Vartan Gregorian

Vartan Gregorian was born on April 8, 1934[4][5] in the city of Tabriz in northern Iran to Christian Armenian parents Samuel B. Gregorian and Shushanik (née Mirzaian).[4] His parents had high school education.[6] His father worked for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Abadan and was mostly absent.[7] His mother died of pneumonia at 26, when he was six[7] and his father later remarried.[8] Vartan and his younger sister, Ojik,[9] were raised by his maternal grandmother, Voski Mirzaian.[10][5] She came from a family of scribes,[7] but was an illiterate peasant and Gregorian described her as wise.[7] His grandfather owned an inn for camel caravans.[11] Regarding his family origins, he said that he could not determine if they were indigenous to the area, or settled there in the 15th, 16th, or 19th century, because "they were mostly from peasant villages that migrated to Tabriz."[7]

He first went to an Armenian elementary school in Tabriz, then a Russian one when northern Iran was under Soviet occupation. When Iran regained control of the area, he learned Persian.[6] He was told by Edgar Maloyan, the French vice-council in Tabriz of Armenian origin,[9] that he had to go to Beirut because he was "too smart to stay in Tabriz."[8] He followed his advice and continued his studies at the Collège Armenien (Jemaran) in Beirut, graduating in 1955.[4][12][13] Before moving to Beirut, he spoke Eastern Armenian, some Russian, Persian and Turkish.[7] He learned French within a year.[7] Among his teachers there was Simon Vratsian, the last prime minister of the First Republic of Armenia (1918–20).[6] He was one of Vratsian's unofficial secretaries.[9] Gregorian described him as both his mentor and his benevolent benefactor.[10] He also briefly worked as a reporter in Beirut before emigrating to the United States in 1956.[1][4] Gregorian came to the US with the initial intention to return to Beirut[14] to teach Armenian history in a high school.[8] In another interview, Gregorian said he studied Portuguese so he could become the principal/director of an Armenian high school in São Paulo, Brazil.[6][7] In 1956 He enrolled at Stanford University and completed his BA in history and humanities in just two years, graduating with honors in 1958.[12][13][5]

Gregorian earned a dual PhD in history and humanities (art history, philosophy, Romance languages, religion, classics)[6] from Stanford University in 1964.[13] His dissertation was titled "Traditionalism and Modernism in Islam."[15][12] He began his teaching career at University of California, Berkeley where he was briefly instructor in Armenian history and culture in 1960.[4] He taught European and Middle Eastern history[13] at San Francisco State University (then college) between 1962 and 1968. He was initially instructor, then in 1964 he was named assistant professor and, in 1966, associate professor of history.[4] He was a visiting associate professor of history at University of California, Los Angeles in 1968, before moving to University of Texas at Austin as associate professor in 1968-70 and professor of history in 1970-72.[4]

Gregorian joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1972 as Tarzian Professor of Armenian and Caucasian History and Professor of South Asian history.[13][12] In 1974 he became the founding dean of Penn's Faculty of Arts and Sciences until 1978.[4][13] He subsequently served as the 23rd provost of Penn from January 1979 to October 1980.[16][13] In 1980 Gregorian was widely considered to be the most probable candidate for president of the University of Pennsylvania[11] as he had the "resounding support of most of the deans, the Faculty Senate, and the Undergraduate Assembly." Gregorian was seen as a charismatic leader and one with "flamboyant style and ever-present brilliance." However, the university trustees chose Sheldon Hackney instead.[17][11]

In 1984–89 Gregorian was professor of history and Near Eastern studies at New York University and at the New School for Social Research (The New School).[4] He taught European intellectual history at the New School.[8]

From 1981 to 1989 Gregorian served as president of the New York Public Library (NYPL), a network that contained four research libraries and 83 circulating libraries.[13][4] He was highly successful in the position, primarily as a fundraiser. He nearly doubled its budget[4] and by the end of his tenure, he had secured $327[18] to $400[1] million for the NYPL from individuals, foundations and corporations.[19] He has been credited with restoring the "crumbling landmark to a vibrant cultural nexus"[18] and rescuing one of America's "known public institutions from financial and cultural crisis and thereby restor[ing] the stature of public libraries nationwide."[12] According to Michael Gorman Gregorian is one of the few "shining exceptions" of academics running libraries well. He notes that as the head of the NYPL Gregorian "can fairly be said to have rescued that venerable and valuable institution from pauperism."[20]

