Providence Journal photo / Frieda Squires
Former Brown University president Vartan Gregorian is interviewed by e-newsletter class pupils (L-R) Sasha Missiuro, Dylan Itkin and Nevaeh Mitchell Tuesday at the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The city's Vartan Gregorian Elementary School on Tuesday celebrated the promotion of its fifth-graders onto middle school with a "clap-out ceremony" that has become a tradition, in which the younger grades and their teachers stand against the hallway walls and applaud as the fifth-graders walk the corridors to the auditorium.This year, a special guest walked with them through the hallways -- the man for whom the school is named. Vartan Gregorian, once Brown University's 16th president, is now president of the grant-making Carnegie Corporation in New York.
Before the ceremony, he met with students from the school's eNewspaper club, after third-grade club member Sasha Missiuro wrote him a letter, asking about his childhood and early education and inviting him to meet with them.
"Nobody like you is going to come again," he told the club. "I want each one of you to remember -- not me, but you. And do justice to your intellect, and I'd like you to learn, learn, learn."