News

Sosse Baloian Staff Writer The Armenian Studies Program Minor at Fresno State requires students to complete six to seven courses in Armenian language, art, culture, literature, and history. In the Fall of 2019 more than 30 students, an all-time high, have registered to complete their Minor in Armenian Studies. Dustin Vartanian Business Management What does pursuing a Minor in Armenian ...

  Arshak Abelyan Staff Writer “Having been a student here in my late teens and early childhood, I’ve spent my life at Fresno State, which has shaped me as a person, a student, and as a professional,” said Dr. Zhanna Bagdasarov Sahatjian. As an immigrant to the United States in 1995 from Uzbekistan, Dr. Sahatjian came directly to the city ...

Staff Report Armenian Studies Program Director Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian announced that the James L. Melikian & L.A. Brothers Scholarship fund has been newly established at Fresno State. A donation of $5,100 established the Scholarship, which will be awarded to deserving students studying in the Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State. The effort to establish the scholarship was led by ...

Staff Report The GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program announced that the Armenian Studies Program was awarded a $5,000 grant for 2019-2020.  The Armenian Studies Program was one of 15 recipients in the United States to receive a grant to help facilitate a range of research on a variety of subjects, as well as support a number of archiving and preservation programs. ...

Staff Report Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Member of the Board of the Saroyan House Museum, was invited to introduce the film Lights!Camera!Saroyan! to the St. Apkar Church community on July 25, 2019. Following the showing of the movie, community members expressed their interest in the Saroyan House Museum in Fresno.

Staff Report This year marked the second Fresno Institute for Classical Armenian Translation Summer Institute (FICAT). Following upon the success of last year’s FICAT institute held at Fresno State, the directors, Drs. Sergio La Porta and Michael Pifer, decided to lead students to work at the Matenadaran (the Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts) in Yerevan, Armenia this summer. The FICAT ...

  David Safrazian Staff Writer “Each time we sing a song, though it has been sung before, it is new,” said Aram Kerovpyan. Armenian church music was nearly completely torn away from its homeland since the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Musicologists Aram and Virginia Kerovpyan visited Fresno State on Wednesday, May 1, to present a new film, Singing in Exile, ...

Armen Sahag Kouymjian  (1936 Tulcea, Romania – 2019 Pasadena)   Armen Kouymjian was the third and last child of Zabelle Calusdian Kouymjian and Toros Kouymjian. He was born an American citizen while his father, mother and older brother Dickran were visiting his father’s parents in Romania where they had fled after the Kemalist’s burning of Izmir (Smyrna) in 1922. His ...

Christine Pambukyan Staff Writer Combining musical energy and beautiful rhythms, the Cadence Ensemble performed in the Fresno State Concert Hall on Friday, April 26, as part of their celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Armenia’s noted composer Komitas Vardapet. The Cadence Ensemble performance was part of the World Music Series of the Keyboard Concert Series and was ...

Andrew Hagopian Editor From Tom Bradley International Airport in Los Angeles to Yerevan, Armenia, a group of 14 Armenian Studies Program students embarked on a two-week trip touring the various regions of modern day Armenia. The group was led by Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian and Prof. Sergio La Porta. The trip marked the ninth group of students since 1988 that ...