During Gregorian tenure, the Main Branch in Manhattan was restored with $42 million.[4] He also succeeded in getting approval from city planning authorities to restore the nearby Bryant Park.[21] Upon his departure, The New York Times wrote that as president of the NYPL, Gregorian "revived an empire of learning that is more than ever a national treasure."[21] Barlow Der Mugrdechian noted that Gregorian "transformed what was then a decaying and underfinanced institution into a center of New York cultural life."[1] His tenure at the NYPL made Gregorian a reputable institutional leader.[12][5] In May 1999 a hall of the Main Branch was named after Gregorian.[22]

Gregorian in 2008

Brown University awarded Gregorian an honorary doctorate in 1984 for his work at the NYPL.[23] Four years later, in August 1988 Gregorian was chosen to become its 16th and first foreign-born president.[11][23][24] He was officially inaugurated as president in April 1989.[25] When he took over, Brown had the lowest endowment ($370 million) in the Ivy League.[25] He served in that position for eight years, until June 1997.[13] In his eight-year tenure, Gregorian raised around $535 million,[4][18] raising the total to $850 million.[1] He was also credited with strengthening Brown's reputation and "enhancing its traditional emphasis on undergraduate education."[26] During his presidency, the university "Gregorian hired 270 new faculty members, expanded the library, and established eleven new departments."[12] The university also underwent increasing internationalization.[27]

At Brown, Gregorian continued teaching a freshman seminar and a senior seminar and a course on Alexis de Tocqueville with Stephen Graubard.[8]

In January 1997 Gregorian was chosen as the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, at the time the 16th largest foundation in the US, known for its advocacy of education and peace.[28] He assumed the position in June 1997 and became the 12th president[13] and the first outsider—not from within the foundation—to head it.[28] At Carnegie Corporation, Gregorian has switched from his usual fundraiser role to one of a fund granter. He commented on it: "People think that giving away money is an easy job. Actually, it's harder than raising money, as you well know, because you have so many excellent projects that compete for funding. The issue is, I tell our staff: Are we going to be an incubator or an oxygen tank?"[8] He has advocated "initiatives in teacher education, international peace, and cooperative efforts with other foundations."[1] Commenting on his work at Carnegie Corporation, he said that his main aim is "teaching ideas and values. But most importantly, also, preparation of new citizens. One of our great programs, which I’m very proud of at Carnegie is strengthening US democracy."[14]

Gregorian and Mihran Agbabian at the American University of Armenia, 2014

Gregorian has been involved in projects in the Armenian American community and Armenia.[1] Barlow Der Mugrdechian described him as a "highly visible model for Armenians."[1] He is a "much-sought-after" keynote speaker at Armenian events,[1] for which he does not take money: "I’ve never accepted one penny from any Armenian source for the past 30 years."[6]

Gregorian has been outspoken about the importance of education in Armenia. He stated in a 2009 interview: "The first thing that Armenia has to invest in, like the Scandinavian countries, is education. Even in the Armenian army, they should teach computer science, mathematics, other sciences."[6] He also called on the Armenian church to invest in education.[6] He is on the Board of Governors of UWC Dilijan, the first international boarding school in Armenia founded in 2014.[29] He has donated 1,500 books to the school[30] and a learning centre is named after him.[31] Gregorian donated hundreds of books to the American University of Armenia in 2010–14.[32][33]

In 2016 Gregorian co-founded the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity with Ruben Vardanyan and Noubar Afeyan. It honors individuals for humanitarian work on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide.[34] Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called it the "Armenian Nobel Peace Prize."[35]

Gregorian has been honored by the Armenian government, the Armenian Church and diaspora organizations. In 1999 he received the St. Gregory the Illuminator Medal, the Armenian Church's highest secular award, from Catholicos Karekin I.[1] The National Academy of Sciences of Armenia named him an Honorary Doctor in 2001[36] and elected him as a Foreign Member in 2008.[37] President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan awarded him the Mkhitar Gosh Medal in 2013[38] and the Order of Honor in 2017.[39][40] He has met President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian on several occasions.[41][42]

