PORTER RANCH, Calif. – Dr. Silva Babayan Karayan devoted her life to education, combining a distinguished academic career with decades of service to Armenian schools and community initiatives.
Born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1942 to Yervant and Rosin Babayan, she grew up in a family deeply committed to education and Armenian community life. Her father, Yervant Babayan, was a respected educator in Syria and Lebanon; her grandfather, Archpriest Nerses Babayan, helped establish schools in the years following the Armenian Genocide. Inspired by her father’s example, Dr. Karayan regarded teaching as a noble calling.
She attended Giligian Elementary School in Aleppo and AGBU Tarouhi Hagopian High School in Beirut. At the American University of Beirut (AUB), she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1963 and a master’s degree in clinical and counseling psychology in 1966. From 1970 to 1976, she lectured in AUB’s Department of Psychology.
On August 19, 1967, she married Dr. Sarkis Karayan, a distinguished physician and historian. Their daughter, Zella, was born in November 1969. In 1976, the family moved to the United States and lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, where Dr. Karayan was a professor at the University of Massachusetts School of Education until 1979. The family then relocated to Southern California. In 1999, she earned a Ph.D. in educational psychology, specializing in development and disability, from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Dr. Karayan joined California Lutheran University (CLU) as adjunct faculty in 1982 and became a full-time assistant professor in 1989. She directed the university’s Service-Learning Projects beginning in 1996 and, from 1999, led its Special Education Internship Program and Education Specialist Credential Programs. She later chaired the Education Specialist Program and founded CLU’s Center for Academic Service-Learning. She retired as Professor Emerita.
A respected scholar and educator, Dr. Karayan authored A Guide to Academic Service-Learning, a resource for college faculty and K–12 teachers. Her research appeared in peer-reviewed professional journals, and she presented frequently at national and international conferences. She also received competitive national and state grants supporting her scholarship. As an educational consultant, she worked with the California Department of Education’s statewide effort to promote service-learning in teacher preparation and was a founding member of its first statewide advisory committee. She also served on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing bilingual and bicultural panels that developed the CLAD and BCLAD tests.
