Vartan Gregorian

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Portrait of Gregorian as Brown University's President

Vartan Gregorian (born April 8, 1934 in Tabriz, Iran) is a distinguished Armenian-American academic, currently serving as the president of Carnegie Corporation of New York. After receiving his dual Ph.D. in history and humanities from Stanford University in 1964, Gregorian served on the faculties at several American universities before joining the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he became the founding dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and the provost in 1981. Starting in 1981 until 1989, Gregorian served as president of the New York Public Library, an eight-year tenure which would prove one of his most lasting legacies.

In 1989 he was chosen to become president of Brown University, where he served until 1997. In 1995, he was offered the presidency of Columbia University, which he declined due to his commitment to Brown's capital campaign. In 1997, he was selected as president of the philanthropic Carnegie Corporation of New York, his current position as of 2006. He has received the National Humanities Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Gregorian is on the advisory board of USC Center on Public Diplomacy and is a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica. He has also received (as of 2006) honorary degrees from fifty-six institutions.

Early life

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Gregorian in his youth

Gregorian was born in Tabriz, Iran, to Samuel B. Gregorian and Shushanik G. Mirzaian. His family belonged to the minority Armenian Christian population within the predominantly Azeri-speaking Muslim population in Tabriz. At age six, Gregorian's mother, then twenty-six, died in childbirth. His father, who distanced himself from Gregorian, remarried, and Gregorian and his younger sister Ojik were raised by Voski Mirzaian, his maternal grandmother.

External links

• Carnegie Corporation Biography
• Library of Congress video of Gregorian discussing autobiography
• Gregorian's 2005 Notre Dame commencement speech
• USC Center on Public Diplomacy