Richard Price

1930(?)—

Mathematician

Dr. Richard L. Price—"Doc Price"—an associate professor of mathematics at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, has had a long and distinguished career in academics. He has devoted himself to recruiting black students to Lamar, to mentoring students, and to preparing them for careers in engineering, mathematics, and the sciences.

Price served 13 months of combat duty in Korea as a U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Prairie View A&M University of Texas, a historically black university about 40 miles from Houston. He earned his master's degree in mathematics with a minor in philosophy from the University of Texas in Austin. Price began his teaching career at Prairie View A&M University in September of 1956. During a leave-of-absence from Prairie View, he studied at Iowa State University, the University of California-Los Angeles, and Ohio State University (OSU) with the assistance of National Science Foundation and Academic Year Institute grants. Price earned his doctoral degree in mathematics education from OSU.

In August of 1970 Price joined the Department of Mathematics at Lamar as an associate professor. During the early 1970s, he again took a leave of absence, this time to study religion at Yale Divinity School were he earned a master's degree in religion in 1972. During this period Price also served as associate director of the engineering program at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. At Lamar Price taught trigonometry, precalculus and calculus, and analytical geometry. Over the years he also taught at Central State University, a historically black public university in Wilberforce, Ohio, at Ohio Northern University, and Michigan State University.

At Lamar, Price served as the College of Engineering's Director of Minority Recruitment and Retention. The LU News Website quoted Dr. Price: "The minority recruiting and retention program is committed to providing scholarships, internships, and other opportunities for traditionally under represented students." Under Price the program partnered with various companies and organizations—including the DuPont Corporation and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering—to provide educational opportunities for eligible students.

Although many black freshmen entered Lamar's engineering program, a large number dropped out by the end of their first year. Price helped his students found a chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and served as the chapter's advisor. The NSBE is a 15,000-member organization that works to increase the participation of black Americans in the engineering professions. As the Lamar chapter raised scholarship funds for black engineering students, retention improved. Entrepreneur and businessman Paul Fregia, a 1981 Lamar graduate, told Lamar University's Cardinal Cadence in the spring of 2004: "People like Dr. Richard Price were pillars in my life—people who helped me to believe that I could take the next step, and that my dreams could be endless."

Dr. Price served on the National Advisory Board of the NSBE for 20 years. He advised NBSE student leaders on membership issues and contributed significantly to the creation and development of NSBE's Pre-College Initiative for encouraging middle- and high-school African American students in math and science. In announcing Price's retirement from the board in 2002, Chairman Gary S. May said: "For Doc Price's unprecedented tenure on the National Advisory Board and his innumerable contributions to our growth as the premier organization for African American engineering students and professionals, each of us owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude." Following his retirement from the board, Price remained active in regional NSBE chapters.

Dr. Price received the 2004 Golden Torch Award for Lifetime Achievement in Academia from the NSBE. Golden Torches are awarded to individuals, academic institutions, and corporations who exemplify the NSBE's mission—as quoted on the NSBE Web site announcing the recipients—"to increase the number of culturally responsible black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community." Michele Lezama, the NSBE's executive director, was quoted on the Lamar NSBE Chapter web page: "As in past years, the Golden Torch Awards are NSBE's way of honoring and expressing its gratitude for the past and future accomplishments of its awardees, while also paving a path for young, aspiring black engineers to navigate toward their own personal and professional success."

