American University of Armenia
 |
|
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Established | September 21, 1991 |
| President | Armen Der Kiureghian |
|
Academic staff
|
200 (fall 2015) |
| Students | 1,799 (fall 2016) |
| Undergraduates | 1,319 (fall 2016) |
| Postgraduates | 480 (fall 2016) |
| Location |
Yerevan, Armenia 40°11′35.85″N 44°30′16.26″E / 40.1932917°N 44.5045167°ECoordinates: 40°11′35.85″N 44°30′16.26″E / 40.1932917°N 44.5045167°E |
| Campus | Urban |
| Affiliations | University of California |
| Website | aua |
The American University of Armenia (AUA) (Armenian: Հայաստանի ամերիկյան համալսարան, ՀԱՀ; Hayastani amerikyan hamalsaran, HAH) is a private independent university in Yerevan, Armenia. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission. As of 2015, it is the first and sole U.S.-accredited institution in the former Soviet Union that provides undergraduate and graduate education.
It was founded in 1991 by the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), the University of California (UC), and the Armenian government during Armenia's first year of independence. The university is the first institution in Armenia modeled on Western-style higher education, committed to teaching, research, and service. The university offers master's degrees in eight fields and bachelor's degrees in three fields of study (the undergraduate program was introduced in 2013).
The idea of an American-style institution of higher education in Armenia has its origin the late 1980s. When Armenia was struck with a devastating earthquake in 1988 the country, then still part of the Soviet Union, was opened to unprecedented international humanitarian and technical assistance. A number of earthquake engineers from the West arrived to Armenia to help in the reconstruction of the disaster zone. In 1989, Yuri Sarkissian, then rector of the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute, suggested to Armen Der Kiureghian, Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, that an Armenian technical university based on the Western model ought to be established to foster educational progress in Armenia. The proposition was narrowed to the express goal of creating a graduate university on the American model. Der Kiureghian and another earthquake engineer, Mihran Agbabian, Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California, set out to realize the goal. A number of American and Armenian academics supported the concept of the university. Der Kiureghian and Agbabian, along with the late Stepan Karamardian, formerly Dean of the A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Riverside, presented their proposal for the university to the Armenian government. Agbabian became the founding president in 1991 and served until 1997.
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