Oscar Henry Criner, III


Born:

place:

BS; MS

Ph.D. Mathematics (1972) University of California, Berkeley
thesis: Regularity Properties of the Solutions of the Two Dimensional Lagrangian Problem and of the Lagrangian Multiplier; Advisor: Charles Morrey, Jr.

: Dr. Oscar Criner Chair, Computer Science & Physics
Department Texas Southern University

personal or universal URL: http://www.ohcriner.com/
email:

Teaching is a family tradition. 
Oscar H. Criner is a fourth generation teacher in Texas. His great grandfather, A. J. Criner, was an itinerant teacher who founded schools in Southeast Texas after the civil war, including Lincoln High School in Port Arthur and Charlton Pollard High School in Beaumont. Both his grandmother and great aunt taught in Beaumont and Houston and his parents taught in Mexia, Beaumont, and  Houston schools. His sister Christine Criner-Smith is principal of Willowridge High School in Fort Bend County, Texas. Dr. Criner has taught at Grambling College in Louisiana, California State University at Hayward, and San Francisco State University.  Dr. Criner has been at Texas Southern University since 1976. According to Mathematical Reviews, Dr. Criner has publsihed no research papers in mathematics.

Here is a quote from the head page of Professor Criner's personal web site: "This site is intended to help you succeed in  college and to introduce you to the academic profession.  I want  you to experience the joy of scholarship."

In addition to his university activities, Dr. Criner has

Criner became quite reknown in the Enron senario. He was Jury Foreman in the case of Enron-related documents that had been destroyed by Arthur Andersen employees. Dr. Criner was aparently the last juror to agree to andersen's guilt after 72 hours of deliberation. Four of the jurors spoke to the press. [We found tens of articles on the internet].

from June 19, 2002, 2:48PM http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/special/andersen/1456547

"When Oscar Criner's son heard his father was the Arthur Andersen jury's last holdout for acquittal, he laughed. "I believe it," Oscar Criner IV said as he stood in the Galleria-area hotel room where his dad had been sequestered during 10 days of deliberations in the trial that ended with a guilty verdict Saturday....

"I wanted to see Andersen win. We need to have at least one major company in American business that stands up to principles. It's a romantic idea," he said of his hope that Andersen would be found to have told its client, Enron, that the company was mischaracterising its third-quarter 2001 results. Instead, Andersen turned out to have been trying to cover itself by altering a memo.

Criner, who has worked on Republican presidential campaigns and sports American flag pins and cuff links, clearly considers questioning the government as a member of this jury a part of being a good citizen.
"I was shooting holes in the government's case all the way," said Criner, who said he's been in a dispute with the IRS himself and was questioned by the FBI once when it investigated the politics of a project on the island of St. Thomas for which he had helped build a computer system.

 

references: Math Geneology Project; Texas Southern University; Wall Street Jurnal; Houston Chronical; Dr. Criner's website

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