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Most young women heading off to college in the 1930s were looking
for a broad-based education—not an intense and lifelong career in
science. Dr. Dora Henley Going ’37, who majored in biology at BSC,
went on to earn her Ph.D. in microbiology, and became a professor and
researcher, wasn’t like most young women.
Going, who died last year at the age of 99, has ensured BSC will
produce more groundbreakers in science and medical research by leaving
behind funds that will create endowed scholarships for math majors and
pre-health students and allow the BSC library to purchase new materials.
“She was a pioneer,” said Larry O’Neal, a friend of Going for about
three decades and the trustee of her estate, “But when I would bring it
up and say that to her—which I did multiple times—she would look at
me in her sweet way and say, ‘That’s not how I saw it, I just did what I
liked, I didn’t think I was special—I was just doing what I was good at
and had an interest in.’”
After graduating from BSC, Going earned a second bachelor’s
in medical technology at Temple University. During World War II,
when positions opened up for women as men left for the front, she
worked as a medical technologist at the Army-owned, Dupont-run
Indiana Ordinance Works plant in Charleston, Ind. She returned
to Birmingham when her father died and served as the head of the
Department of Medical Technology at the Highland Hospital (currently
UAB Hospital-Highlands).
She began her teaching career in 1947 with a stint as an instructor of
microbiology at the University of Alabama, a place where her family
roots ran deep (her great-grandfather was an early trustee). She took
a leave of absence and headed to the University of Michigan to earn
her master’s and Ph.D., then returned to UA—where she met Dr. Allen
Going, a history professor; they were married in 1954. Three years later,
the couple left for Houston, where Allen took a professorship at the
University of Houston and Dora became a microbiology professor at the
University of Texas Health Science Center. They returned to Tuscaloosa
when they retired in 1980.
“She had a career, he had a career, and they never gave up on those
careers, and they never had any children,” said O’Neal. “They both came
from very deep Alabama roots, although they were consummate travelers
and travelled the world.”
They also committed to giving to the causes they believed in–even
promising that whoever lived longest would support the others’ alma
mater and other pet projects, O’Neal said.
In life, the Goings were charter members of BSC’s Endowment Builders
Society; Dora was also a member of the Ginkgo Society. In death, they
left enough to support multiple endowments, including the Dora H.
and Allen J. Going Endowed Library Support Fund for new library
acquisitions, the Mary H. and John W. Henley Endowed Scholarship in
Mathematics, and the Dora H. and Allen J. Going Endowed Scholarship
for Pre-Medical Students. In 1999, she was awarded BSC’s Distinguished
Alumni Award.
“She loved Birmingham-Southern, she remembered it very fondly,” said
O’Neal, who added that she was always a genteel Southern lady in every
way. “It obviously gave her a great education and the foundation to go
forward to the ultimate academic pursuit and to do that in a time when it
was really very unusual for a woman to do so.”
To learn more about how your estate gift can help BSC students and the
college, contact Meredith Wolfe at (205) 226-4977 or
Creating future
scienti c pioneers
through an
estate gift
Charitable bequests: