2000_05 Hye Sharzhoom Newspaper May 2000

              May 2000
Hye Sharzhoom
3
Louise Nalbandian: Pioneer of Armenian Studies at Fresno State
By Dickran Kouymjian
Haig & Isabel Berberian
Endowed Professor of
Armenian Studies
A quarter of century has passed
since the tragic death of Dr. Louise
Nalbandian, Professor in the History Department of CSU Fresno
from 1964 to 1974. She was the
first to teach an Armenian course
starting in the spring semester 1967
with a new class History 133, "Armenian History." She offered the
course every semester she was on
campus. In the fall of 1969 Louise
Nalbandian instituted another
course of interest to Armenia and
Middle East entitled the "Ancient
Fertile Crescent." Later in the
spring of 1972 and again in 1974
she twice taught "Soviet Armenia"
in the History Department.
Dr. Nalbandian was from San
Francisco, where she grew up with
her brothers Al and Harvey. She
completed her doctorate at Stanford
University and wrote her thesis on
Armenian political parties. This
was later published by the University of California Press under the
title the Armenian Revolutionary
Movement: The Development of
Armenian Political Parties through
the Nineteenth Century (1963); it
was must reading for anyone interested in 19th and early 20th century
Armenian political history. The
first woman hired in the male bastion of history at Fresno State, she
gradually developed offerings in
her main field of interest.
Due to the surge in interest in
ethnic studies, and perhaps in part
to the university's accepting to offer an Ethnic Studies Program after
wide spread unrest on campus, including the bombing of the computer center, Louise Nalbandian
was able to push for more Armenian content courses. By 1970 she
had managed, to recruit two new
teachers, Serpouhie Messerlian, as
Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages to teach Armenian, and Dr.
Arra Avakian, Professor of Ethnic
Studies to teach Armenian culture.
By 1972 a minor in Armenian
Language was offered through the
Department of Foreign Languages
and a number of courses were included in the General Education
Program. The 1973-4 and the 1974-
5 university catalogues list her as
Coordinator of Armenian Studies.
The continued growth of the Program was dramatically halted by
Dr. Nalbandian's death in a highway accident. In the spring of 1975
her previously scheduled courses
were cancelled. Dr. Avakian had
already left the university, but Ms.
Messerlian continued to teach Armenian 1A until the University
hired me in the 1977 after a two
year search.
When I arrived to reestablish
an Armenian Studies Program, no
courses except elementary Armenian had been taught for more than
two academic years. Though there
was technically a minor in Armenian language, neither Armenian
2 A nor Armenian 2B, both requirements for the minor, had ever been
listed as offerings in the schedule
of courses. I am not sure if anyone
actually earned a minor in those
years. Unfortunately, those courses
which had been previously listed
under General Education were
dropped after Dr. Nalbandian's
death, and even the many Arme-
ASP Book Donations
Professor Dickran Kouymjian and the Armenian Studies Program
would like to thank the authors and publishers for the following books,
videos and periodicals.
Armenian Cultural Foundation, Arlington, MA.
Ghazaraians, A. (2000). Bibliography of Armenian Periodicals, Monographic Series, and    Reference Materials.
(Arlington:Armenian Cultural Foundation)
Diocese of the Armenian Church, Outremont, Quebec
Five religious books
The Hunger. (Toronto: The
Dundurn Press Limited, Toronto
Skrypuch, M. F. (1999).
Dundurn Group, A
Boardwalk Book)
Pavel Kazarian, Yakutsk, Russia
3 Books and 3 Pamphlets
Eduardo Kozanlian, Buenos Aires
Video: Turquia. Estado Genocida
Dr. Dora Sakayan, Montreal.
Sakayan, D. (2000). Modern Western Armenian for the
Speaking World. (Montreal: Arod Books Mcgill University
Dept. of German Studies)
Urban Research & Design, Inc., Ottawa.
Armen, Garbis     (Jan. 2000 )The Future of Armenian
Architecture in North America (Ottawa:Urban Research &
Design, Inc.)
Congressman George Radanovich
A flag of the United States, which has been flown over the
U.S. Capitol. The flag was presented at the April 24th commemoration on campus by District Director Steven Samuelian
nian courses in Ethnic Studies disappeared after Arra Avakian left in
1974.
My charge was to establish a
new Armenian Studies Program.
In the first years I taught Armenian
language, history, and art and architecture. As an historian my interests and publications were in
medieval and ancient Armenian
Studies, rather than the modern
period. One ofthe first steps I took
to revive the program was to expand history into a two semester
course (I wanted four semesters,
but there were limits), the first covering ancient and medieval period
and the second the history of Armenian from the Cilician kingdom
to the Genocide of 1915. I also
immediately developed a new
course, AS 10, Introduction to Armenian Studies, which covered language and linguistics, history, genocide studies, Armenians in America,
literature, art, and architecture. It
was the first Armenian Studies
course to get into the newly revised
General Education program and
remains the fundamental initiation
to Armenian Studies for our students.    •
The subsequent history of
Fresno's Armenian Studies Program is much clearer and after 1979
available for anyone to study
through the pages of 21 years of
Hye Sharzhoom. What has changed
during the past two decades is the
consistent number of students completing minors in Armenian Studies, the vast outreach program of
public lectures and conferences, the
increase in overall enrollment, the
availability of large numbers of
scholarships and grants for student
enrolled in Armenian Studies, and,
perhaps most important, the establishment of several major endowments. Because of these endowments — the Haig & Isabel
Berberian Endowed Chair of Armenian Studies, which I currently
hold, the Henry S. Khanzadian
Kazan Endowed Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies, the
Victoria Kazan General Endowment for Armenian Studies, and
the Pete Peters scholarship and program endowment— the Program is
stabilized and will continue automatically when I retire.
