Background

Vartan Gregorian became the 12th President of Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1997.

A naturalized American citizen, who was born to Armenian parents in Iran; educated in Iran, Lebanon and Stanford University in America; and grew up to teach Middle Eastern, European and South Asian History at universities in California, Texas, and Pennsylvania before leading some of the most influential intellectual institutions in the United States (as Provost of the University of Pennsylvania from 1978-1981, President of the New York Public Library from 1981-1989 and President of Brown University from 1989-1997), Gregorian seemed a natural choice to head the change of millennial Carnegie Corporation - an organization originally founded to "promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding," whose programmatic goals now included not only education, but also International Peace and Development and the strengthening of U.S. democracy.

There are other ways in which Gregorian is a natural fit for the Corporation. Both he and the Corporation's founder, Andrew Carnegie, were, Gregorian says, "boys who loved books...young men who traveled to another country to find [our] destinies." And Gregorian, a self-described "dreamer who learned to take action," is a resolute proponent of what Andrew Carnegie called "scientific philanthropy," an approach well-suited to thoughtful, innovative and committed efforts to confront seemingly intractable societal challenges.

And like his predecessors in the role of Carnegie Corporation president, Gregorian also regularly uses this "scientific approach" in evaluating whether the trustees and staff of Carnegie Corporation have performed in "a manner adequate to the great purpose of the trust"¹ - turning the full force of his academic training and intellectual rigor onto the tasks of re-examining the value and efficacy of the Corporation's program areas, and the efficacy and open accountability of its operations.

¹ Trustee's Response to the reading of Andrew Carnegie's Deed of Gift - from the Notes of the first Board Meeting of Carnegie Corporation, November 1911 - now in the Carnegie Archive at Columbia University.