NMU Building renamed after graduate and U.P. native
MARQUETTE — A building at Northern Michigan University has been renamed in honor of a former graduate, and U.P. Native.
Northern Michigan University’s Board of Trustees recently approved the renaming of the New Science Facility to Kathleen Shingler Weston Hall.
Weston grew up in the small U.P. town of Kenton, and she was one of the first women to graduate from Northern to go on to complete a medical degree. Graduating from Northern in 1929, Weston went on to pave the way for a lot of women in the medical field.
“She was a trailblazer for women and scientific research, and I think one way that’s demonstrated the best is through her work with Parke–Davis and Company on the Salk polio vaccine for children,” said NMU News Director Kristi Evans. “She considered it her highest achievement. She was the first women medical doctor hired by the company, she lobbied for the same pay as the men she worked with, and she ended up running their toxicology lab.”
Weston was honored by President Johnson as one of the nation’s “Outstanding Medical Women,” and to this day there is a scholarship in her and her husband’s name for UP high school graduates going to NMU in the science field.
She lived to be 107. To read more about Weston and her life, click here.