Dr. Louise Nalbandian
After Louise Nalbandian
passed away, a spontaneous movement was engaged to create a lasting memorial in her name. Spearheaded by Dr. Joseph Satin, then
Dean of Arts and Humanities, and
loyal friends of Dr. Nalbandian like
the late Professor Ara Dolarian and
his wife Rose, a project to erect a
Louise Nalbandian Memorial Museum was undertaken. Her brother
Al Nalbandian offered to give his
multimillion-dollar collection of art
to the University if such a facility
was built on the CSUF campus in
his sister's memory. A site was
chosen at Maple and Shaw just a bit
southwest from where the new
Smittcamp Alumni Building has
been built. The Nalbandian Museum was to be part of an "Heritage
Park," which would accommodate
museums and other facilities representing Fresno's major minority
populations. Drawings and renderings were completed by a San
Francisco architect and the project
was approved by the Board of
Trustee and placed on the
University's masterplan.
When I was recruited from
Paris in 1976,1 was given copies of
the plans of the impressive building and told that if I accepted to
come to Fresno State, I would have
as one of my duties the directorship
of the museum. I was also assured
that groundbreaking would take
place in the summer of 1977. Unfortunately, the project never ma
terialized. Though I headeda
support committee to raise
funds for more than five years,
the idea was much ahead of
its time and represented a fund
drive of several million dollars.
A form ofthe project was
revived twice. Dean Satin, a
couple of years before his retirement in the 1980s, acquired the rights to an Arts
and Humanities complex designed by the famous American architect Frank Lloyd
Wright, but never executed.
It was to include an Armenian museum, but again the
multimillion-dollar project
was never realized. Most recently
proposals have been made for a
Center for Armenian Studies and
Museum in the new Save Mart
Event Center and a major out of
state Armenian donor had offered
to making a gift of $400,000 for
such a facility, if it were matched
by the local community. However,
that too fell by the wayside because
of a serious misunderstanding.
Thirty-three years have passed
since Prof. Nalbandian taught the
first Armenian history course on
campus. Even I have been ignorant
of some ofthe facts presented above
and from time to time have forgotten her vital role. My wife and I last
met Louise Nalbandian in Beirut in
1972. She was on a sabbatical
leave collecting material for a forthcoming book on Maro (Mariam
Vardanian), the famous Hunchak
revolutionary leader. Over dinner
at our house, she explained many
of the trials and tribulations she
was suffering with Armenian Studies at Fresno State. Our only connection with Fresno was the writings of William Saroyan and as we
accompanied her back to her hotel
in the early morning, we could not
have imagined for a moment that
we too one day would be involved
in Armenian Studies in California.
A very nice photograph-portrait of Dr. Louise Nalbandian hung
for years on the wall outside the
History Department in the Social
Sciences Building on our campus.
I hope many of you who remember
Louise had seen it, if not, we have
reproduced it for this article.
Hovannisian,
Cont. from Page 1
to 1995.
Dr. Hovannisian is author of
Armenia on the Road to Independence (1976), and the four-volume
comprehensive study titled The
Republic of Armenia (1971 -1996).
He has edited and contributed to
The Armenian Image in History
and Literature (1981); The Armenian Genocide in Perspective
(1986); The Armenian Genocide:
History, Politics, Ethics (1992);
Remembrance and Denial: The case
of The Armenian Genocide (1998);
and Enlightenment and Diaspora:
The Armenian and Jewish Cases
(1999). In 1997 he contributed three
chapters: The Armenian People
from Ancient to Modern Times. He
has scholarly articles on Armenian,
Caucasian, and Near Eastern history.
Professor Hovannisian is a
Guggenheim Fellow and has received many honors for his scholarship, civic activities, and advancement of Armenian studies. He is a
founder and three-time president
of the Society for Armenian Studies and serves on the editorial boards
of five journals and on the boards
of directors of ten scholarly and
civic organizations. He has given
hundreds of lectures and participated in numerous international
forums and in the media of Armenian issues. He is listed in the Who's
Who of the World and Who's Who
in America, as well other biographical volumes. He represented the
State of California on the Western
Interstate Commission for Higher
Education from 1978 to 1994, and
has served as a consultant to the
California State Board of Education, authoring the chapter on the
Armenian Genocide in the State's
Social Studies Model Curriculum
on Human Rights and Genocide.
Richard Hovannisian was
awarded the Medal of Mesrjap
Mashtots by His Holiness Karekin
II of the Great House of Cilicia in
1982. In 1990, he became the first
social scientist living abroad to be
elected to the Armenian National
Academy of Sciences, and he has
received honorary doctorate degrees from Yerevan State University (1994) and Artsakh (Karabagh)
State University (1997). In May
1998, on the occasion ofthe eightieth anniversary of the founding of
the first Armenian republic, he was
awarded the Movses Khorenatsi
medal by President Robert
Kocharian.
For more information on the
course, please contact the Armenian Studies Program office at 559-
278-2669.