In addition to his work with the Minority Engineering Program at Lamar, Price worked with the Golden Triangle-Texas Alliance for Minority Engineering (GT-TAME). In January of 2005, in honor of Dr. Price, GT-TAME announced the establishment of the Dr. Richard L. Price Endowment Scholarship for Engineering Students at Lamar University, to be administered by the Lamar University Foundation. The scholarship honored Doc Price's many years of service to Lamar students and others in the Golden Triangle—the Beaumont-Port Arthur area of Texas. The scholarship is earmarked for full-time Lamar undergraduates majoring in engineering, math, or science who have maintained a minimum overall-grade-point average of 2.75. The scholarship rotates among each of the departments on an annual basis. Janice Trammel, executive director of the Lamar Foundation, was quoted in a Lamar news release: "Scholarships are critical to the university's ability to attract and retain students. What better way to honor a faculty member who has devoted much of his time to recruit students to Lamar." The scholarship was endowed by Lamar parents, students, friends, faculty, and alumni. The Lamar Mathematician quoted Oscar Polk, a Lamar graduate: "Eastman Chemical Company would like to pay honor to Dr. Richard L. Price for the excellent job he has done over the years with the Minority Engineering Program at Lamar, his demonstrated commitment to the GT-TAME organization, along with his contributions as a National, Regional, and Chapter Advisor to the National Society of Black Engineers."

Between 2003 and 2005 Dr. Price was a member of the Lamar University long-range planning committee. As of 2005 he continued to serve as the Director of Minority Recruitment and Retention for Lamar's College of Engineering and as chairman of the Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering.

At a Glance...

Born Richard L. Price in 1930(?). Education: Prairie View A&M University of Texas, BS, mathematics; University of Texas, Austin, MA, mathematics; Iowa State University; University of California-Los Angeles; Ohio State University, PhD, mathematics education; Yale Divinity School, MA, religion, 1972. Military Service: U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant, combat duty in Korea.

Career: Prairie View A&M University of Texas, 1956-(?); Lamar University, Department of Mathematics, associate professor, 1970–; University of Bridgeport, associate director of the engineering program, 1972(?); Lamar University, College of Engineering, director of minority recruitment and retention, 1979(?)–; Lamar University, long-range planning committee, 2003-05.

Memberships: Golden Triangle-Texas Alliance for Minority Engineering, chairman; National Society of Black Engineers, National Advisory Board, 1982-2002.

Awards: National Society of Black Engineers, Golden Torch Award for Lifetime Achievement in Academia, 2004; Golden Triangle-Texas Alliance for Minority Engineering, Lamar University Foundation, Dr. Richard L. Price Endowment Scholarship for Engineering Students, 2005.

Addresses: Office— Department of Mathematics, Lamar University, P.O. Box 10047, Beaumont, TX 77710.

Sources

Periodicals

Cardinal Cadence (Lamar University), March-May 2004, p. 28.

On-line

"The Dr. Richard L. Price, I Minority Scholarship in Engineering, Mathematics, and Science," Lamar Mathematician, www.216.239.57.104/u/Lamar?q=cache:h3KcD-0rioAJ:www.math.lamar.edu/newsletter/news_v3_n2.asp+%22lamar+mathematician%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 (February 24, 2005).

"Josephine Smalls Miller Esq. National Society of Black Engineers' National Advisory Board," National Society of Black Engineers, The Multicultural Advantage, www.multiculturaladvantage.com/contentmgt/anmviewer.asp?a=350&z=80&isasp= (February 8, 2005).

"LU Engineering College Receives Dupont Grant," News@LU, www.lamar.edu/news/story.asp?ID=222 (February 8, 2005).

"National Society of Black Engineers Announces 2004 Golden Torch Awards Winners," National Society of Black Engineers, www.nsbe.org/publicrelations/gtawinners.php (February 24, 2005).

"National Society of Black Engineers 2004 Golden Torch Awards Winners" National Society of Black Engineers, www.nsbe.org/publicrelations/winner_bios.php (February 24, 2005).

"Price Scholarship to Help Lamar Engineering, Math and Science Students," Lamar University, www.lamar.edu/news/story.asp?ID=898 (February 24, 2005).

"The 2004 Golden Torch Award Recipient," Lamar University NSBE Chapter, www.hal.lamar.edu/~nsbe/advisor.html (February 24, 2004).

