The Road to Home

My Life and Times

Vartan Gregorian

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781439129111
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education

Vartan Gregorian's tale starts with a childhood of poverty, deprivation, and enchantment in the Armenian quarter of Tabriz, Iran. As the world reeled from depression into six years of warfare, his mother died, leaving his grandmother Voski as the loving staff of his life. Through unlettered example and instruction, he learned about the first of his many worlds: the strenuousness required for survival, the fairy tale that explained existence, the place and name of his own star in the night sky, how to maneuver as a member of a Christian minority in a benevolent Muslim kingdom, the beauty and inspiration of Armenian Church liturgy, the exciting foreign world of ten-year-old American westerns, the richness of life on the streets.He learned the magic of the innumerable worlds he could find in books -- and he wanted to visit them all. As the spell books cast on him grew more powerful, so did the constraints imposed by his father's indifference to his dreams of redirecting his life through learning.So, one day when he was fifteen years old, he presented himself at an Armenian-French lycee in Beirut, Lebanon, to start the arduous task of becoming a person of learning and consequence. This book tells not only how he reached that school but also about the many people who guided, supported, taught, and helped him on an extravagantly absorbing and varied journey from Tabriz to Beirut to Palo Alto to Tenafly to London, from Stanford University to San Francisco State University to the University of Texas at Austin to the University of Pennsylvania to the New York Public Library to Brown University and, currently, to the presidency of Carnegie Corporation of New York.With witty stories and memorable encounters, Dr. Gregorian describes his public and private lives as one education after another. He has written a love story about life.

INDEX

Aaron Diamond Foundation, 326

Abbas I, Shah of Persia, 5

Abdul Hamid II, Ottoman Sultan, 102

Abovyan, Khachatur, 54

Accurso, Allison, 260

Achaemenid Empire, 236

adab, 48

Adam, Hazard, 205

Afghanistan, 140, 143, 146, 151-52, 155, 156-57

AFL-CIO, 194, 195

Africa, 328

African-Americans, 100-101, 108, 166, 167, 256

black power movement of, 172-74, 193

at University of Pennsylvania, 252

Aftandilian, Mrs. Astghik, 92

Aga Khan, 326

Aghbalian, Nigol, 72

Aharonian, Avetis, 55

Alam, Assadollah, 235

Ali, Amjad, 155-56

Alik, 31, 58, 59, 76, 92

Alikian, Abraham, 184

Alioto, Joseph, 195

Althusius, Johannes, 123

Altoon, John, 102

Amado, Ralph, 241

Amanor (New Year), 35-36

Amanullah, King, 154, 159, 160

American Council of Education Fellows, 219

American Federation of Teachers, 194-95

American Historical Association, 205

American Memorial High School, 5, 7, 11

American University of Beirut, 91, 146, 162, 190

Andersen, Hans Christian, 50

Anderson, Marian, 259

Andrews, Phil, 321

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 226

Anglo-Persian Treaty (1919), 3-4

Anglo-Russian Convention (1907), 3

Annenberg, Walter, 227, 232, 248, 253-54, 288, 311, 325

antinuclear movement, 166

anti-Semitism, 238

antiwar movement, 167, 173, 193, 195, 202, 203

Arabian Nights, The, 47-48

Arab-Israel War (1967), 172

Arab nationalism, 146

Arakelian, Varoujan, 94

Ararat, 31

Aras (Araxes) River, 1, 3

Aristotle, 40

Armenia, 3, 4-5, 11, 22, 72, 164

Christianity of, 183

depopulation of, 58

diversity of, 184

Gregorian in, 177-96

nationalism in, 185, 186

Soviet repression of, 184-87 see also Soviet Armenia

Armenian-Americans, 79, 98, 102-3

Armenian Church, 28-30, 41, 103, 130, 139, 182-83, 185, 189

Prelacy of, 5, 31

tenacity of, 187

Armenian Club, 35-36

Armenian Diaspora, 58, 72, 87, 177, 184

Armenian Diocesan High School, 11

Armenian Genocide, 32, 53-54, 57, 67, 102

Communist Party stance on, 185

Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, 187

Armenian Red Cross, 71, 80

Armenian Relief Society, 104, 146

Armenian Revolutionary Federation, 57-58, 73

Armenians, 4, 30, 31, 53-54

in Beirut, 67

in colonial America, 100-102

literature of, 54

respect for Muslim neighbors of, 39-41

William Saroyan’s view of, 189

Armenian Sisters Academy, 217-18

Armenian Sisters Hripsimiantz School, 146

Arrowsmith, William, 197, 202

Ascension Day (Hambardzoom), 37-38

Association of American Law Schools, 264

Assyrian Christians, 4, 30

Astor, Brooke, 273-78, 280, 285-86, 294, 296, 297, 299, 307, 316, 317, 318

Astor, Vincent, 275

Astor Hall, 299, 300

Austin, Texas, 198, 200-201

Austin-American, 198

Automated Circulation System, 293

Ayoub Khan, 157

Azatootian Janaparin (Aharonian), 55

Azerbaijan, 3, 22, 23, 25, 40-41, 56, 184-85

Azeri Muslims, 39

Baba Taher, 82

Baghdassarian, Sahag, 145

Baker, Dean, 307, 308-9

Baker, Houston, 252

Bark, William, 115

Barnes, Ben, 210

“Battle of Great Men, A” (Klein), 254-55

Beat literary movement, 192

Beijing Review, 172

Beirut, 59, 60, 63-94, 143-44, 145-46, 148, 156, 177

Beirut College for Women, 81

Bel (Babylonian ruler), 178

Bender, Paul, 258, 261

Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program, 230

Bernstein, Eduard, 86

Bhagavad Gita, 111, 137

Bicentennial, of U.S., 230-31, 234

Bicentennial College, 232

Bicentennial Programs of Greater Philadelphia, 219

Biederman, Dan, 286, 301

Billington, James, 311

Bimbo’s 365, 128, 129

Black Panther Party, 172, 173-74, 175, 193, 194, 195

Black Power movement, 172-74, 193

Blauth, Henry, 113

Block, Fred L., 255-56, 263

Blue Mosque, 4

Blumstein, Sheila, 310

Bodin, Jean, 123

Boghossian, Dajat, 92

Bok, Derek and Sissela, 308

Boodaghian, Satenik, 55

Book of Job, 113

Boorstin, Dan, 311

Boston University, 208

Bourj Hamoud, Beirut, 67

Bowen, Bill, 263-64, 267, 303

Bowker, Chancellor Al, 248

Brademas, John, 266

Bradley, Omar, 165

Branch Library Council, 292

Breyer, Stephen, 247

Bristol Hotel, 156

British Museum, 141

Bronx Zoo, 276

Brooklyn Bridge, 97

Brooklyn Museum, 276

Brown, Paul, 307, 308, 309

Brown Daily Herald, The, 309

Brownlee, Jean, 243

Brown University, 305-26

Campaign for the Rising Generation of, 322-23

Campus Compact of, 322

curriculum of, 309-10, 324

diversity at, 324

faculty of, 323-24

fund-raising of, 310-11

Gregorian at, 309-11, 317-26

humble beginnings of, 318

infrastructure improvements to, 322

Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME), 310

Teaching Excellence Awards of, 321

Brown v. Board of Education, 100

Bryant Park, 270, 286, 290, 301-2, 303

Bunzel, John, 171

Burch, Captain, 154

Bush, Laura, 282

Bustani, Antoine, 72, 145

But We Were Born Free (Davis), 99

Cactus Teaching Excellence Award, 205

California, University of, at Berkeley, 91, 124...