BU President Emeritus Aram Chobanian (Hon.’06) Dies at 94; Helped Stabilize the University in Tumultuous Period

Remembered for his warmth, friendships, and steady hand; BU’s medical school was renamed last year in his and his lifelong friend’s honor after record gift

Photo: Portrait of Aram V. Chobanian standing outside Marsh Chapel on the B.U. campus. An older man balding man with white hair and wearing a white collared shirt, paisley tie, and navy suit, smiles and looks at the camera.

BU President Emeritus Aram Chobanian (Hon.’06), who died August 31, is being remembered not only for his outstanding medical career and leadership of what was then the School of Medicine and the Medical Campus, but for stabilizing the University during a leadership crisis. Photo by Lane Turner/Boston Globe via Getty Images

Obituaries

BU President Emeritus Aram Chobanian (Hon.’06) Dies at 94; Helped Stabilize the University in Tumultuous Period

Remembered for his warmth, friendships, and steady hand; BU’s medical school was renamed last year in his and his lifelong friend’s honor after record gift

September 2, 2023
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Aram Chobanian, whose brief tenure as Boston University president in the early 2000s stabilized the campus during a tumultuous period and whose long University service oversaw the growth of BU’s Medical Campus, died on Thursday, August 31. He was 94.

Chobanian (Hon.’06) had returned to BU just last year, when his lifelong friend from their boyhood in Rhode Island, Edward Avedisian (CFA’59,’61, Hon.’23), a noted philanthropist, donated a stunning gift of $100 million to the medical school. Avedisian said that he wanted the school renamed in Chobanian’s honor and Chobanian countered that he would agree only if the school was renamed in both of their honors. The arrangement was consummated, and the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine became the name of the school. (Avedisian also died recently, in December 2022.)

“How could I obstruct a gift of $100 million to the medical school that I spent my life at?” a humble Chobanian said at a ceremony announcing the donation.

Kenneth Freeman, BU president ad interim, said on Friday that although he was only briefly acquainted with Chobanian, his achievements as a physician and an academic leader are legendary. “By every account he was an amazing leader, deeply appreciated for his kindness and his devotion to the great calling of medicine,” Freeman said. “He was called to serve Boston University as interim president at a crucial moment, and Boston University is better for his service.”

Edward Avedisian (left) and Aram V. Chobanian at the celebration announcing the Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine on September 29, 2022. Photo by Dave Green
Edward Avedisian (left) and his childhood friend Aram V. Chobanian, at the September 29, 2022, celebration announcing a gift of $100 million from Avedisian renaming the BU medical school the Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

A cardiologist, Chobanian, who joined the School of Medicine faculty in 1962, served as BU’s interim president, then ninth president between 2003 and 2005, preceding Robert A. Brown, who was president from 2005 until stepping down this year. The University had initially hired former NASA administrator Daniel Goldin as president in 2003, only to pay him $1.8 million when the offer was rescinded after conflicts arose with the trustees and John Silber (Hon.’95), BU’s seventh president, and at the time, University chancellor. That turmoil drew national media coverage.

Karen Antman, dean of the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and provost of the Medical Campus, said that despite his responsibilities in such a challenging time, Chobanian retained his warm personal relationships with faculty, students, and friends, and many people on the Medical Campus valued his friendship and thoughtful leadership. “We will very much miss him,” she said. “The medical school is now named in his honor along with his friend Edward Avedisian, for generations to come.

“Aram was so many things to so many people—physician, accomplished scientist, scholar, teacher, mentor, leader and friend. He provided calm and wise leadership, first on the Medical Campus, and then as president of Boston University during particularly challenging times.”

Aram was so many things to so many people—physician, accomplished scientist, scholar, teacher, mentor, leader and friend.
Karen Antman, dean of the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and provost of the Medical Campus

Even though Chobanian’s tenure as president was brief, and officially his capacity was interim, in recognition of his service and the vital role he played, at the conclusion of his leadership, the University trustees officially named him as BU’s ninth president, dropping “interim” from the title.

“When the next history of Boston University is written,” Freeman said, “I believe the author—or authors—will affirm that among our presidents, none had a greater impact over a shorter term.”

Reached on Friday, Brown called Chobanian “a consummate academic leader, a brilliant physician scientist, and an extraordinary dean” of the BU medical school now named in his honor. “He served as president of the University at a critical time in our history, guiding the University after a failed presidential search,” Brown said. “He was a friend and advisor who will be sorely missed.”

