Anita Beltran Chen
| Anita Beltran Chen | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1930-10-10 Talisayan, Misamis Oriental, Philippines |
| Died | 2020-01-02 Thunder Bay |
| Years in Thunder Bay | from 1964 (moved to Thunder Bay and founded Lakehead's sociology department); at least 2009 and 2017; 2020 (died in Thunder Bay) |
| Occupation | professor of sociology |
| Employer | Lakehead University |
| Father | |
| Mother | |
| Partner | |
Anita Beltran Chen (10 October 1930 – 2 January 2020 (aged 89)) was a Filipino-born sociologist who was founding chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lakehead University and the first president of the Filipino-Canadian Association of Thunder Bay.[1]
Life and work
Chen was born on 10 October 1930 in Talisayan, Misamis Oriental, in the Philippines, and moved to Thunder Bay in 1964, where she became founding chair of Lakehead's Department of Sociology and Anthropology. On 11 December 1998 she received the Pamana ng Filipino Award from the Philippine president at Malacañang Palace in Manila. She was the chartered founder and first president of the Filipino-Canadian Association of Thunder Bay, and a long-time member of Trinity United Church, where she sang in the choir. With her husband Min-Sun she funded the university's 30th Anniversary International Graduate Award and, in 2017, the International Student Lounge in the Chancellor Paterson Library.[1]
Death and family
She died on 2 January 2020 at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, aged 89. The retirees' listing gives the date of death as Thursday, 2 January 2010, but that year is a discrepancy: the same notice dates her funeral to 8 January 2020; 2 January fell on a Thursday in 2020 but not in 2010; the stated birth in 1930 makes age 89 fit 2020; the notice itself says she funded the International Student Lounge in 2017; and the Chronicle-Journal's obituary index has its entry for her on 4 January 2020. This page therefore uses 2020 and treats the 2010 in the retirees' listing as a typing error.[2] A funeral was held at Trinity United Church on 8 January with visitation at Everest Funeral Chapel and interment at Riverside Cemetery.[1]
She was survived by her husband Min-Sun, her brother Ernesto and many nieces and nephews in the United States and the Philippines. Her parents Gerardo and Felisa Beltran and her siblings Consolacion, Benita, Pacita, Gregoria, Encarnacion and Alejandro died before her.[1]
Other records
An obituary-index entry dated 4 January 2020 lists this person.[2]
In RALU News
The March 2009 issue reports that the Centre for Education and Research on Aging and Health (CERAH) at Lakehead University would give its "Champion" award that year to Dr. Anita Chen, one of the Centre's original founders. It notes her PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1962 and her teaching in the Sociology department at Lakehead from 1964 to 1996, after which she stayed involved as Professor Emerita; she was the department's founding chair in 1971 and had a key role in starting its B.A., H.B.A. and M.A. programs. Her teaching covered the sociology of aging, medicine, ethnicity and migration, and her research the Asian and Southeast Asian elderly in Canada, with a special interest in the Filipino elderly. CERAH's director, Dr. Mary Lou Kelley, called her a pioneer in gerontology who developed and taught Lakehead's first gerontology course.[3] Her name also appears in the "Who are we?" list of members in June 2009, as does that of her husband Min-Sun Chen.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Entry for Anita Beltran Chen, "In Memoriam", Retirees' Association of Lakehead University, https://www.lakeheadretirees.ca/in-memoriam/ (accessed 31 October 2026). Archived copy on datum.locker.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Chronicle-Journal, 4 January 2020, p. 1(D)
- ↑ "CERAH Champion award", PDF pp. 1–2, RALU News, vol. 1, no. 2 (March 2009), Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. Archived copy on datum.locker (original PDF listed at the association's archived newsletters page).
- ↑ "Who are we? A listing of members", PDF pp. 7–8, RALU News, vol. 1, no. 3 (June 2009), Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. Archived copy on datum.locker (original PDF listed at the association's archived newsletters page).