Clare Russell Gregorian, a pivotal force in the establishment of Rhode Island Public Radio, wife of former Brown University President Vartan Gregorian and a staunch advocate for women’s reproductive rights, died Saturday in New York after a long battle with obstructive pulmonary disease. She was 80.
“She was an exceptionally dedicated and strong advocate of public radio and Planned Parenthood,” said Maureen Moakley, University of Rhode Island political science professor and Rhode Island Public Radio commentator.
“She was very witty,” said Moakley, who served with her on the Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island board and was a friend. An unpretentious woman who loved movies, Moakley says that Gregorian often made subtle fun of the trappings of academia when her husband was Brown’s leader.
Gregorian is survived by her husband, president of the Carnegie Corporation in New York since he left Brown in 1997, her three sons and three daughters in-law. One of the couple’s sons, Dareh Gregorian, is married to New York Times political reporter Maggie Haberman. She is also survived by a brother and two sisters.
She was a devotee of films, Moakley said. “When she and her husband went back to New York for a visit, it wasn’t unusual for them to go to two movies a day.”
When she first arrived in Rhode Island, she wanted to know why the state didn’t have it’s own public radio station, said Marie Langlois, chair of the Rhode Island Foundation and a former board member of RIPR.
Her efforts, along with others, eventually led to the founding of RIPR in the late 1990s. At the time, the station was known as WRNI.
“She felt that it was so important to have a local public radio station so that people would be aware of not only what was going on in the nation and the world, but what was going on locally,” Langlois told RIPR. “In the current environment you realize what an important role public radio is playing.”
Gregorian was funny and a wonderful writer, Langlois said.
“Everyone who knew her will miss her enormously.”
She was educated at Stanford University and received an honorary doctorate from Brown in 1997.
She was a feminist and advocate for literacy, the arts and education. Langlois remembered her involvement at Planned Parenthood, saying she sometimes volunteered in Providence, where few people realized she was the wife of the president of Brown University.
“She was a wonderful, charming person,” said Janet Robinson, former CEO of the New York Times Company and a current member of the RIPR board. “She was authentic and people gravitated to her, you couldn’t help but like her.”
