Armenian Academic Calls for Partnership with Western Universities

MONTREAL--The president of the Yerevan-based Armenian Association for Academic Partnership and Support (ARMACAD) group has called on university students in the Armenian Diaspora to help raise academic standards in Republic of Armenia (ROA) universities.

At a recent gathering organized at the McGill Univeristy in Montreal by the university's Armenian students association (MASA), Dr. Khachik Gevorgyan, president of ARMACAD, talked about the activities and goals of his association. The event was attended by scores of Armenian students from McGill, Concordia University and the University of Montreal.

Dr. Gevorgyan, Yerevan State University, and Gayaneh Melkom Melkomian, an ARMACAD member at McGill, outlined the history of ARMACAD and the reason for its establishment.

Dr. Gevorgyan said ARMACAD was founded to achieve higher academic standards in Armenia. He also introduced his association's mailing lists in various disciplines such as the social sciences and humanities. He said ARMACAD's mailing list is one of the biggest academic lists in the region. Dr. Gevorgyan also talked about the association's Armenian studies department, ARTACAD (arts), ARMACADEX (exact sciences) and the newly-established ARMACAD-IT (computer sciences) mailing list.
 

Among the notable activities of ARMACAD are the conferences the association has organized in recent years, he said. ARMACAD has presented "Iran and the Caucasus: Unity and Diversity", "The Turkic World, the Caucasus, and Iran: Civilisational Crossroads of Interactions", and offered a summer school entitled "Religion vs. politics: the case of Armenian Christianity and Shi'ism", as well as numerous informative and academic lectures presented and attended by scholars from Armenia and abroad.

Dr. Gevorgyan said ARMACAD academic partners included the Oxford Univeristy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Harvard University. He called for similar collaboration between ARMACAD and Canadian universities, in particular with MASA. The ARMACAD president spoke of MASA's potential in influencing academic development in Armenia and among Armenian students.

He stressed that to create such cooperation it is important for Armenian students in international universities to share information on educational opportunities and scholarships by using the mailing lists of ARMACAD, as well as deliver lectures to university students when they travel to Armenia. ARMACAD would organize such lectures and disseminate relevant information through the association’s mailing lists.

Following Dr. Gevorgyan's speech, Ms. Melkomian spoke about her experiences with ARMACAD. She also stressed the importance of Armenian student participation in ARMACAD events, and their willingness to deliver lectures when travelling to Armenia so as to help raise the academic standards of ROA students.