The Yerevan-based AUA came under a barrage of harsh criticism from government ministers, pro-government lawmakers and other Civil Contract figures in July after one of its faculty members attacked Pashinian and his family in an offensive social media post. The lecturer, Samvel Farmanian, has held a seat in the Armenian parliament and worked as former President Serzh Sarkisian’s press secretary in the past.
The uproar from Pashinian’s political team continued even after the AUA administration condemned the post and Farmanian announced his resignation. In particular, Taguhi Ghazarian, a parliament deputy from Civil Contract, accused the prestigious university of supporting Pashinian’s political opponents. She recalled that 45 AUA professors signed a petition calling for Pashinian’s resignation in the wake of Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
Ghazarian, who first joined the AUA in 2023 as a teaching assistant in Armenian language and literature, also complained that the university administration did not renew her short-term contract.
“The closer the election period gets, the more obvious it is that Civil Contract’s representation at the university is decreasing and disappearing,” she told a pro-government news website.
An AUA representative told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Wednesday that Ghazarian has been rehired and currently works as adjunct lecturer there.
On Tuesday, the university announced that Pashinian’s chief adviser, Lilit Makunts, has been appointed as a new member of its Board of Trustees, replacing a prominent Armenian academic who died last year. In a statement, it said that she will bring to the board an “extensive record of service in Armenia’s public sector.”
Makunts, 41, taught English at the Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan and reportedly tutored Pashinian in the foreign language before the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought him to power. She was catapulted to the post of culture minister right after the regime change. She subsequently served as the ruling party’s nominal parliamentary leader and Armenia’s ambassador to the United States.
Earlier this month, the AUA released a video that featured Health Minister Anahit Avanesian and showed her praising a nursing program launched by its College of Health Sciences in 2022. Avanesian too had joined in the uproar caused by Farmanian’s post, saying that the university administration seems to be engaged in a “political persecution” of Armenian government loyalists.
The AUA, which is affiliated with University of California, was founded in 1991 with the help of Armenian philanthropists in the United States as well as Armenia’s first post-Communist government. It has since expanded significantly and become of the country’s most reputable universities.