The idea of opening an American-style institution of higher education in Armenia originated in the late 1980s . When Armenia was struck by 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 helped 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 creation 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 to the Armenian government . Agbabian became the founding president in 1991 and served until 1997
earthquake in 1988
1988 Armenian earthquake
American University of Armenia