Armenian Students’ Association to Hold Awards Ceremony in Providence

As part of its ongoing mission, the Armenian Students’ Association of America (ASA) recognizes professional and civic achievement through its award programs.  This year, the ASA will confer four awards at its upcoming Award Ceremony at the Rhode Island Convention Center on September 14 in Providence.

The following honors will be awarded.  Moorad Mooradian, Ph.D. will receive the Haig G. Sarafian Award for Good Citizenship.  On behalf of the Zildjian Company, Deborah Zildjian will be presented the Ara S. Boyan Award for Arts and Humanities.   Jack Keverian, Ph.D. will be given the Kabakjian Award for Science.  Robert Hewsen, Ph.D. will receive the Dadian Heritage Award.  

Ted Bogosian, Emmy Award winning producer, will present the awards and highlight recipients in a one-on-one interview format.  Bogosian performed as emcee at the most recent ASA Awards Ceremony in New York City and his expertise as an interviewer set the stage to celebrate the achievements of each of the award recipients.   The evening’s ceremony will be followed by a dance with music provided by the Roger Krikorian Band.  Below is information about each of the awardees and their respective awards.

Moorad Mooradian, this year’s Sarafian Award recipient, was born and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island.  He received his Bachelor of Arts in History from Rhode Island College in 1960 and a Master of Arts in History and International Relations from the University of Rhode Island in 1962.  

Mooradian was a history teacher at Cranston High School West in Cranston, Rhode Island in 1961 when he entered the United States Army.  He was a professor of History and International Relations at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York from 1967- 1969 and 1970-1973.   While on the faculty at West Point, he taught evening classes in History for Orange County Community College, Orange County, New York. From 1978-1980, he served on the faculty as a professor at the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, in Leavenworth, Kansas. He retired as a colonel from the United States Army after 30 years of service.

In 1991, Mooradian entered the doctoral program at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia and graduated with a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution with a concentration in ethnic conflicts in August 1996. He is currently an affiliated faculty at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution as a member of the Transcaucasian Work Group. Mooradian established the Conflict Studies program in the Department of Sociology at Yerevan State University and serves as the Director of the Yerevan State University Conflictology Center, where he is currently a visiting professor.

Mooradian is a consultant to numerous organizations that are experiencing internal conflicts or desire to participate in the resolution of conflicts in the international arena.  He is currently writing a book about how the conflict with the Turkish Republic may be resolved.

His commentaries for various newspapers are numerous.  They have centered on genocide of the Jews, the American Indians, the Armenians, the Cambodians, the African peoples and others, and how the 1915 Genocide is one of the significant groundings for the Armenian position in seeking independence and security for the Karabakh Armenians.   He is a weekly contributor to three Armenian American newspapers:  The Armenian Reporter, The Armenian Observer International, and the Armenian Mirror-Spectator.  

The Sarafian Award was established for an individual of Armenian descent, who has been outstanding in the field of good citizenship.  Haig G. Sarafian, Chairman of the Board of Trustees for many years, took the lead in keeping this challenge dynamically before the "students." To honor his memory, the Sarafian Award for Good Citizenship was established in 1960 and is bestowed upon Armenians who have made exceptional contributions to community life.

This year’s Boyan Award will be presented to the Zildjian family.  Deborah Zildjian, a 14th generation Zildjian and Vice President of the Human Resources Department, will receive the award.  

The Zildjian name is synonymous with cymbals throughout the past four centuries.  In 1623, in Constantinople, an alchemist named Avedis discovered a still-secret process for treating alloys, and used this process to produce cymbals.  As the fame of the cymbal maker and his cymbals spread, he was given the name “Zildjian” – the Turkish word for “cymbalsmith.”   Today, while that process has been refined and perfected over the years, it is still used by the Zildjian Company.  

Zildjian Cymbals were judged to be of such fine musical quality that their sound inspired composers to incorporate cymbals into classical music.  Nowhere, however, was this interaction more apparent than after Avedis Zildjian III moved the family business to the United States in 1929.   In the true spirit of Jazz, Avedis III improvised.  Working with the great drummers of the day like Chick Webb, Jo Jones, Gene Krupa, Max Roach and Buddy Rich, Avedis Zildjian III not only named but invented Crash, Ride, HiHat, Sizzle, Swish and all modern cymbals as we know them today.

Zildjian continued its intimate involvement with music through the Swing years, Dixieland, BeBop, Mainstream and into the age of Pop, Rock, Funk, Electric Jazz and Heavy Metal.  Today, the company is also one of the leading manufacturers of drum sticks in the world, owning its own fully integrated manufacturing facility in Alabama with direct access to extensive hickory timber holdings.  

Following their father’s philosophy, Armand Zildjian and the Zildjian Sound Lab technicians maintain a close relationship with today’s leading drummers, orchestral percussionists, major universities, and top Drum Corps.  

In addition to her responsibilities in Human Resources, Deborah Zildjian is also in charge of the melting room operation, where copper and tin are combined in a 379-year old ritual to produce the Zildjian secret alloy.  This is the first time a woman has been responsible for the company’s secret process.  

Always very involved in the company’s cymbal and drumstick manufacturing operations, she initiated the safety and environmental program and apprenticeship programs for research and development, cymbal testing and other critical craftsmanship positions.  

