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« VOLUME 21, NUMBER 45
DECEMBER 6,1974
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
Founder’s Day Weekend Sees Sands Bldg. Dedication
Tomorrow, Duke Honors an Old Friend
TO BE DEDICATED TOMORROW—The naming of the Alex H. Sands Jr. Building will
become official Saturday afternoon when university representatives, students,
faculty, alumni and friends attend a dedicatory ceremony to be held at 2:30 p.m. in
the first floor of the new research facility. Alex H. Sands, who died in 1960, was one
of the original trustees of the Duke Endowment, and he made many significant
contributions toward the university s rise to national prominence. This photograph
was taken shortly before the completion of the building last year. (Photo by David
Williamson)
The Alex H. Sands Jr. Building, a
basic sciences research facility at the
medical center will be dedicated
tomorrow as friends of the university
gather to celebrate Duke’s 50th
anniversary.
The Founder’s Day ceremony will
take place at 2:30 p.m. in the first floor
lobby of the new 108,000 sq. ft.
structure located across from the
Computation Center on Research Drive.
Trustees have named the four-story
building, which is a blend of brown,
orange and gray Hillsborough stone
and panels of pre-cast concrete, in
honor of Alexander Hamilton Sands Jr.,
a long-time supporter of the university
and one of the original trustees of the
Duke Endowment.
Dr. William G. Aniyan, vice president
for health affairs, will offer introductory
remarks, Marshall I. Pickens, chairman
of the Duke Endowment, will discuss
the role Sands played in Duke’s rise to
national prominence and Alexander
McMahon, chairman of the board of
trustees, will accept the building on
behalf of the university.
To Lead Pathology
Northwestern Head Succeeds Kinney
t
Dr. Robert Burgess Jennings has
been appointed chairman of the
Department of Pathology, effective next
June 1.
Jennings currently is chairman of the
Pathology Department at the
Northwestern University Medical
School in Chicago, a post he has held
since 1969.
He will succeed Dr. Thomas D.
Kinney, chairman of pathology at Duke
since 1960, who is retiring from
administrative responsibilities to devote
full time to teaching and research.
Jennings, 48, has spent most of his
professional career at Northwestern,
where he rose from instructor to full
professor in 10 years. He received
bachelor's degrees in chemistry and
medicine and a master’s in pathology at
Northwestern and earned his M.D.
degree there in 1950.
His internship and pathology
residency were served at Pahvant
Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Jennings’ central area of research
has been cell injury. He is known
especially for his studies of the
mechanism of cell death 'following
diminished blood supply to the heart as
in myocardial ischemic inj'ury and
myocardial infarction. He was one of
the earliest researchers to concentrate
in that area and to apply electron
microscopy and biochemical
techniques.
He also has done work in the natural
history of kidney diseases using renal
biopsy techniques.
Jennings is a member of Alpha
Omega Alpha, honor medical society.
He received the Borden Award for
Undergraduate Research in medical
school, and from 1958-63 he was a John
and Mary R. Markle Scholar in Medical
Sciences.
He was Magerstadt Professor of
Pathology at Northwestern in 1969,
delivered the first annual Alfred Angrist
Lecture at Albert Einstein Medical
College in 1971 and the sixth annual
Emmet Bay Lecture at the Pritzker
School of Medicine at the University of
Chicago in 1973.
In addition to membership in
numerous professional societies and
service on natonal committees,
Jennings is on the editorial boards of
Laboratory Investigation, Archives of
Pathology, the Journal of Molecular and
Cellular Cardiology, and Experimental
and Molecular Pathology.
Jennings and his wife, Linda, have
five children—Carol, 21. Mary, 19, Jack,
17, Anne, 16, and Jim, 14.
FROM CHAIRMAN TO CHAIRMAN—Dr. Thomas D. Kinney (right) will bfe succeeded
as chairman of the Department of Pathology next June 1 by Dr. Robert B. Jennings,
who currently chairs pathology at the Northwestern University Medical School. Dr.
Kinney will leave the administrative post to devote full time to teaching and
research. (Photo by Jim Wallace)
The research facility, completed last
year, now houses Department of
Anatomy administrative and faculty
offices and research laboratories. It also
provides research space to members of
the departments of Medicine, Surgery,
Psychiatry and Anesthesiology.
The research which is currently being
carried out in the Sands Bldg. covers a
broad spectrum of scientific interests.
The Department of Anatomy, which
occupies the west wing, carries on work
on the fine structure and cell biology of
chromosomes, the structure and
function of muscles, cell membranes
and nervous tissues, physical
anthropology, neuroanatomy,
neuroendocrinology, comparative
anatomy and developmental biology.
The other departments, which have
bE^en allocated lab and office space in
the east wing, are involved in cancer
and brain tumor studies, hormonal
imbalances, dermatology, and
hematology to name but a few of the
current investigations.
Alexander H. Sands Jr., who died in
1960, served as secretary of the Duke
Endowment from its establishment in
1924 until 1953 when he was named
vice chairman.
Active in many civic organizations,
the Richmond, Va., native was also vice
chairman of the Doris Duke Trust,
president and director of the Angier
Biddle Duke Memorial, director and
vice president of Duke Power Co., a
member of the committees on rural
churches and yearbooj^s of the Duke
Endowment, chairman of the board of
New York Medical College and
chairman of the investment and
building committees of the university's
board of trustees.
The building which bears his name
was designed by the Perkins and Will
architectural firm and erected by the
Daniel Construction Co. of Greensboro.
Gross To Discuss
Duke Endowment
As part of the university’s observance
of its 50th anniversary. Dr. Paul M.
Gross, W.H. Pegram professor emeritus
of chemistry and former dean of the
graduate school and vice president of
the university, will speak on "Fifty Years
of Duke University and the Duke
Endowment. ”
He will speak at 4 p.m. on Wednesday,
Dec. 11, in the auditorium of Gross
Chemical Laboratory.
Gross came to Trinity College in
1919—more than six years before
James B. Duke signed the indenture
creating the Duke Endowment on Dec.
IT, 1924. Because he has worked with '
the officers of the endowment since its
inception, he brings a unique
perspective and background to the
topic of his address.
All interested members of the
university community are invited to
attend.