Educator, Historian and Genocide Recognition Activist Dr. Dennis R. Papazian Dies

In his early years, he led the expansion of the Dearborn Campus from a upper two-year college to a four-year university. In 1985, he founded the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan, Dearborn and served as its first director until his retirement in 2006. As a result of his tutelage and leadership, several of Dennis’s students went on to work for the CIA, the State Department and other government agencies. He also served as an authority on Russia and the former Soviet Union for numerous media outlets and as an expert resource in dozens of refugee and asylum cases from the former Soviet Union and its successor republics.

In addition to his role as an educator and scholar, he served tirelessly as a forward-looking and creative leader of the emerging Armenian-American community, where he worked with leaders such as Alex Manoogian, Edward and Helen Mardigian, Stephen Mugar, Hrair Hovnanian, Richard Hovannisian, and many more.

Papazian was the founding executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America. Under his leadership, the Armenian Assembly worked with key elected officials to secure passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution in the United States House of Representatives. He also brought together several Armenian organizations to apply for and receive $1 million in grant funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for the Aid to Lebanon project which supported the Armenian community in the Bourj Hamoud neighborhood of Beirut during the 1975 Lebanese Civil War. Dennis pitched to and worked with National Geographic to create a piece about the Armenian-American community entitled “The Proud Armenians,” which was published in 1978.

Dennis traveled extensively during his career, presenting papers and delivering lectures in Armenia, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Israel and several other countries. At one point in his career, he conducted research on the USSR and personally worked with the State Department to coordinate an exchange between the University of Michigan and Moscow State University. In 1976 Dennis received an award from the U.S. Department of State honoring his work as a scholar and diplomat, which was followed by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1977 and an award from the USAID in 1978.

Together with his wife, Mary, the former President of San Jose State University, whom he married in 1991, Dennis was an ardent and faithful member of the Armenian community throughout his life. He represented the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America on the Supreme Spiritual Councils held in Echmiadzin, Armenia that elected Catholicos Karekin I (1995) and Catholicos Karekin II (1999) and participated in several Armenia-Diaspora conferences in Armenia during the early years of independence.

Papazian served on numerous boards and panels related to education and civic outreach, such as the Society for Armenian Studies, St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, the Michigan chapter of the American Red Cross, the Michigan Ethnic Heritage Association, and, most recently, as a member of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust and Genocide Education. He held numerous leadership roles in the Armenian community, including president on several occasions of the Society for Armenian Studies, advisor to the annual Times Square Armenian Genocide Commemoration, member of the Diocesan Council of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church, and as Grand Commander of the Knights of Vartan, an Armenian fraternal organization.  He also has been affiliated with the American Association of University Professors, the National Association for Ethnic Studies, the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science.