Deborah Zildjian was also instrumental in Zildjian becoming the first company in the percussion industry to obtain the prestigious ISO 1001 quality certification in 1995.  (Zildjian still remains the only cymbal company to ever have receive this honor.)   Her two daughters, Cady and Emily Bickford Zildjian, have both interned in the business.

Zildjian serves both on the company’s Executive Team and the Board of Directors (Director and Corporate Clerk).  She holds a Masters degree in Political Science from Villanova University and has completed the Strategic Human Resource Management program at Harvard Business School.

The Ara S. Boyan Award in Humanities is given to an Armenian-American who has been outstanding in the field of Humanities -- the Living Arts.  Mr. Boyan, a graduate of City College of New York, served the Association for over forty years.

Dr. Jack Keverian, recipient of the Kabakjian Award, was born in Boston and grew up with his brother George in Everett.  After graduating Everett High School he received his Bachelor, Masters and Doctor of Science Degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a major focus on metallurgy.  

He has extensive industrial and academic experience having held high level technical and general management positions at General Electric Company and NL Industries.  In addition to having published over 30 papers in his technical field, he has contributed to the communities in which he has lived in many capacities including service as the President of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce and Director of Union Trust Bancorp.   He has managed several large metal processing organizations during his career and has consulted widely including extensive world travel.

In 1979, Dr. Keverian joined Drexel University as Full Professor and Head of the Department of Materials Engineering in Philadelphia.  At present he is Professor Emeritus at Drexel University where he is sharing his industrial experience with his students through the teaching of several courses including the origination of advanced manufacturing courses with a particular emphasis on how to become more competitive in the world economy.   His major areas of research are computer integrated manufacturing, rapid part manufacturing, strip production systems, technical and/or economic and time modeling, melting and casting systems and recycling systems.  

After the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, Dr. Keverian took on the responsibilities as Chairman of the Armenian Earthquake Coalition of Greater Boston.  He and others in the Boston area organized the coalition in an attempt to focus the activities of the various local organizations to assist the victims of the earthquake.

Dr. Keverian resides in Massachusetts with his wife, Dorothy.  They have three children and 11 grandchildren.

The Kabakjian Award was created in 1948 in commemoration of Professor Dicran H. Kabakjian, head of the Physics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Association for many years.  Presentations are made to an Armenian-American who has been outstanding in the field of science.

This year’s Dadian Award recipient, Dr. Robert H. Hewsen, is a specialist in ancient, medieval, and early modern Armenian history with emphasis on the historical geography of Armenia and Caucasia, and on the Armenian nobility class.  He is a native New Yorker who received his doctorate in Russian and Middle Eastern History from Georgetown University, where he specialized in the study of Caucasia under the late Professor Cyril Toumanoff.   Since 1967, Dr. Hewsen has been Professor of Russian and Byzantine History at Rowan University in New Jersey (formerly Glassboro State College).  He has served as Visiting Professor, usually in a field of Armenian studies, at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (1979), the University of Pennsylvania (1980-1983), the University of Tübingen, Germany (1983, 1987), the University of Chicago (1991, 1998), Columbia University (1993, 1999), and at the California State University at Fresno (2001-2002).

Dr. Hewsen’s most recent work is a monumental 336-page, 278-map historical atlas of Armenia published in 2001 by the University of Chicago Press as a part of the 1700th anniversary commemoration of the conversion of Armenia to Christianity.  Dr. Hewsen is the compiler of eight historical maps of Caucasia for the Tübingen Atlas of the Middle East (1989-1991), and his well-known maps accompany many modern works on Armenian history, religion, art, and culture.   He is the author of an annotated translation of the seventh-century Armenian geographical text known as the “Ashxarhatsoyts” (1992), and editor of the Armenian text of the same work (1995).  He has contributed numerous maps to the works of other scholars and is the co-founder and first president of the Society for the Study of Caucasia (University of Chicago, 1985-1997).   He has frequently been a board member of the Society for Armenian Studies.  Dr. Hewsen has published several hundred articles in various !

journals and books on a wide range of topics, and is also the author of some short stories published in the literary and cultural journal Ararat.   His current project is a book on the meliks of Karabagh, after which he hopes to complete a book in progress on history of the Conversion of Armenia to Christianity.

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Hewsen has served the Armenian community through frequent lectures and participation in education programs for a wide array of Armenian organizations (including the ASA), and churches over the years.

The Dadian Award was established in 1985 through the generosity of Arthur H. Dadian, a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Business School, and Georgetown School of Law.  Born in Caesaria, Turkey, Mr. Dadian came to the U.S. in 1920 and settled in Watertown, MA.   A great believer in continuing education, he was active in the ASA for many years, as a founder and past president of the Washington, D.C. branch and also as president of the ASA Central Executive Committee.

The ASA Awards Ceremony will take place on September 14th at 7 p.m. beginning with a cocktail reception.  A dance will follow the ceremony at 9:30 p.m.  Admission to the event is $20.  

The Rhode Island Convention Center is located at 1 Sabin Street in Providence, Rhode Island.  For reservations for the ASA Awards Ceremony, or for further information, call 401-353-8633.