San Francisco Gate, CA
Sept 8 2014
UC helps build resources, revenue at private Armenian university
Academic, financial advisers help build resources, revenue
Nanette Asimov
Wedged like a peach pit surrounded by Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Iran sits a nation half the size of Lake Michigan with great weather,
ancient history, and a dazzling private university run largely by –
that’s right – the University of California.
Its students have the freedom to choose their own classes. They can
spar with faculty. And, most unusually for Armenia, they don’t need to
bribe a professor for a better grade.
Aimée Dorr, UC’s provost, is a trustee of the American University of
Armenia, which opened to undergraduates for the first time last year.
Eight other UC professors, deans, finance executives and retired
leaders and academics also sit on its 22-member Board of Trustees.
Karl Pister, former chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, is one of them. Larry
Pitts, ex-UC provost, is chairman of the board – a role retiring UC
provosts agree to take on.
The new president of the Armenian university is a professor on leave
from UC Berkeley. Now he gazes out at Mount Ararat from campus instead
of Mount Tamalpais.
“Armenia is a very old country – almost like an open-air museum with
churches and monasteries going back to the fourth century. But there’s
no gate and no ticket to buy,” said Armen Der Kiureghian, 66, a civil
engineering professor from Cal who started the job on July 1. “We’re
hoping that some American students will be interested in studying at
an American university abroad. We’d be a natural.”
Academic quality is high, he said. “The diploma is accredited by the
same organization that accredits Berkeley and Stanford.”
Rigorous evaluations
Like those stellar establishments, the American University of Armenia
undergoes a rigorous review of standards every seven years from the
Western Association of Schools and Colleges in Alameda. The evaluators
are volunteers from UC campuses, California State University and two
private American colleges. They travel at the school’s expense.
No UC money flows to the Armenian university, UC officials say. What
flows eastward is “just know-how,” Der Kiureghian said. “No financial
contributions.”
The know-how does include legal and investment help. The trustees –
officially the American University of Armenia Corp. – rent an office
from UC in Oakland’s Kaiser Center and invest their funds in UC’s
general endowment pool. UC’s controller, Peggy Arrivas, chairs their
finance committee.
“We are there as rooters, supporters and revenue generators for the
university,” said Pitts, the former UC provost who chairs not only the
Armenian University’s Board of Trustees but also its Board of
Directors, which raises funds for salaries, taxes and health care.
Yet others say UC offers the Armenian university – and its students –
something deeper.
“It’s changing the moral fiber of the country,” said Judson King,
director of Cal’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, referring to
the rare chances the school provides for Armenian students to have
academic freedom in a region where universities typically exert more
control than in the West.
Until last year, the university offered only graduate-level programs.
Now its first undergraduates – almost 300 students – have completed
their first year at a school unlike any other in Armenia and are
starting their second alongside a new crew of freshmen. One obvious
difference is that everything is in English.
“I love this university,” said Shahane Arushanyan, a computer science
major who learned English at Ayb High School in Yerevan. “I even go
there during the holidays, because it is like a home for me.”
Students like the freedom to choose their own major – not always
possible in Armenian universities – and the ability to take classes
alongside students studying other fields. They appreciate browsing
library shelves on their own, rather than having to ask for every book
that interests them. And they like being able to disagree with their
professors – without having it affect their grade.
No more bribes
The only way to get a better grade at the UC-affiliated school is to
work for it, students said. Unlike faculty at some Armenian schools,
professors take no payment in exchange for favors.
“The most famous type of corruption is bribing for admissions exams
and graduation exams,” said Maria Sargsyan, who is also studying
computer science and entering her second year. “I remember when I was
forced to give teachers money for buying presents for the headmaster
of my high school. I also remember when some of my classmates bribed
for not going to school and having good grades with zero absences.”
The unfamiliar Western approach caused “educational shock” for Edita
Sahakyan last year.
“The differences between AUA undergraduate program and that of other
Armenian universities are really significant,” said the math and
programming major, marveling at the “library with wide opportunities,”
the fact that professors hold office hours to field questions, and the
chance for students to hold jobs on campus.
The university offers just three undergraduate degrees as yet:
business, computer science, and “English and communications.” Annual
tuition for business costs the most, at 1.5 million drams, or $3,663.
The others are $2,637 each. As with UC, qualified students who can’t
afford it pay no tuition.
International students pay about twice the in-country rate, so Bay
Area students eyeing the Armenian university as a way to get a
top-shelf education on the cheap would pay just about half of UC’s
$12,192 tuition for California residents.
The campus also offers eight masters programs and a few part-time and
non-degree-granting courses.
The university’s story begins with the huge 6.8-magnitude earthquake
that hit northern Armenia on Dec. 7, 1988, and killed at least 25,000
people, injured more than 30,000, and flattened villages. Among the
Americans who went there to help was Der Kiureghian, then a young Cal
professor.
Stunned by the extent of the damage and the substandard construction
that caused hospitals to collapse and kill scores of doctors, Der
Kiureghian returned a year later.
“I realized not much had been done in terms of studying the reasons
for the damage and the loss,” he said. “It was very disappointing.”
What was needed, he thought, was an outstanding research university of
the kind that in the United States would have been all over an
earthquake region puzzling out causes and seeking solutions.
Der Kiureghian wrote a proposal and contacted colleagues.
On Sept. 21, 1991, the day the Soviet Republic of Armenia became an
independent nation, the American University of Armenia opened with 101
graduate students.
It would take another 22 years for the teenagers to arrive.
Able to stay in Armenia
Now the university “provides them with the opportunity to receive an
American-accredited higher education without leaving their country,”
said Bruce Boghosian, a math professor from Tufts who was president of
the Armenian university from 2010 until July.
“Many, many parents have told me that they had been planning to send
their college-age student abroad for their undergraduate education,”
he said. “They were very relieved to know that they could stay in
Armenia, keep the family together, and their child would receive a
world-class education.”
Of course, if Armenian students want a UC-style education, they may
need to practice certain activities common on UC campuses besides
studying.
“Last summer, when the fee to the public transport was raised, they
protested and finally achieved their purpose of decreasing it again,”
Sahakyan said.
For now, she said, no one is protesting tuition at the American
University of Armenia.
“The tuition fee in Armenia is quite little.”
http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-helps-build-resources-revenue-at-private-5740477.php