Alborzi
Memoirs of the legendary Alborz High School principal
January 8, 2001
The Iranian
From Memoirs of M. A. Modjtahedi: Principal of Alborz
High School and Founder of Aryamehr University (2000, Iranian Oral History
Project, Harvard University), edited by Habib Ladjevardi. Also
see excerpts
of Mojtahedi discussing his last days at Alborz and his views about Mohammad
Reza Shah and Reza Shah.
For most of the Twentieth Century, Alborz High School was the premier
secondary school for boys in Iran. Its place in the shaping of Iran's intellectual
elite compares with that of Eton in England and Phillips Academy Andover
in the United States. For almost thirty-five years, the Alborz name was
synonymous with the name of Mohammad-Ali Modjtahedi, the legendary principal
who headed the school from 1944 until the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
During his tenure, Modjtahedi supervised the education of more than
ten thousand boys, many of whom went on to some of the world's best colleges
and universities. His graduates made up the core of Iran's post-War young
elite, filling almost every position of power and influence in universities,
corporations, and the government. And for every one of those men, he had
been a towering figure in their youth, at once revered and feared. Though
in his lifetime he held other, seemingly more prestigious positions, as
founder of Aryamehr University and president of several others, in none
was he as proud and content as he was as the principal of Alborz High School.
At the time of his death in 1997, his former students were spread far
and wide, in Iran and across the globe. With their world turned upside-down
with the revolution, what bound these men of different classes, religions,
achievements, and political views was their love of Alborz High School
and this man.
Modjtahedi was born on September 22, 1908, in Lahijan, a small town
in the Iranian province of Gilan near the Caspian Sea. In those years,
few towns in Iran had high schools, so when Modjtahedi finished elementary
school, his education seemed at an end. It took him many years to persuade
his father to allow him, at the age of seventeen, to move to Tehran, where
he finished high school in May 1931, at the age of twenty-two.
For the future educator, Iran of the early 1930s offered few options
for higher education, so the sons of the elite and the lucky few from the
middle class able to pass the highly competitive national examination for
government scholarships had to pursue their education abroad. Modjtahedi
was one of the one hundred young men who in 1931 took the examination and
qualified. In the summer of that year, he traveled to France to continue
his education. His seven years there proved formative, shaping both his
personal life and his later calling as an educator. He completed his undergraduate
studies at the University of Lille in 1935 and his doctorate in mathematics
at the Sorbonne University in 1938.
While at the university, he met and married Suzanne Van Den Ostende,
who was French. They arrived in Iran in September 1938. Years later, his
parting advice to his young graduates heading abroad to study was, "First,
don't marry a foreign woman because you will make her and yourself miserable."
These few words give a glimpse of the difficulty Modjtahedi, and indeed
many young Iranians who married non-Iranians abroad, faced upon returning
to Iran. Ordinary stresses of married life were suddenly magnified by the
barriers of language and culture. While many of these marriages ended in
divorce, Modjtahedi's marriage survived, but his life as an educator was
his consuming love.
After completing his compulsory military service, he joined the Technical
Faculty of Tehran University, where he taught mathematics. In 1944 he was
appointed principal of Alborz High School. Immediately after his appointment,
he began rebuilding the school, creating step by step a prestigious institution
that was on par with the best of its kind.
First he revamped the admissions procedure to ensure entrance to the
best and most talented, regardless of the applicant's family connections
and income. He then hand picked the brightest teachers, many university
instructors with graduate degrees, creating one of the best teaching faculties
in the country. Before his tenure, teachers and students had no access
to laboratories, and instruction in the sciences was limited to theory
taught from text. One of his significant achievement was the equipping
the school with laboratories, and including laboratory requirements as
part of the science curriculum. Finally, he rebuilt the campus itself,
adding a new library and a new dormitory for students from the provinces.
With the spread of Alborz's reputation, so grew Modjtahedi's name as
an educator. In 1961, he was appointed to the presidency of the University
of Shiraz (also known as Pahlavi University). While in this post, and indeed
in his subsequent posts as university president, he remained the principal
of Alborz.
Not one to toe the line, his tenure at Shiraz University was brief.
After one year, he resigned when his decision to fire a British physician
at the university hospital over misconduct was overturned by the then Prime
Minister Ali Amini. Despite his growing reputation as a stubbornly independent-minded
man, he was appointed shortly afterward to become the president of the
troubled Tehran Polytechnic College. Although he was highly effective in
improving the curriculum, his tenure was again brief. He resigned after
three years when, over his objections, the trustees decided to turn the
Polytechnic from a college of engineering into a school for technicians.
The plan never materialized, however, due to Modjtahedi's efforts before
leaving the college.
Modjtahedi soon was called to serve again, this time by the Shah to
become chancellor of the new Aryamehr University, an institution he was
to build and staff from ground up. His mandate was to begin operation in
less than one year. Although the campus was built on time and he succeeded
in recruiting a large faculty, many of whom were former Alborz students
who had achieved distinction in their fields in the United States and Europe,
he was shortly afterward replaced by someone he considered far less qualified
than himself, with no explanation. He left Aryamehr, bitterly disappointed
and mystified by the reasons for his dismissal. In his memoirs he recounts
his work at Aryamehr as his greatest achievement and his biggest disappointment.
Alborz proved his refuge again and again, as he sparred with authorities
over points he considered to be of principle. In 1968, for example, he
was appointed chancellor of the National (Melli) University, where he encountered
two cases of serious misconduct by two deans, one of sexual abuse, the
other financial. His decision was immediate dismissal of the offending
deans. But to his surprise, the board of trustees refused to accept his
decision. Again, rather than compromise, he resigned his post, this time
to focus exclusively on Alborz, where he continued as principal until the
Islamic Revolution.
His students remember him for his unshakable devotion to excellence,
which he demanded of himself and of them, and to their welfare, which he
guarded even at risk to himself. In his memoirs, one of his recollections
is particularly telling. He recounts an encounter with a security officer
who had come to the school to question one of his students. The incident
took place during the politically charged atmosphere of the months following
the 1953 coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mossadegh, and Tehran was tense
and political activity dangerous. The security officer demanded to see
the boy, and when Modjtahedi refused, said, "You didn't pay attention.
I am the prosecutor of the Security Organization." Modjtahedi replied,
"I heard you, Colonel. I heard that you are the prosecutor. You can
arrest me right now. I'm at your service, but you cannot take any of the
students at Alborz High School." In any gathering of Alborz alumni,
anecdotes of his actions abound, with the warmth and feeling of soldiers
remembering their commander's heroism in wartime.
After the February 1979 Islamic Revolution, Dr. Modjtahedi found his
new circumstances untenable and asked his friend and former colleague,
Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, to allow him to relinquish his post at Alborz.
Also see excerpts
of Mojtahedi discussing his last days at Alborz and his views about Mohammad
Reza Shah and Reza Shah.
Purchase Memoirs of M. A. Modjtahedi
from Ibix Publishers
