President's Message

The idea of an American style graduate university in Armenia was developed at one of the bleakest moments of the history of Armenia, following the 1988 earthquake that resulted in an unprecedented level of destruction and casualties in recent memory. However, with the establishment of this University a moment of adversity was turned by its founders into positive achievement. The small group of people that planned AUA were agents of change who were able to see the historical opportunity to affect the lives of a large number of people.

The establishment and development of a University, outside the United States, based on the American model, was not an accident. The American higher educational system provides an approach that can help train the type of expertise Armenia and the region need to make the appropriate economic and social-developmental transitions at the start of the new millennium.

As primarily a graduate university, AUA is involved not only in imparting knowledge but also in developing actively new knowledge through research. The university is a direct participant in the sustainable long-term development of Armenia and its regions. Our Research Centers provide a venue through which students and faculty participate in that development.

The University provides an environment that encourages academic excellence, freedom of inquiry, personal integrity, and a concern for societal issues. As the educational programs evolve over the next few years, we hope to achieve more multi-disciplinary integration that helps develop the person beyond narrow technical expertise.

The students at AUA have a personal responsibility for their education. During their education, students have the opportunity to develop critical thinking and analytic reasoning as well as problem solving skills. These are some of the challenges that the new students have to face at AUA. This catalog is a window that the University opens on itself for those interested in the institution. It provides information about the programs, philosophy, people, and various rules that the University has established. However, we have to be aware that the University is a very active and dynamic system. There is a constant and lively pace of change at the American University of Armenia and what is presented in this catalog provides only a snapshot about the University at a fixed point in time. The AUA website at http://www.aua.am and http://www.aua-mirror.com is yet another source that, we hope, will continuously provide the most recent and up-to-date information about the University.

This is a higher educational institution that has been evolving at a number of levels. The challenges that the founders of AUA set forth for AUA will continue to be met on a daily basis by its faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

HAROUTUNE K. ARMENIAN
President of the American University of Armenia

Haroutune Armenian, M.D., Dr. P.H. is the President of the American University of Armenia, and the Dean of the College of Health Sciences. He is a Professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has served as the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut and has been the manager of a number of health manpower and health services development projects in numerous countries. His research focuses on chronic disease epidemiology, disaster and historical epidemiology using Armenian parish records.