From: "Audrey Selian" <aselian@hotmail.com> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:15:26 -0500 Subject: On the AGBU Melkonian Closure Dear AGBU Directors and Committee, This is an open letter to your Committee in response to news released yesterday (March 16, 2004) that AGBU has decided to sell the Melkonian Educational Institute (MEI) in Cyprus. Several months ago on November 14, 2003, I came across a press release about Melkonian on the AGBU website, expressly indicating all claims of selling the school to be "unfounded and false". I expressed my wonder in a letter to the AGBU press office at how it would be possible that such erroneous rumors could have been fabricated and widely disseminated, if no grain of truth to it existed. After all, many of us with contacts in the world of Armenian community activism had heard otherwise, obviously. I was heartened at that time to believe that AGBU runs itself as much more than a business - with an eye on things other than the profit/loss statements that would drive other organizations to dispense of the more 'challenging' elements in their portfolio of activities. I see today that I was wrong. Melkonian is an incredible and precious institution. Many of us from Europe know people who have served it in leadership, or who have graduated from it, and its positive reputation has always been a point of pride in the world of Armenian education. Your posted position paper regarding its closure is well-documented and interesting, but lends itself to many questions. While none of us could be upset with your stated prospect of hypothetically channeling funds to Armenia for the creation of a state-of-the-art, modern Melkonian Educational Center for young Armenians around the world, exactly how could such a center be any more self-sustaining than MEI? This is not explained. Is it not extremely hard to open a new school and to build a reputation tantamount to that of Melkonian? Would it cost less than the approximate $1.2 million that AGBU is subsidizing MEI to operate, to start from scratch? Or is it the tantalizing prospect of access to the at least $100 million dollars in revenue expected from the sale of the institute (given current conditions in the Cypriot real estate market) that is most interesting? How much of that money is going to be re-invested and where, and is this information going to be available to the public? If it's not, it is the duty of every one of us who has served the AGBU to ask for clarification. Moreover, how challenging is it to find new ground, to bring together Armenians in diaspora, and to create another MEI? I dare say it is not a cakewalk to accomplish such things, particularly if the objective is to serve students coming from countries that may not be traditional beneficiaries of the larger donors in the Armenian community (i.e., in North America and Western Europe). Surely the value of such a school - and the momentum with which its reputation and legacy have been globally disseminated, must span beyond any 'downturn' in enrollment levels or deficit. Surely there are solutions to the fact that the newer Melkonian alumnae base may not have the American 'mentality' of supporting its endowment the way the AGBU might like to see. It is not as easy or as lucrative to serve a population from "Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Russia", granted - but who better suited to the task than MEI? Is the solution to serve these students in their own countries more financially feasible, somehow, and if so - why? I believe these are valid questions. According to the position paper, "AGBU is identifying current efforts that have the greatest chances of success, where the education provided meets high quality standards and where the economics of the setting as well as the local population, make the schools truly viable institutions". How is the economic setting in Armenia, Bulgaria, Romania or Russia an improvement on that of Cyprus? How will the local populations be more or less amenable to AGBU funded educational programs? None of this is explained sufficiently in the position paper dated March 16, 2004. It is hard to believe that the diversity of the student body in MEI actually became a barrier for ensuring "homogenous education"; this appears to be an indirect way of saying that AGBU does not want to deal with Armenian students from 'certain' countries. A shame, considering how much money and talent the AGBU is purported to have. To the layperson, it would seem that the task of providing homogenous education lies at the hands of the teachers, their curriculum management, and institutional oversight. Whether or not this may be true, efforts should be made to clarify the AGBU's historical role. Mostly people will believe that problems of this nature could have been addressed with tactical planning and (transparent) efforts to ameliorate the school's situation. How many Armenian consultants and bankers and businessman can we count on our collective hands in the US and Europe - who would have been willing to give a little time, join a Committee, and save this school? To state on the open press release on the AGBU site that, "MEI no longer meets the challenges of its mission in the present context of the Armenian world" is to laugh at those Armenians who care about this institution. In the AGBU position paper we have a nice descriptive analysis of AGBU's many laudable educational programs, a review of MEI's history, and very brief snapshot of its financial situation. How have the objectives and modus operandi of this institution evolved, and more importantly, who has been responsible for this evolution? If MEI is to be looked at as a business to be dispensed with out of a portfolio, then it should also have been evaluated as such. It is hard to believe that a school veers off its target mission unless it is very clearly mismanaged. "The Central Board believes strongly that over time, the post-Soviet countries will reach their respective levels of maturity and integrate with the customs of the Western World. The Armenians in Bulgaria, Romania and Russia will most likely follow the patterns of Armenians in North America or France, rather than those of former generations." A valid point, yet ironically only the more true because those Armenians now have ONE LESS excellent option now that Melkonian is closed. For communities from abroad who consider sending their children to foreign countries for education, reputation is critical. After all, how can reputation be bought? AGBU ". will also give serious consideration to low enrollment levels and high deficits as one of the determinants of the long-term viability of its schools". A hypothetical questions comes to mind: If the trend in North America and Europe appears to be that Armenian parents are less apt to send their children to Armenian day schools or boarding schools, where exactly does one put the threshold for" viability"? Does this mean that dropping enrollment levels (which are no doubt prone to cycles) could possibly be the key criteria for re-allocating funds despite the fact that they may have been expressly bequeathed for these specific educational purposes? How explicit is the mandate of AGBU in autonomously making these consolidation decisions for people who are long gone? Why should the public believe that everything possible was done to save the school through these purported thirty years of deliberation? To this end, most importantly, why have efforts not been made to utilize some of the sophisticated financial instruments that could be applied to make this school a self-sustaining operational entity? Any investment banker could come up with a creative solution that could at least keep the institution floating while it realigned its strategic and operational objectives. The cost of getting advice on this matter would probably amount to less than a few of the first class/business class airline tickets AGBU purchases for the administration of its various international projects in Europe. That said, of course, one must be able to appreciate that an organization like the AGBU, in undertaking "a larger agenda focusing on the review of all the schools it operates worldwide" (quote from November '03 press release), must make its own strategic decisions that will not always be able to please everybody. That is, of course, perfectly acceptable. With all due respect, however, concerned Armenians have the right to humbly express their protest that such decisions as were "made in due course" (again, direct quote from November '03 press release) were not made in a truly transparent manner. Without such transparency, I ask the following question: what self-respecting Armenian businessperson or successful professional will consider bequeathing significant sums of money to your organization, now that AGBU risks being accused of opaque decision-making? I had hoped that AGBU could continue to prove wrong those who have questioned its transparency, integrity, and democratic process. Having been involved with AGBU activities all of my life, and having valued my contact with the organization and many of its wonderful people tremendously, I had hoped to continue - to be active, and to be proud of it. I still have that hope, but it has clouded over considerably. I hope it is not inappropriate to express the opinion - shared by countless individuals and organizations like the Assembly of Armenian of Europe (AAE) - that this tremendously unpopular unilateral decision taken by the AGBU board vis-à-vis the Melkonian Educational Institute is unlikely to bear well on its reputation (or its donor pull) in the years to come. Thank you for your time. Audrey Selian ____________________________________ Doctoral Fellow, Kennedy School of Government - Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 PhD Candidate, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy - Tufts University 160 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155