Trustee Emeritus Donald E. Parlee ’55 Passes Away
He graduated from Temple University School of Medicine in 1959 and was a board-certified radiologist, supporting Ursinus philanthropically along with his wife, Joan B. Parlee ’57.
Donald E. Parlee ’55, trustee emeritus, longtime Ursinus philanthropist, and namesake for the college’s Parlee Center for Science and the Common Good, passed away on March 21, 2024. He was 89.
Parlee enjoyed a 43-year career as a board-certified radiologist at Doylestown Hospital. He helped to grow the hospital’s radiology department from one physician to 20 radiologists, was its chief for 25 years, and established its School of Radiologic Technology. He also served his country as a radiologist for the U.S. Army for two years, from 1966-68, receiving a Bronze Star for his time in Vietnam.
At Ursinus, Parlee and his wife, Joan B. Parlee ’57, supported scholarships, multiple building projects, summer student research, the Ursinus Fund, and the endowment of the Parlee Center for Science and the Common Good. That $2 million endowment was formalized as a bequest intention in 2016 and both Parlees have been involved as members of the center’s executive board. They have made a difference across Ursinus’s campus and within many aspects of its academic experience.
In 2023, the Parlees were honored with one of the college’s highest honors—the Bear2Bear Impact Award for Leadership and Service. That award not only recognizes extraordinary impact on the Ursinus community, but within the local, national, or global communities as well.
Don Parlee also gave back to his profession through his involvement as president of the Bucks County Medical Society, vice chair of the Foundation of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, and for a decade as a delegate to the American Medical Association.
Read more about the Parlees here and read his obituary online here.