Armen Sarafian: Guiding Each of Us to Dream Big

By Nicole Gregory

He was an inspiring teacher, innovative leader, and dedicated advocate for students. Armen Sarafian, born in 1920, was the son of educated immigrants who taught him that attaining higher education would pave the way to a fulfilling life and successful career.

 

As an educator, Armen Sarafian became known for saving colleges—and in one case an entire community college district—from the brink of failure and transforming them into thriving institutions that continue today. While he was president of Pasadena City College from 1975–1986, he developed an early form of remote learning, created a program that taught students skills for working in the TV and radio industries, and hired high quality teachers and up-and-coming coaches such as Jerry Tarkanian, Harvey Hyde, and Skip Robinson. While he was president of La Verne University he also established the first American Armenian International College.

 

In his lifetime, Armen Sarafian was the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. Though he died in 1989, he is remembered as an outstanding leader who guided thousands of students to success.

 

This is his story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stockman's Ranch
• Release date: Aug 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223705093

Book preview

Introduction

Sarafian Family

From left to right: Lucille, Marie, Lucy (wife) and Armen; Seated Kevork and Grace.

This is a little story about a remarkable man. Armen Sarafian was a visionary. Struggling with the heritage of his parents’ forced exodus from their homeland, the Depression era, and World War II, he knew real-world disadvantages. He was the son of scholar, author, and educator Kevork A. Sarafian, who had dedicated his life to the service of others. Armen was deeply influenced by his father’s passion for learning and education, and he found his own gift for seeing the potential in others and helping them achieve their best. He followed his instincts to never give up on anyone and to help those who wanted to grow and succeed.

My dad wanted to grow and succeed too. He knew he could contribute his personal skills as an educator and started teaching at a very young age. He embraced the needs and difficult conditions of minorities and young people everywhere he lived. When he moved to Pasadena after the war, he was very engaged with the entire community. Not only were the Pasadena secondary schools his love, he also became the dean at Pasadena City College and learned about every aspect of the community during Catherine Robbins’s presidency. He was overwhelmed by the opportunity to be the president of PCC when he was given the position in 1965.

My dad loved the students and learned most of their names. He loved the faculty and became personally interested in each of his colleagues. The college meant everything to him. He wanted educational excellence, dominance in athletics, adult education for the community, and employment growth for everyone. His enthusiasm expanded throughout Southern California with telecommunications projects to reach prospective students as far as possible.

For me, my father was someone I called Daddy. I am the luckiest person to have known him. After you read this story, I hope you will be inspired to reach for the stars.

—Norman Sarafian

About Norman Sarafian

Armen Sarafian made an unusual request when his younger son, Norman, turned eighteen. He gave Norman a gift of $200 and asked that he call an investment friend of his to get advice on how to make the money grow. Norman did call his dad’s friend, who worked at Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards, Inc. in Pasadena, and eventually bought his first stock in 1967. From that moment, Norman became interested in a whole new world of investing beyond the ordinary savings account at a bank. Armen probably didn’t expect that Norman would change his engineering major to finance, but that’s exactly what he did while attending the University of Southern California. At the same time, he worked evenings at the Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards back office in Los Angeles to help pay for his undergraduate degree and later his MBA.

Now, after more than fifty years as an investment advisor, Norman believes his father might have had an instinct about getting him started in his career. He and his wife Sossi have been married for forty-five years; they have a son, Alex, and a daughter, Christine.

Norman has remarked that although the new science building at Pasadena City College that bears his father’s name is a great tribute in bricks and mortar, Armen’s real legacy is more permanently cemented in his achievements and within the thousands of his admirers still at work in their own lives, guided by his wisdom and love of education.

Chapter 1

A Name to Remember

It is far better to name buildings for what they contain and offer rather than to worry about names.

Armen Sarafian never wanted his name put on a building. The purpose of a building on a college campus, in his mind, was to enable students and teachers to engage in the exciting and often life-changing process of learning.

