Vartan Gregorian Explores the Ideas and Uses of a Foundation on "Open Mind"

“A man for all intellectual seasons” is The Open Mind host Richard D. Heffner’s characterization of Carnegie Corporation President Vartan Gregorian in Heffner’s introduction to a two-part interview with the foundation leader, historian and former university president.

Heffner’s two-part interview is available online and will also be broadcast on Channel 12 and CUNY-TV.

In the wide-ranging conversation on “The Ideas and the Uses of a Foundation” Gregorian describes Andrew Carnegie as a “maverick” capitalist for his revolutionary ideas about philanthropy; touches on the distinctly American variety of giving; reiterates the importance of libraries as vehicles for educating the public; and describes the spirit of volunteerism. 

Part I, will begin its on-air broadcast career on Saturday, December 17th at 12 noon on Channel 13 here in New York City.  The program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, January 8, 2012 on Channel 75, CUNY-TV at 9:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. and again on Monday, January 9, 2012 at 8:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

Part II will begin its on-air broadcast career on Saturday, December 24th at 12 noon on Channel 13 here in New York City.  The program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 9:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. and again on Monday, January 16th at 8:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

First Broadcast in May, 1956, The Open Mind is still produced weekly by Richard D. Heffner, host, historian, and University Professor of Communications and Public Policy at Rutgers University. These conversations with some of the most creative thinkers of the last half-century are a primary resource available to students, teachers, researchers, archivists, librarians, historians, journalists and all who are interested in history, biography, media, communications, news, and public affairs.

The Open Mind broadcasts candid, often surprising and provocative, and always revelatory voices of the men and women who have dissected national politics, clarified the law, molded the media, shaped race relations, set the agenda for women’s rights, explored medicine, and chronicled or created the American scene and pop culture. Here, too, is Mr. Heffner’s own cogent perspective on the events and people that defined America over the past fifty years. The Open Mind has recorded the intellectual passage of a nation through a half-century of hopes and disappointments, of revolutions in thought and fashion, of constitutional challenges, recession, war and the ongoing battle for freedom and justice.