In October 2016 Gregorian joined other prominent Armenians on calling the government of Armenia to adopt "new development strategies based on inclusiveness and collective action" and to create "an opportunity for the Armenian world to pivot toward a future of prosperity, to transform the post-Soviet Armenian Republic into a vibrant, modern, secure, peaceful and progressive homeland for a global nation."[43]

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) headquarters in Belmont, Massachusetts was officially renamed to NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building in January 2019.[44]

Gregorian has been described as a public intellectual,[20] who often comments on educational and political matters. He has been a life-long advocate for education. "He has become increasingly worried about America's deemphasizing studies in the humanities, which has been replaced by the desire to learn marketable skills, and he is concerned by the failure of high schools to prepare students for college so that they often spend the first two years at universities trying to catch up to where they should be."[4]

Gregorian has a reputation of a "visionary educator."[28] In 1988 Bill Moyers described him as "an evangelist for education."[45] He has advised Walter Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation on school reform.[28] Gregorian believes that the sole function of education is to provide an "introduction to learning."[45] Gregorian believes that "we can produce an educated, cultured person" in four years that would include "all the possible elements of professionalism, and know-how, and a career, and also a vocation."[45] Commenting on the rise of college tuition, Gregorian believes that a special tax is needed: "Five percent of the tax Californians pay should go to universities."[6]

Gregorian has called teachers, journalists and librarians the most important jobs for the United States.[14] According to him, without "educated journalists and free press [...] you're going to have an Orwellian society which we always dreaded."[14] Gregorian opined in 1988 that because there is an explosion of information, which is not equal the explosion of knowledge, there are "great possibilities of manipulating our society by inundating us with undigested information." He elaborated: "So instead of 1984, Orwell saying deny information, now one other way of paralyzing people is by inundating with trivia, as well as a major way of paralyzing our choices, by giving so much that we cannot possible digest it."[45]

Politics

Gregorian and Lionel Barber, 2010

Nancy Levit called Gregorian "politically liberal" in 1998.[46] Gregorian has said in an interview that in his autobiography he tried to be "as apolitical as possible because I want to [...] present the facts rather than try to camouflage opinions as facts." In the 1960 Democratic Party presidential primaries he collected signatures for Adlai Stevenson II and then for John F. Kennedy. He stated that he was "just enchanted and transformed by [Kennedy's] rhetoric and his vision and youthfulness, and so forth, about an idealistic America where everybody had to chip in."[7] In 1966 he served as faculty adviser to the Maoist Progressive Labor Party at the San Francisco State University.[7][47]

Gregorian is "known for his commitment to human rights and interest in foreign affairs, especially conflict resolution and intellectual freedom."[28] In his 1989 speech as president of Brown University, Gregorian called for a "value-oriented, moral sense of politics" as Patrick Garry describes it. Gregorian stated that a democratic society needs freedom and choice, but also a moral center and not a moral enclosure. Garry wrote that Gregorian strove to "inject moral passion into an increasingly listless liberalism. He advocates a moral sense, but not as defined by conservative beliefs." Instead, the "moral center should come from a public moral discourse and from the choices of individuals regarding moral values and social ideas."[48] "We need Linda Greenhouses, we need individuals who would be challenging the system. We need a Bill Buckley … new Bill Buckleys. We need new I. F. Stones from the Left and the Right who could challenge, who could create a kind of dialogue, rather than monologue," he said in 2009.[14]

He has said that it is more important to integrate immigrants into the American society than assimilate them. "America is about citizenship, about rights, about privileges, about responsibilities, knowledge of America’s past, engagement in its future and so a part of being both individualist, as well as part of the organic community, which is the United States," he said.[14]

In a 2003 interview, Gregorian stated that he made "nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation an official policy at both the University of Pennsylvania and at Brown."[8]

In April 2009 Gregorian joined Václav Havel, Prince Hassan bin Talal, Desmond Tutu, and Yōhei Sasakawa on calling China to rescind the decision to execute Tibetan activists involved in the 2008 Tibetan unrest and "provide them with an opportunity to be re-tried in a judicial process that is more in keeping with the international standards that China says that it adheres to."[49]

