Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE)
Rev. Vahac Mardirosian
Rev. Vahac Mardirosian is the founder and President of the Association of Parents of University Students, a non-profit organization dedicated to significantly increasing the number of college graduates from low-income, Latino families in San Diego County. Rev. Mardirosian is also the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of the Parent Institute for Quality Education that began in San Diego in 1987 and has trained over 375,000 parents (mostly low-income, Latino families) throughout California. Parents learn the skills necessary to encourage the academic success of their children through the training facilitated by the Institute.
Rev. Mardirosian began his community involvement in educational issues in California in 1968. Then, a pastor with the Mexican Baptist Church in East Los Angeles, he and other clergymen became concerned when 10,000 Latino students at high schools in the Los Angeles School District staged a walkout. Rev. Mardirosian helped resolve the immediate crisis, organized the cultural differences of Latino students and pressed for improvements in the educational process. As a result of this effort, over 9,000 Los Angeles teachers receive special training about Latino culture.
For his community work on behalf of the Latino students, Rev. Mardirosian was chosen Man of the Year in 1974 by a major Los Angeles radio station, NKX, received recognition from the California Legislature, Governor's office and an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the California State University, San Diego.
Rev. Mardirosian was born in Syria of Armenian parents. He moved to Tijuana, Mexico at the age of two where he lived until the age of nineteen when he immigrated to the United States. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1950. In 1946, he attended the Spanish American Baptist Seminary in Los Angeles and received a degree in Theology. He has been a Church Pastor in Topeka, KS, Chicago Ill, and Los Angeles, California. He also received a degree in Education from California State University, Los Angeles.