So it was a loving gesture that went against his wishes when, on a warm spring day in April 2022, a group of men and women picked up long-handled shovels and simultaneously dug into gravelly dirt on the campus of Pasadena City College in Southern California, signaling the start of construction on a new building which was to be named after the former president, Armen Sarafian.

This was a symbolic dig, of course. Silhouetted against the clear blue sky, the group smiled and posed for local news photographers, then gradually joined the small crowd who’d come to witness the groundbreaking ceremony of the Armen Sarafian Science Building.

Some in the crowd were too young to know exactly how Armen Sarafian had earned his name on such a significant campus building. Some might have heard that he had been a generous, positive man who brought PCC into the limelight while he was president of the college years before. But it’s doubtful that all of them understood the ripple effect his teachings and positive personality had possessed as his students graduated and found their places in the world. They might not have known about his belief that education was for everyone in America, or the extent to which he worked to make that belief a reality.

In the spring of 2022, the world was still suffering from the lingering COVID-19 pandemic. More than one million Americans had died, and though the crisis seemed to be ebbing, the economy was still in turmoil. Hope was in short supply. This made the groundbreaking all the more poignant and meaningful. Armen Sarafian’s life was really dedicated to hope for the future, to the success of students who could make the world better.

The building that bore his name would be a state-of-the-art science education structure. It would not be the first—another building named for him had housed the nursing program before being torn down due to seismic instability. Obstacles had delayed this new building project for ten years, but now it was finally beginning.

It was fitting to attach Armen Sarafian’s name to this building. As an Armenian and former president of Pasadena City College, he was a true leader in the Pasadena community, always seeking ways to uplift students of every age. He worked hard to revitalize the college during his tenure of 1965 to 1976 and was successful in doing so. He energized the faculty, staff, and students, and his successes raised the college’s profile to the state and even national level.

Armen Sarafian had died long before this spring day. In 1989, he suffered a heart attack just after his sixty-ninth birthday. And though he had achieved so much in his career, he never sought out praise or attention for himself, and certainly did not want his name on a building.

It is far better to name buildings for what they contain and offer, rather than to worry about names, he once said in his typical practical manner. I certainly don’t want to saddle people with an unpronounceable name and one they can’t spell. Others disagreed—colleagues, friends, and family who had seen how he’d saved more than one college from failing; how he’d given his heart to helping students succeed, particularly immigrants and those coming from poor backgrounds; how he’d supported faculty and staff in all their work. Armen Sarafian must be remembered.

The number one thing in any and every story about Armen Sarafian was his relationship to students, how student-focused he was, says Dr. Erika Endrijonas, who became the sixteenth president of PCC in 2019 and participated in the ceremony.

Gloria Pitzer, president of the Pasadena City College Foundation, understood the importance of the groundbreaking. This event is at least ten years in the making, she said that day, and as we’ve watched the previous building be disassembled over the last year or two, we’ve been building toward this date.

The new building will be a five-story, 104,000-square-foot facility with science labs, classrooms, and offices for the Health Sciences and Natural Sciences divisions. The PCC Foundation helped to raise millions for fixtures, furniture, equipment, and scholarships, with additional funding coming from the state. Pitzer thanked California State Senator Anthony Portantino for making it possible for state funding to support the new building.

I was very excited to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Armen Sarafian Building, the senator told a reporter. Community colleges play a critical role in higher education and workforce training. It’s an honor to represent PCC and be part of this special day.

Dr. Erika Endrijonas explained another reason that Armen Sarafian should never be forgotten: He oversaw the creation of the Pasadena Area Community College District as we know it today, she said at the event, with seven trustees and all of our surrounding communities brought into one place. He also saw an expansion of the college’s property that allows us to stand on campus here today. By the end of his tenure, our enrollment had doubled.

His son Norman, speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony, said, Even in the most turbulent times of this college’s life, he was a calming influence and quiet, patient force for understanding, conciliation, and growth. He also said of his father, "He would be embarrassed of the attention today but intensely honored. In his estimation, nothing ever quite equaled helping and encouraging students of all