James Allan, who serves as chair of Wittenberg's political science department, said he found Baker very approachable and easy to get along with. He sees Baker’s influence on the department’s teaching culture as very strong.
“He has an emphasis on an active learning approach and passed it along to other people,” he said. Allan brought up Hollenback 131, a room in Wittenberg’s Hollenback Hall that Baker helped design to be accessible for his active learning teaching style.
“(Baker) was always, always a wise counseling figure for any faculty when I was coming through as a junior faculty,” Allan said. “He was always a good person to talk to for advice and approaches to teaching.”
Along with his work as a political scientist, Baker has left an impact on the community of Springfield as well. He was a part of the founding committee for the Rocking Horse Community Center, which is a federally funded center that provides health care for anyone, originally starting out to help uninsured children before expanding to include adults as well.
Baker strongly believes that community involvement is necessary for an improved quality of life. “If people weren’t involved and didn’t care, I mean, basic stuff would happen, but there would be no connections,” Baker emphasized. “Communities become strong and vibrant through social capital. Anything that you do to improve connections and to improve the quality of life for your community is simply going to strengthen it.”
Baker tried to further himself into the world of politics by running for Springfield City Commission in 2009. Three seats were available with four candidates running. Baker, who finished last, found it to be a lot of work.
“I’m not really good at putting myself out there in that way to try to say, ‘hey, I think you should vote for me’,” he said. “That’s a hard thing for me to do. As I look back at that, I’m like, ‘wow, that was pretty naïve’. But I appreciate it. I really appreciate and admire people who put themselves out there and who do it.”
Something that people might not know about Baker is that he is a diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan. As an eastern Missouri native, it’s almost required to become a Cardinals fan as it's in the blood and culture of the state.
“I remember my grandma in particular loved the Cardinals,” Baker reminisced. He has a core memory of being at his grandparents’ lake house in the 1960s. “She’d be sitting there playing solitaire, listening to the Cardinals on the radio and just screaming on the radio when something went wrong or cheering. And that just, you know, it just gets in your system, and you become a fan like that.”
Baker has carried his love for baseball down to his own family. His daughter’s name is Madeline Louise Baker, and if you put the initials together, it spells out MLB, a callback to Major League Baseball.
“Her mom agreed to go along with this,” Baker chuckled. “My daughter just loves the fact that her initials are MLB. She loves baseball too.”
Baker also loves to travel around the world. He’s been to China three times and taught a summer semester in Shanghai and got to know the Chinese culture a little better. “I didn’t really learn much Chinese, so it was pretty humorous. The students all spoke great English, and I was trying to speak a little bit of Chinese, and they would just laugh at me,” Baker said with a laugh. “That was fun.”
Baker has been to all 50 states in the United States, a challenge many wish to accomplish. His personal favorite trips have been to Italy (three times) and Tahiti. Baker sees travel as a way to expand your mind as you go out to see things.
“Travel just broadens you,” he said. “My wife always says this, and I agree with her, ‘You do not waste money on education and travel.’”
Baker will start his 40th year teaching at Wittenberg during the fall 2026 semester, and more notably his final year before retiring as a professor. The biggest thing he wants his students to take from a class with him is for them to have a fundamental understanding of the nation’s political system.
“I want them to appreciate the importance of our democracy and the kinds of things that we all need to do to make sure that we sustain it into the 250th year and way beyond that.”
How would Professor John Robert Baker of Wittenberg University describe his teaching legacy in one sentence?
“Dr. Baker was a fun professor. He was kind of tough, but he was fair, and I enjoyed his classes.”
