Vartan Gregorian
The mid-twentieth century saw a wave of scholars and educators cross borders and institutional boundaries, bringing wide-ranging expertise to bear on American academic and cultural life. Vartan Gregorian was one such figure, born on April 8, 1934, in Tabriz, Iran, and educated at Stanford University before building a career as a university teacher.
Working in English and carrying Iranian citizenship, Gregorian moved through an era when universities and cultural institutions were grappling with how to position themselves in a rapidly changing world. As a university teacher, he contributed to that conversation from within the academy itself, occupying a place where scholarly life and institutional leadership overlapped. His background — shaped by origins in Tabriz and graduate training at Stanford — gave him a vantage point that few colleagues could easily replicate.
The honors Gregorian accumulated over his career speak to the breadth of recognition he earned across different fields and countries. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Humanities Medal, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest civilian honors in the United States. International recognition came in the form of a Knight of the Legion of Honour from France, the rank of Grand Officer of the Order of Prince Henry, and the designation of Officer of Arts and Letters. Armenia awarded him the Mkhitar Gosh Medal. Closer to the world of libraries and information, the American Library Association extended him an Honorary Membership. He also received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the James Parks Morton Interfaith Award, reflecting the range of communities that acknowledged his work.
Gregorian died on April 15, 2021, in New York City, just one week after his eighty-seventh birthday. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, among the last and most prominent of the distinctions he received, stands as a concrete marker of how his career as an educator and public figure was ultimately assessed.
Quotes by Vartan Gregorian
The book is here to stay. What we’re doing is symbolic of the peaceful coexistence of the book and the computer.
In our democratic society, the library stands for hope, for learning, for progress, for literacy, for self-improvement and for civic engagement. The library is a symbol of opportunity, citizenship, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and hence, is a symbol for democracy itself.
The library is not only a diary of the human race, but marks an act of faith in the continuity of humanity.
The universe is not going to see someone like you again in the entire history of creation.
It is very important that, no matter what happens, you keep your feeling of self worth and value.
The library is our house of intellect, our transcendental university, with one exception: no one graduates from a library. No one possibly can, and no one should.
It meant that New York philanthropists, New York society, would now rediscover the library. ... that learning, books, education have glamour, that self-improvement has glamour, that hope has glamour.
The book is here to stay. What we're doing is symbolic of the peaceful coexistence of the book and the computer.
The library is central to our free society. It is a critical element in the free exchange of information at the heart of our democracy.