I was a Calouste Gulbenkian Scholarship Recipient

 Vahe H. Apelian, Boylston, MA

A few days ago I was perusing the 1965 Armenian Evangelical College High School yearbook, the year I graduated. It was customary the graduating student indicated in the yearbook the career the graduating student intended to pursue. Along with it choose a motto as the student's guiding principle. In my case, I have indicated pharmacy as my career choice. My motto, naturally stated in Armenian, I found out recently, is attributed to Walt Withman and reads: "Keep your face toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you". Surely easier said than done but it was during the Sixties, the era of Mary Hopkins' famed song, "Those Were the Days", whose lyrics boastfully said: "We'd live the life we choose; We'd fight and never lose; For we were young and sure to have our way."

Fortunately, the gods of good fortune during those crucial years in a person's life turned out to be in my favor. I successfully passed the American University of Beirut entrance examinations and was accepted to continue my education there. Much like the parents of any college-bound student, the tuition cost was a big concern to my parents as well. My parents covered my freshman year tuition thanks partly to financial assistance from my mother's maternal uncles in America and financial assistance I received from the University. During my freshmen year, I also applied to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for the financial assistantship and was granted one. I also was among three dozens or so students out of many applicants who were accepted to the School of Pharmacy, having completed their sophomore diploma in arts and sciences. 

Consequently my Sophomore year and the following four years in the School of Pharmacy, five years in total, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation covered my tuition having awarded me full scholarship that not only covered my tuition cost, but every semester left enough money to buy the textbooks, a shirt, a pair of pants and a pair of shoes from the upscale "Red Shoe" store in Beirut. 

Calouste Gulbenkian scholarship thus assured continuing my college education to its completion and made my college years memorable and enjoyable. Unburdened from financial worries, I became involved both in student organizations and extracurricular activities. I was elected as the class representative to the school of pharmacy student board. I was also elected to chair arguably the oldest Armenian student association in the Diaspora, the A.R.F. Zavarian Student Association.

As I look back and reminisce of those days, I realize that a good number of Armenian students of my generation, in the American University of Beirut were also recipients of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation scholarship.  These Armenian students studied agricultural, geology, medicine, engineering, pharmacy, physics, chemistry, nursing, mathematics, biology, business, and humanitarian studies. They were not only from Lebanon but also from Syria and from elsewhere also. I know for a fact that many of us as scholarship recipients would not have been able to have a college education in AUB had the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal, not assured to defray our tuition costs. Most of Calouste Gulbenkian scholarship recipients of my generation, I presume, ended or are in the process ending their careers.  

But a few others and I were more fortunate than the rest. After my B.S. in Pharmacy, I was granted a teaching assistantship and stipend to pursue a master's degree in science. In 1972 the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation invited me and four other Armenian graduate students from AUB, who were also former recipients of Gulbenkian Scholarship during their undergraduate years, for a summer-long training placing each one of us in a different class in the Foundation's science institute. Along with me were Arpi Darakjian, the sister of Nazareth Darakjian, M.D, the president of AMAA; Ara Hovanessian who earned a Ph.D. in science and charted a reputable career as research director in the Institute of Pasteur. His breakthrough discovery in how the body responds to viral infection was heralded in NY Times. I do not remember the names of the other two, other than the first name of one of them, Sirvart.  In Lisbon, we met Mr. Keshishian and Mr. Mavlian. They were the directors of the Armenian Department of the Foundation. They were just names for us as we anxiously waited to hear their responses to our applications. They acted as gracious hosts to us, invited us to dinner and introduced us to an Armenian member of the governing board who was related to the founder Calouste Gulbenkian. He received us warmly and welcomed us. His endearing remark still rings in my ear: "Lisbon will be full of Armenians this summer". And when I fell sick, Calouste Gulbenkian's personal physician treated me.

We were immersed in our tasks in the Institute for the five days of the week and had the weekends off to do sightseeing. During one of these weekends, I visited the westernmost point of Europe, a place called Capo Da Roca that overlooked the turbulent waters below while the seemingly endless expense of the Atlantic Ocean came in full plain view.  The place symbolized the sea faring spirit of the Portuguese. At that moment I became reflective. In my small world, I thought I had come far, shouldered by my parents, many teachers and finally the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation that had enabled me to come thus far. I purchased a certificate attesting my visit there that I still keep it as a cherished remembrance. Little did I envision then that in a few years the world I knew would literary turn upside down in Lebanon due to the civil war that started in 1975. The education the Foundation had enabled me to receive qualified me for a preferential immigration visa to the hospitable shores of the United States, where, like many other Calouste Gulbenkian scholarship recipients, I also settled, married and raised our family and in time had our parents join us. 

We also visited the Foundation's headquarters in Lisbon, attended cultural events there, and visited the museum which houses Calouste Gulbenkian's private collection of ancient artifacts and art. 

It will be the understatement of all times when I say that Mr. Calouste Gulbenian was no ordinary man. But I am not referring to his immense wealth as one of the richest man the financial world has had. He was, after all, the famed Mr. 5%. What I mean to say is that upon reading his son Noubar's, autobiography, "Portrait in Oil", I learned a lot more about the person he was. Calouste Gulbenkian hailed from a well-to-do family and was a studious young man. He studied petroleum engineering and graduated first in his class when he still was in his late teens. His father sent him to Baku where he was apprenticed by the Armenian oil barons of the day such as Alexander Mantashev. By the age of 22, he had published about the state of the oil industry. He was a man who knew how to mine the richness of Mother Nature. In an analogous way, the Armenian Department of the charitable foundation he created mines for the potentials in the Armenian diaspora and enables them by assisting them financially. 

Calouste Gulbenkian continues to leave an indelible mark on the world scene through the foundation he established. Countless young men and women achieve their dreams of furthering their education because of the generosity of the Foundation. Many organizations contribute to society because of the financial assistance they receive from the Foundation. Witnessing the immense charitable organization Calouste Gulenbian has established in Portugal and realizing that the Armenian Department is but one of its many departments, the thought, I admit, did cross my mind as to the unprecedented benefits Armenians would have enjoyed had this immense institution primarily supported them. But I can safely say that the landscape of the Armenia Diaspora surely would not have been what it became, had the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation not enabled the education of many of us. I do not mean to say only to those during the years I studied in AUB but also before and later. 

Much has changed since my graduation. The tuition cost of the American University of Beirut nowadays is at least 20 to 30 times what it was in my days. The number of Armenians studying in AUB has nosedived precipitously.

Recently Dr. Razmig Panossian, a fellow Kessabtsi, was appointed as the director of the Armenian Department. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation continues to offer much-needed guidance and financial support towards various current causes and needs of the Armenian Diaspora.