News

Staff Report The Armenian Studies Program held its 33rd Annual Banquet on Sunday, May 2. The Banquet was held virtually and a special video to mark the occasion was prepared. The link is here: https://bit.ly/armenianstudies33rdbanquet “Fresno State’s Armenian Studies Program has a very special place in my heart. I have always said this-that the Armenian Studies sets the gold standard ...

Staff Report   The Armenian Studies Pro-gram awarded scholarships for the academic year 2020-2021 to forty-seven students from twenty-eight different endowment or scholarship funds for a total of $67,000. In addition to providing needed financial support, the scholarships encourage students to pursue Minors in Armenian Studies and to enroll in the various course offerings. We ask our students and our ...

Staff Report As Henry Morgenthau, the United States Ambassador to Turkey in 1915, said “When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.” Despite these words, it has taken ...

Dustin Vartanian ASO President Hiking, walking, racing, and getting together; Fresno State’s Armenian Students Organization had several adventures throughout the past semester. These moments were especially enjoyable because they gave rare opportunities for ASO students to see many of their friends in person since the closure of the Fresno State campus due to the pandemic. Identical to the past, it ...

Sosse Baloian Staff Writer Armenian churches dominate the sphere of Armenian architecture. 3,788 Armenian churches were built in Greater Armenia in the period from the adoption of Christianity in the early fourth century to the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, this number has diminished significantly and only 2.3% of Armenian churches in Turkey survived after the 1915 Genocide. On Friday, April ...

Christine Pambukyan Staff Writer “I did not have an agenda… I did not want to prove anything. I just wanted to bring all the sources from all angles, from all perspectives, from all kinds of organizations and institutions in order for me to draw a picture of Musa Dagh,” said Dr. Vahram Shemmassian, director of the Armenians Studies Program at ...

Staff Report The Thomas A. Kooyumjian Family Foundation has made a donation of $50,000 in January of 2021 to the Kooyumjian Endowed Scholarship Fund at Fresno State. Together with previous donations from the Family Foundation, the Endowed Scholarship has reached close to $400,000. The Fund will provide scholarships to students within the Armenian Studies Program, in the College of Arts ...

Carina Tokatian Staff Writer “Small peoples have a right to survive, with our languages, our heritage, and our poetry, too: we contribute our verse to the great play of human life on God’s earth,” stated Prof. James Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Emeritus, at Harvard University, as he reflected on his latest work Misak Medzarents: The Complete Lyric Poems. ...

Dikran Dzhezyan Bachelor of Science in Biology Armenian Studies Minor Spanish Minor   What encouraged you to take an Armenian Studies course? My brother, who is also a Fresno State graduate, was the one who originally introduced me to the Armenian Studies courses. His praise of the classes persuaded me to enroll in an Arts of Armenia course taught by ...

Arshak Abelyan Staff Writer The second Artsakh war, initiated by the Republic of Azerbaijan, against the Republic of Artsakh served to relay another reminder to the Armenian people of their past struggles that have now extended into the present. On Saturday, January 30th, 2021, Eric Hacopian, a political correspondent from CivilNet in Armenia joined the Fresno State community through the ...