Wesleyan College dedicated its new state-of-the-art science facility, the Munroe Science Center, on Friday, November 2, 2007. The ceremony honored three extraordinary alumnae -- sisters Mary Gray Munroe Cobey ‘34, Julia Munroe Woodward ‘34, and Margaret Munroe Thrower ’35 -- for the incredible gifts they and their families have shared with Wesleyan College over the past 75 years.
Several major donors whose extraordinary support made construction of the Munroe Science Center possible were recognized including Randolph Thrower, the Peyton Anderson Foundation, one anonymous foundation, the challenge donor who inspired our Atlanta area alumnae, the Bradley-Turner Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Tull Charitable Foundation, and the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation. Many other individuals, corporations, and foundations that have named rooms and invested generously in the sciences and technology at Wesleyan College were thanked wholeheartedly.
Surgeon, oncologist, medical educator, civic leader, and the recipient of many awards, Dr. LaSalle Doheny Leffall, Jr. delivered the ceremony address to a crowd of almost four hundred. Leffall is the Charles R. Drew Chair in Surgery at Howard University College of Medicine. During his career, he has taught thousands of medical students and trained hundreds of general surgery residents. In 1995 he was elected president of the American College of Surgeons and in 2002 was named chairman of the President’s Cancer Panel.
Leffall has served as Visiting Professor at over 200 medical institutions in the United States and abroad and authored or coauthored over 130 articles and chapters. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery and a fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Gastroenterology. His professional life has been devoted to the study of cancer, especially among African Americans. In 1979, as president of the American Cancer Society, Leffall developed programs and emphasized the importance of this study for the benefit of the African American population and other ethnic groups. Cancers of the head and neck, breast, colorectum and soft part sarcomas are his main areas of interest.
Dr. LaSalle Doheny Leffall, Jr. was born May 22, 1930 in Tallahasee, Florida, but grew up in Quincy, Florida. His parents, Lula Jourdan and LaSalle Leffall, Sr., met at Alabama Teachers College. Leffall graduated in 1945 from Dr. Wallace S. Stevens High School at age fifteen. Awarded his B.S. degree summa cum laude from Florida A & M College in 1948, Leffall earned his M.D. from Howard University College of Medicine when only twenty-two years old. There, Dr. Burke Syphax, Dr. Jack White, Dr. W. Montague Cobb and the celebrated Dr. Charles R. Drew taught him.
Upon earning his M.D., Leffall continued his medical training as intern at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis; assistant resident in surgery at Freedman's Hospital from 1953 to 1954; assistant resident in surgery at D.C. General Hospital from 1954 to 1955; chief resident in surgery at Freedman's Hospital from 1956 to 1957; and senior fellow in cancer surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital from 1957 to 1959. Beginning his military service at the rank of Captain, M. C., he served as chief of general surgery at the U. S. Army Hospital in Munich, Germany from 1960 to 1961. Leffall joined Howard's faculty, in 1962, as an assistant professor and by 1970, he was chairman of the Department of Surgery, a position he held for twenty-five years. He was named the Charles R. Drew Professor in 1992, occupying the first endowed Chair in the history of Howard's Department of Surgery. |
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View images from the Munroe Science Center Dedication. |
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