—Margaret Alic

Richard Price

The English Nonconformist minister and political philosopher Richard Price (1723-1791), who supported the American and French revolutions, devoted his life primarily to preaching.

Richard Price was born at Tynton, Glamorganshire, on Feb. 23, 1723. The son of a dissenting minister, he himself served as Unitarian minister to congregations in London, Stoke Newington, and Hackney for about 50 years.

Price's major work in moral philosophy is The Review of the Principal Questions in Morals (1758). The central issue with which this work is concerned is the question: why is an action right? Right, Price argues, is a real character of actions that is discerned by the understanding rather than by a moral sense. Right and wrong are simple ideas because they are not finally definable. Like Samuel Clarke, Price held that right and wrong are immutable. Price argues, in part, that both introspection and common sense indicate that rightness and wrongness are necessary truths known through the understanding by intuition.

Price's Four Dissertations (1767) included a vindication of the probability of miracles in opposition to David Hume's view of a "complete impossibility of miracles." Price and Hume, evidence from letters indicates, remained good friends in spite of their differences. Price and Joseph Priestley, also good friends, although philosophical opponents, published jointly A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity (1778). This work is a group of letters in which Priestley defends materialism and philosophical necessity, while Price attacks both of them.

An outstanding mathematician, Price was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society in 1765 for his essay resolving a difficult problem concerning probability. A few years later he applied his own solution to actuarial questions in Observations on Reversionary Payments (1771). In this work he laid the foundation for a modern system of life insurance and pensions.

Price's contribution to financial management was also notable. At the request of William Pitt the Younger, he formulated a program for dealing with the national debt in An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt (1772). His ability in this area was so widely acknowledged by his American friends, including Benjamin Franklin, that Price was asked by the U.S. Congress to advise the new government on finance in 1778.

Price's most widely read works were those supporting the American and French revolutions. His Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America (1776), Additional Observations (1777), and The Love of Liberty (1789), the last sermon supporting the French Revolution, were all widely read in England, the United States, and France. Price died on April 19, 1791.

Further Reading

The most thorough analysis of Price's theories is Carl B. Cone, Torchbearer of Freedom: The Influence of Richard Price on Eighteenth Century Thought (1952). Also useful is Antonio S. Cua, Reason and Virtue: A Study in the Ethic of Richard Price (1966).

Additional Sources

Laboucheix, Henri, Richard Price as moral philosopher and political theorist, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, 1982.

Price, Richard, The correspondence of Richard Price, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press; Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1983-1994.

Thomas, David Oswald, Richard Price, 1723-1791, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1976. □

Richard Price 1723–91, English nonconformist minister and philosopher. His philosophical importance rests on his ethical discussion, Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals (1757), in which Price stresses the power of reason in making moral judgments, a position closely allied to that of Kant . He achieved fame with his sponsorship of the American colonists' cause in a pamphlet called Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America (1776). He also defended the French Revolution and was subsequently criticized by Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. Price's writings on governmental finance were also well known.

Bibliography: See studies by C. B. Cone (1952) and W. D. Hudson (1970).

Price, Richard (1723–91), a Dissenting minister who became, with his friend Joseph Priestley, one of the original members of the Unitarian Society in 1791; he was from 1758 minister at Newington Green, which had been a centre of Dissent for many years, where he influenced many younger writers, including S. Rogers and M. Wollstonecraft. He published in 1756 his best-known work, A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, in which he questions Hutcheson's doctrine of ‘moral sense’. He was a close friend of Franklin, and supported the cause of American independence; he also supported the French Revolution, and his sermon delivered on 4 Nov. 1789, celebrating ‘the ardour for liberty’ of the French, provoked Burke to write his Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Price, Richard (1723–91), Nonconformist minister, moral and political philosopher. In A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals (1758) he defended a view of ethical action which had affinities with the teaching later expounded by I. Kant. He held that the rightness and wrongness of an action belonged to it intrinsically and criticized the ‘moral sense’ view of ethics. By 1778 he was a Unitarian.