AUK

AUK > Overview > History and Mission

After the NATO intervention that ended the Kosovo war in 1999, a number of prominent Kosovars sought a way to honor and memorialize the role the United States played in that conflict. After much discussion, a major donation from the Union Fund for the Reconstruction of Kosova (UFORK) funded the start-up of the American University in Kosovo Foundation in 2002. The UFORK fund was the post-war balance of the money raised by the Kosovo diaspora during the 1990s to support the underground “parallel institutions” in Kosovo of the Kosovo   government-in-exile, headed by Prime Minister Bujar Bukoshi. This money represented small donations from tens of thousands of people, and AUK is always mindful that it was founded by the hard-earned contributions of the people of Kosovo.

AUK opened its doors in temporary facilities in 2003, in a house on Sunny Hill (Bregu i Djiellit) in Prishtina. The question of a permanent home for the university was settled in 2004 by the generous contribution of the Municipality of Prishtina of a lease on part of the former Shkolla Normale campus at Germia. A further, very generous contribution by Mr. Behgjet Paccolli, President of the Mabetex construction group, financed the conversion and rebuilding of what are now AUK’s two main buildings, allowing us to move to Germia in 2005.

The first undergraduate class of 57 students entered in 2003 and graduated in 2007. In the 2008-09 academic year, the undergraduate enrolment stood at 464, with an additional 55 students in Masters degree programs. With the freshmen class entering in September 2009 our undergraduate numbers passed 500 for the first time. These students come from 20 countries, and from every major ethnic community in Kosovo.

AUK was singled out in 2008 by the British Accreditation Council, as “a model of good practice for the delivery of undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes.” Another indicator of the quality of our education is that in the summer of 2009, 20 AUK graduates – one fifth of our graduating class – were awarded scholarships for postgraduate study at US and EU universities.

During AUK’s first five years, other highlights have included

• The contribution of the IPKO Institute’s information technology programs in 2004, to start the AUK Training and Development Institute (TDI)
• The commencement of the first RIT Master’s degree course, in 2005
• The startup of the Center for Energy and Natural Resources, funded by USAID in 2006
• The opening of Walker’s Cafeteria in 2006
• Opening of the AUK Library – now the Irv Metzger Memorial Library – in 2007
• The first Fulbright Scholarship exchanges of faculty with US universities, in 2007-08
• A record intake of 152 Freshman students in September 2008
• Funding for expansion of the Library and a new Multimedia Center, by the US Embassy – Prishtina in 2009
• Start of the first Masters program in public administration, for Kosovo Government civil servants, in 2009