Photo: (From left to right) President Robert Brown, Aram Chobanian, and Trustee Alan Leventhal all wearing red and black ceremonial graduation gowns smile and pose in front of a grey backdrop. Brown wears a large gold medallion while Chobanian wears a black cap.
President Robert A. Brown (from left), Aram Chobanian (Hon.’06), and University trustee Alan Leventhal (Hon.’09) at the 2006 BU Commencement. Photo by BU Photography

Chobanian’s presidency capped years of service to the University. He already had led major changes as dean of the medical school, a position he assumed in 1988. In 1996, the University added the title of provost of the Medical Campus. During his tenure, he oversaw the merger of Boston City Hospital, the city’s public hospital, and the University’s Medical Center Hospital, resulting in the creation of Boston Medical Center (BMC), the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine’s affiliated teaching hospital. Today, BMC continues as the city’s safety net hospital, with a special mission of serving indigent patients.

He was also instrumental in creating Biosquare Research Park, a partnership of BU, BMC, and the developer Spaulding & Slye Colliers. The South End park is home to state-of-the-art life sciences laboratories.

Of Armenian ancestry, Chobanian and his late wife, Jasmine, who died in 2014 after 59 years of marriage, were activists on behalf of Armenia. Aram Chobanian served on the board of directors of the nonprofit Fund for Armenian Relief, which works to improve the training of doctors and healthcare providers in that country, establish medical residency and postgrad education programs, and supply medicines and medical equipment. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia.

While on the School of Medicine faculty, Chobanian led the Division of Medicine’s hypertension and atherosclerosis section. He also was vice chairman for cardiovascular affairs in the department of medicine.

He was the founding director of the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute, created in 1973 “to foster advances in research, treatment, and education in the broad area of heart and vascular disease,” according to its website. And when the National Institutes of Health decided to finance a National Hypertension Specialized Center of Research at BU for two decades, starting in 1975, Chobanian was its director.

Photo: Aram Chobanian (right) greets Beverly Brown. An older man balding man with white hair and wearing a white collared shirt, blue and yellow tie, black face mask, and navy suit, looks cheerful as he holds a smiling brunette woman in grey suit.
Aram Chobanian with Beverly Brown, wife of former BU President Robert A. Brown, at the BU School of Medicine Naming Ceremony on September 29, 2022. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

He was also the author of two books and more than 275 papers and the principal investigator, year in and year out for a quarter century, on research grants in excess of $1 million.

After stepping down as BU’s president in 2005, Chobanian returned to his work as a University Professor and the John I. Sandson Distinguished Professor of Health Sciences. In 2007, he chaired the ad hoc committee that recommended disbanding the University Professors program, which taught academically gifted undergraduates, in favor of a new honors program. That successor ultimately became Kilachand Honors College.

Over the course of his career, Chobanian received numerous honors, including the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 for his “long and distinguished medical career dedicated to research on hypertension and vascular disease, patient care, and student education.” He had been a member of the society since 1961. He was also a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Born in Rhode Island, Chobanian graduated from Brown University and Harvard Medical School. He is survived by his children, Karin Chobanian Torrice, Lisa Chobanian Ramboeck, and Aram Chobanian, Jr., and two grandchildren, Marc Torrice and Vanessa Torrice (CAMED’22).

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BU President Emeritus Aram Chobanian (Hon.’06) Dies at 94; Helped Stabilize the University in Tumultuous Period

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    Rich Barlow is a senior writer at BU Today and Bostonia magazine. Perhaps the only native of Trenton, N.J., who will volunteer his birthplace without police interrogation, he graduated from Dartmouth College, spent 20 years as a small-town newspaper reporter, and is a former Boston Globe religion columnist, book reviewer, and occasional op-ed contributor. Profile

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There are 8 comments on BU President Emeritus Aram Chobanian (Hon.’06) Dies at 94; Helped Stabilize the University in Tumultuous Period

  2. I was fortunate to have the guidance of Dr. Chobanian during my final years as Dean at BUSSW. He was a sensitive and caring mentor who understood a great deal about the human condition. I was grateful to have his leadership during difficult and unsettling administrative times.

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  3. I am honored to have shared Aram Chobanian’s love of music, and to help him realize performances of his song compositions. His music and poetry shared his immense and beautiful heart, and his love for Jasmine and their cherished family. Rest well, Aram, and thank you..

