Business

 The LSU Board of Supervisors has awarded endowed professorships to four faculty members. The professorships are funded by private donors with a correlating grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents. Dr. George and Sandra Bakowski Foundation Professorship in Aero Digestive Malignancies was awarded to Dr. Glenn Mills, director of the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center and the Clinical Research and Aerodigestive Malignancy Program. The funds will be used to bring a national expert to campus each year to teach participants in the fellowship program, discuss the latest research with cancer faculty and present a lecture. Dr. James Cotelingam, professor of pathology, was selected for the W.R. Matthews, MD Professorship in anatomical pathology. Cotelingam plans to bring an internationally-recognized anatomic pathologist to Shreveport every year to lecture and share information with local and regional pathologists and other medical specialists. The Nancy Jane Sentell Seale Professorship in Cancer Palliative Care was awarded to associate professor Dr. Jay Marion. The funds will be used to help patients facing life-altering illness better understand their situation and the many options for care with a goal of improving their ability to tolerate medical treatments and carry on with everyday life. Dr. Gunjan Kahlon, professor of medicine, received the J. Woodfin Wilson Professorship in Medicine. The professorship was established to promote continuing medical education and a love for lifelong learning. The funds are used for an annual internal medicine board review for the graduating residents from the department of medicine.

Lawrence “Larry” Clark has been selected as the next chancellor of LSU Shreveport, LSU President and Chancellor F. King Alexander announced. Clark will begin as LSUS chancellor on July 1, pending approval by the LSU Board of Supervisors. Clark is currently dean of the Cameron School of Business, University of North Carolina Wilmington. He earned the Juris Doctor from the John Marshall Law School in Chicago.  He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics/business administration from Knox College in Illinois and Master of Laws in Taxation from the DePaul University School of Law.

Home Federal Bank announced groundbreaking on a new branch location at the intersection of Highway 80 and Stockwell Road in Bossier City. The additional location in Bossier City represents a commitment to expand HFB’s full-service banking presence in Bossier Parish. The branch will offer amenities such as drive-through banking, 24-hour ATM and onsite parking. As do other HFB locations, the Stockwell Road location will offer customers a wide array of personal and business banking services.  Those services will include mortgage loans, checking accounts, CDs, IRAs and consumer lending, as well as wealth management services. The current timeline sets completion of the project for fall 2014.

IBERIABANK Corporation and First Private Holdings, Inc. announced the signing of a definitive agreement for IBKC to acquire First Private via merger. The proposed merger of First Private with and into IBKC has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of required regulatory approvals and the approval of First Private’s shareholders. Under the terms of the merger agreement, shareholders of First Private will receive 0.27 shares of IBKC common stock for each share of First Private common stock outstanding, subject to certain market price adjustments provided for in the merger agreement. If the transaction closes at June 30, 2014, First Private would have an aggregate of approximately 3,747,000 shares, assuming the full exercise of then vested options and warrants outstanding. Any First Private stock options and warrants that remain outstanding immediately prior to closing, whether or not vested, will be cashed out at consummation of the merger.

Senior chemistry major Lea Hair was recently awarded the Patrick W. Halloran scholarship. The scholarship is sponsored by the Order of Omega, an honorary for men and women of the Greek community who fall within the top three percent in academics, leadership and involvement. Hair is currently serving as Order of Omega President; Centenary Activities Board President; a Maroon Jacket; Chemistry Club Vice President; and a member of Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society. She also previously helped lead Chi Omega sorority as Vice President. The scholarship program of Order of Omega was established in 1985 to recognize academic achievement, participation and leadership in campus organizations, citizenship, and service within the campus and Greek community as well as Order of Omega. The Order of Omega has awarded more than $1 million in undergraduate scholarships since 1985. This year the Order had the largest applicant pool ever and awarded 147 scholarships totaling over $66,000 to individuals such as Hair. For more information about the Order of Omega Scholarship Program, visit www.orderofomega.org.

Centenary President David Rowe has been named to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. The membership of NAICU ratified the election of Dr. Rowe and 14 other members to its board at the 2014 NAICU Annual Meeting held in Washington, D.C. this week. Rowe will serve a three-year term on the board, representing the association’s Region VI, which covers Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. He has been President of Centenary College of Louisiana since 2009. The financial and educational transformations that have taken place during President Rowe’s leadership have led Moody’s to upgrade the institution’s fiscal outlook from negative to positive, have moved Centenary into US News and World Report’s Tier One of National Liberal Arts Colleges, and were recognized in The Chronicle Higher Education’s July 3, 2011 article: “In Louisiana a Small College Gives Itself a Makeover.” The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities serves as the unified national voice of private nonprofit higher education.