NEW YORK—At the Commencement ceremony for Brandeis University’s Heller School of Social Policy and Management, Vartan Gregorian was awarded an honorary degree by the University, which recognized him as a “higher education visionary, passionate advocate for the humanities, professor, scholar and leader [whose] legacy is promoting a deeper appreciation of the role of higher education in society.” Delivering the commencement address to the Heller School graduating class, Dr. Gregorian urged students to leave the world a better place than they found it. “What have you done to deserve your ancestors?” Gregorian asked the graduates. “What will you do as ancestors of future generations?”
On June 14, Dr. Gregorian and Carnegie Corporation of New York hosted Global Kids, a nonprofit educational organization committed to advancing global learning and youth development. Global Kids works to ensure that urban youth have the knowledge, skills, experiences and values they need to succeed in school, participate effectively in the democratic process, and achieve leadership in their communities and on the global stage. Recently, as part of the Global Kids annual youth conference, high school students dedicated to the arts shared their moving rendition of Vartan Gregorian’s childhood by reading from his autobiography, The Road to Home: My Life and Times.
To join in celebrating the fifth grade class graduation at the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School in Providence Rhode Island, on June 18th, Dr. Gregorian spent the day with students at the school, which is named after him. He participated in the school’s traditional “clap-out ceremony,” in which the younger grades and their teachers stand in the hallway and applaud as the fifth-graders walk through the school corridors to the auditorium for their graduation ceremony. Dr. Gregorian also visited with the school’s eNewspaper club and told them that “Nobody like you is going to come again.” He encouraged them to do justice to their intellect and “to learn, learn, learn.” See photo attached.
