A gathering in recognition of Samineh Baghchehban, eminent Iranian educator living in Santa Cruz, California, who will share her life-time teaching experience.

Samineh Baghchehban was born in 1927 in Tabriz, northwest of Iran. She completed her Bachelor’s degree at Teachers College, Tehran, and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to continue her studies in the United States. She received her Master’s degree from Smith College in 1953 and a scholarship for students from the Middle East was established in her name at Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, MA.

Mrs. Baghchehban has dedicated more than six decades of her life to teaching, teacher training, developing the Baghcheban method of teaching Persian to both Iranians and non-Iranians, writing elementary school textbooks that were used throughout Iran, and writing children’s books for both hearing and deaf children. Mrs. Bagchehban’s father, the late Jabbar Baghchehban, established the fi rst modern kindergarten of Iran in 1925 in Tabriz. He was also the founder of deaf education in Iran, developing a phonetic hand alphabet which is unique in its kind in the world. Initially trained by her father and mentor, Mrs. Baghchehban has kept the legacy of her late father alive by continuing his work and expanding it through establishing Iranian National Organization for the Welfare of the Deaf, sponsored by the Iranian Department of Health and Welfare. This organization established several schools for the deaf as well as centers for deaf communities, providing training for teachers, interpreters, and social workers. Graduates from these schools have now developed a dictionary of Persian sign language. Mrs Samineh Baghchehban’s publications include numerous text books, professional papers, and articles in Iranian journals. She has also translated several books from English to Persian.