In May 2009 Gregorian proposed U.S. President Barack Obama to send a message to the Iranian authorities: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that "mixes Obama's characteristic emphasis on respect and cultural sensitivity with any apology for Mossadegh's overthrow, thanks for Iranian condemnation of 9/11, and a conciliatory tone in asking for the abandonment of nuclear enrichment."[50]

In June 2009 President Obama appointed Gregorian as a White House Fellow.[51][52]

In 2009 Richard Heffner suggested that Gregorian would be great as a successor to Hillary Clinton as a Senator from New York.[14]

Gregorian speaks Armenian, French and English. He understands Persian and Arabic.[7] He did not speak English when he arrived in the US in 1956.[23] He speaks English with a "soft Middle Eastern accent."[53] New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg reported that Gregorian faced housing discrimination because of his Armenian origins when he moved to New York City in 1981.[54]

Gregorian married Clare (née Russell) on March 25, 1960.[4] They met at Stanford.[7][1] She died on April 28, 2018 at the age of 80. She was a "community and volunteer leader in several states and cities." She was an advocate of women’s rights, literacy and the arts and was described as a "driving force behind the establishment" of Rhode Island Public Radio. Janet L. Robinson stated that her "unwavering support of organizations such as Rhode Island Public Radio, Providence Public Library and Planned Parenthood proved to be a critical factor in the success of these organizations."[55] They had three sons: Vahé, Raffi, Dareh Ardashes.[10][1][4] As of 2003, Vahe was chief sportswriter at St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Raffi was working at the State Department, while Dareh was covering the civil courts for The New York Post.[7]

Gregorian had a surgery for kidney removal in October 1999.[8]

Gregorian's interests include chess and Armenian music.[4]

Gregorian is one of America's "most respected and frequently honored educators and intellectuals."[56] Barlow Der Mugrdechian described him as "one of the most noted educators and leaders in higher education" in the US.[1] Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker in 2008: "The impossibly distinguished Vartan Gregorian is a one-man academy of arts, letters, and the humanities."[57] Peter Gay wrote in the New York Times in 2003: "If the word had not been so badly debased in our time, I would call him a civilian hero."[58] French Ambassador to the US Gérard Araud described Gregorian as a "visionary and a living example of the modern man of letters, for whom education and knowledge is the key to opportunity and peace."[59]

Gregorian has a reputation for his fundraising skills. Financial Times wrote in 2007 that he has been "hailed as a fund-raising genius."[18]

An elementary school in Fox Point, Providence, Rhode Island is named after Gregorian.[60] In 2009 he said that he takes great pride in that fact. "It has become a great school. I’ve helped them personally," he added.[6]

• (ed). Simon Vratzian, Hin Tghter Nor Patmutian Hamar [Old Papers for the New History] (Beirut, 1962)
• (ed). Simon Vratzian, Kianki Oughinerov [memoirs], Volume 5, (Beirut, 1966)
• "Mahmud Tarzi and Saraj-ol-Akhbar: Ideology of Nationalism and Modernization in Afghanistan". Middle East Journal. 21 (3): 345–368. Summer 1967. JSTOR 4324163.
• The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880-1946 (Stanford University Press, 1969)
• Gregorian, Vartan (1974). "Minorities of Isfahan: the Armenian community of Isfahan 1587-1722". Iranian Studies. 7 (3/4): 652–680. doi:10.1080/00210867408701483. JSTOR 4310181.
• Gregorian, Vartan (1985). "The Book, the Library, Literacy". Public Library Quarterly. 6 (1): 13–16. doi:10.1300/J118v06n01_04.
• (ed). Censorship: Five Hundred Years of Conflict (Oxford University Press, 1997)
• The Road to Home: My Life and Times [memoir] (Simon & Schuster, 2003)
• Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith (Brookings Institution Press, 2003)
• "Preventing Afghanistan from becoming a narco-state" (PDF). Carnegie Reporter. 6 (4): i, 49–51. Spring 2012.
• "Built to last". Carnegie Reporter. 11 (1): 2–6. Winter 2019.

Notes

Citations

• Vartan Gregorian bio | Carnegie Corporation of New York
• Appearances on C-SPAN