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  5. I often regale friends and colleagues with tales of the “tumultuous period” at BU referred to in this article. I always conclude by telling of the immediate and tangible sense of rationality and fairness that pervaded the campus as soon as Chobanian to the helm. Truly, he pulled the university out of the fire, setting the stage for the ensuing period of growth. We will always be in his debt.

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  6. Aram Chobanian was my mentor while I was a BUSM student in the late 1960’s. I wrote my senior paper on Platelets and Atherosclerosis which he reviewed and offered many helpful suggestions. I got an A. He was my role model and influenced my choice of Cardiology as my career path. We communicated periodically over the years and I arranged for him to speak at the Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute @ Baptist Health on Renovascular Denervation for Resistant Hypertension which was a thrill for me personally. I am also happy that the Med School bears his name and I know that countless students benefitted from his teaching and guidance as I was. My sincere condolences to his family and the BUSM community.

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  7. This statement from President Freeman could not be truer:

    “When the next history of Boston University is written […], I believe the author—or authors—will affirm that among our presidents, none had a greater impact over a shorter term.”

    To understand why, one needs to know exactly how “tumultuous” those times were when Prosident Chobanian took over the helm at BU. The BU Board of Trustees had disgraced itself with fiduciary mismanagement (prompting the second round of scrutiny by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office in under a decade) because of the Goldin fiasco. News coverage of the latter had turned BU into a national laughingstock.

    The event that sparked BU’s revoking of its offer to Goldin was primarily because he had announced, well before his scheduled arrival on campus, that he planned to “clean house”—i.e., remove the strongly entrenched administrative apparatus with which Silber had ruled over BU for several decades. Goldin was absolutely right about the need to carry out the house-cleaning. Otherwise, he would have great difficulty cultivating his own vision of BU’s institutional future. (Note that Silber had worked it out so that he would be able to stay in his presidential mansion on Carlton St. even after the arrival of a new president.)

    Goldin, even after having run NASA down in Washington, underestimated the complexities of academia. These include the dynamics of boards of trustees. In BU’s case, the dynamics involved considerable financial dealings between BU Board members and the institution over which they had fiduciary responsibility. (Readers interested in finding out more should look into Attorney General Scott Harbargar’s investigation of the early nineties—the Seragen scandal which ended up on “Sixty Minutes”, etc.). A large component of the BU Board was looking to prolong the arrangements they had under the Silber administration.

    President Chobanian was no doubt aware of the problems that Goldin had identified in his assessment of BU. Rather than foolishly announcing a massive “house-cleaning”, however, he chose a quieter and ultimately much more effective path.

    In the two years of his presidency, one noted a steady stream of BU administrators who had suddenly seen the light and had decided to pursue their ambitious objectives elsewhere. It was, in effect, a “purge”, but carried out with highly effective discretion. Meanwhile, reformers on the BU Board (e.g., David D’Alessandro and Jeffrey Katzenberg)—whose hand had been strengthened by actions taken by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office starting with the Harshbarger intervention in the nineties—slowly worked to bring about important changes without which little progress could be made. (Silber loyalists on the Board had essentially de facto lifetime appointments; he controlled the Board rather than the other way around.)

    President Chobanian’s quiet work during his two years in the position helped to pave the way for President Robert Brown’s highly successful presidency. After his arrival, President Brown appears to have followed the Chobanian approach of a “quiet purge” of those elements of the Silber administration that needed to be removed. Reformers on the Board (again, with de facto backing of the Massachusetts AG Office) also filled their role. (The Board today looks extremely different from the way it looked under Silber.)

    Concluding, much of this whole story will probably never be told (and yes, we need to focus on the future…). But those of us who have witnessed the transformation undergone at BU over the last 20 years—thanks, in significant measure, to President Chobanian’s crucial stint as President—will remain eternally grateful to him.

    (The author of these lines taught in the College of Arts and Sciences from 1974 to 2023. He served as Vice Chair Chair, and Past Chair of the BU Faculty Council from 1992 to 1995; he served on the Ad Hoc Committee on Communications of the BU Faculty Council from 2003 to 2007, service which involved interaction with President Chobanian in the wake of the Goldin fiasco.)

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    1. Thank you for the very interesting read. For someone who hasn’t followed this as closely, I would be curious to see you expand on what the “transformation” of BU has been over the last 20 years. I would think at least part of the answer would be the new buildings constructed over that timeframe, but I would surmise it is much more than that.

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