The Kilborn Room in the Chung Chi College Administrative Building is named after our College Co-Founder Dr. Leslie Gifford Kilborn (1895-1967). His family had a long association with China. His father, Omar Leslie Kilborn (1867-1920), and his mother, Retta Gifford Kilborn (1864-1942), were Canadian medical missionaries who had embarked on missionary work in China since the late Qing Dynasty. Dr. Leslie Gifford Kilborn was born and brought up in Sichuan. Later, he obtained an M.D. degree and a Ph.D degree from the University of Toronto in Canada. After the death of Omar Leslie Kilborn, he decided to succeed his father as a medical professional in China. Therefore he returned to Chengdu and had worked at the West China Union University for more than three decades, serving as the Head of the Department of Physiology, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and the Director of the College Medicine and Dentistry. His daughter was also a nurse at the University Hospital. It just so happens that the three generations of his family served in the University.

In 1952, Dr. Kilborn moved to Hong Kong, and was hired as the Professor of Physiology and later appointed as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. Based on his extensive work experience in a Christian university in China, he became a member of the Board of Governors of Chung Chi College. He was the Chairman of the Board from 1955 to 1960, and was responsible drafting the Constitution and regulations of the College. He dedicated his efforts to striving for College subsidisation by liaising with the Government. After stepping down from his position at the University of Hong Kong in 1960, he accepted the appointment as the Vice President of Chung Chi College, where he was in charge of administration and fundraising. Although he was a science scholar, he took up the editorial work of the Chung Chi Bulletin, and even used to be an Acting Librarian of the College.

Dr. Kilborn retired in 1963. His friend from the West China Union University donated about ten thousand Hong Kong dollars to sponsor the furnishings of the conference room of the College for commemorating his family’s dedication to China and his contributions to Chung Chi.