FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (3/96)
SHREVEPORT, LA -- Centenary College of Louisiana inaugurated the Charles T. Beaird Chair of Philosophy during its annual Founders' Day Convocation March 21 in Brown Memorial Chapel.
The program featured the inaugural address by Dr. Kenneth L. Aizawa, who was installed as the first incumbent of the endowed chair.
Dr. Aizawa spoke on "The Integration of Philosophy and Science."
The chair has been established by Dr. Charles T. Beaird, Shreveport businessman, journalist, and teacher of philosophy, in an expression of his high esteem for the discipline of philosophy and his recognition of its centrality in a liberal arts education. While focusing on philosophy as a primary mission, the Chair has a secondary focus on mathematics and the sciences and seeks to develop linkages and innovative programs within those disciplines.
Dr. Aizawa has been a member of the Centenary faculty since the fall of 1995 and has been chairman of the Department of Philosophy since January 1996. His areas of specialization and interest include connectionism, philosophy of the mind and philosophy of science, as well as logic, computation theory, modern philosophy and ethics.
Also on the program was the installation of professors in two existing endowed chairs at Centenary. Dr. Ernest W. Blakeney Jr. was installed in the Velma Davis Grayson Chair of Chemistry and Dr. Scott Vetter in the William C. Woolf Chair of Geology.
The convocation also included the awarding of the Outstanding Teacher Award to Physics Professor Jeffrey Trahan and the Alumni Research Grant to Political Science Professor John Peek. Founders' Day Convocation is one of two special programs at which all faculty and graduating seniors dress in academic regalia and march across campus to the chapel.
It celebrates the college's founding in 1825 and its status as the nation's oldest college west of the Mississippi River. The event also kicked off four days of activities associated with the college's annual Alumni and Family Weekend.
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