Razmik Panossian, spoke about the department’s commitment to education, focusing particularly on Armenian language education in the Diaspora, at a public lecture at Glendale Central Library (California, USA), on Thursday January 11 2018, from 19:30 to 21:30. The lecture was supported by Armenian Communities department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, together with the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, the UCLA Narekatsi Chair, and The National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA.

This was Razmik Panossian’s first opportunity to address the Southern California community about the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s mission and activities. Following the presentation, Razmik Panossian was interviewed by Salpi Ghazarian, director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies. The two tackled some of the structural and institutional challenges of language revitalization.
 
In the second half of the programme, short videos were screened highlighting some of the activities done by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to support language learning throughout the diaspora.  Salpi Ghazarian invited long-time educator Ani Garmiryan, who is currently the Senior Officer responsible for Western Armenian revitalization projects, as well as UCLA professors Shushan Karapetian and Hagop Gulludjian, to join Razmik Panossian for a conversation on how words can be transformed to action and make language learning fun and relevant.

The video of the public lecture is available here