American University of Paris

Founded by Dr. Lloyd DeLamater, a then 40-year-old US Foreign Service officer, in 1962 as the American College in Paris (ACP), the university was renamed 26 years later as The American University of Paris (AUP).[6]

ACP was initially a two-year junior college located in the American Church in Paris. Its inaugural class consisted of 100 students, many of whom were children of American service members and expatriates living in France and Europe. Fifteen part-time professors taught courses in Economics, English, Fine Arts, Government History, French, German, Spanish, Mathematics, Philosophy, and Sociology. In 1964, the first 40 students received their diplomas for two years of study, going on to complete their degree in the United States.[7][8]

Another key aspect of the university’s curriculum was its Cultural Program, originally set up by Marie DeLamater, Lloyd DeLamater’s wife, and Walter J. Brennan, the first Director of the Cultural Program. The program aimed to provide students with the opportunity to visit museums, monuments, and other cities in order to contextualize theory learned in class.[9] The Cultural Program Office is still organising study trips at AUP today.[10]

ACP's student body changed with time, in part due to the decrease of US military presence in Europe. Thirteen years after its founding, over half of the student body was non-American. In 1978, ACP became an accredited four-year, degree-granting college, which was followed by the change of its name to The American University of Paris in 1988.[6] In the year 2006, the University expanded its course offerings to include master’s courses.[11] Most recently, the University has consolidated its campus, acquiring several new buildings in the seventh arrondissement: the largest of which is the Quai d’Orsay Learning Commons, on the same street as the American Church in which the University began.[12]

The American University of Paris is accredited in the United States by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The American University of Paris is a non-profit educational institution incorporated in the state of Delaware and licensed by the State Board of Education as a Delaware institution of higher education. The American University of Paris is registered in the United States as a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit organization.

The university confers Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts, and Master of Science degrees accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. The institution is authorized to offer bachelor's and master's degrees through the State of Delaware.

The American University of Paris is declared to the Rectorat de Paris as an établissement privé d'enseignement supérieur libre, and has maintained this right to ouverture since 1964. Like other officially US-accredited diplomas, AUP's bachelor's degrees are recognized as an equivalent to the French Licence (BAC+3). This allows AUP students to apply for graduate studies within the French higher education system following the completion of their undergraduate degree.

AUP degrees are also separately recognized by the Ministries of Higher Education in Norway, and Turkey.[13]

Undergraduate students are encouraged to take part in the Global Professional Skills (GPS) Program, which launched in spring 2017. The aim of GPS is to improve career-focused skills and help students develop a personal narrative that will benefit them after graduation. Running throughout a student’s entire time at AUP, the program ends with an opportunity to present a personal narrative to a panel of alumni, employers, and faculty. The winning submission receives an award at graduation.[20]

In addition, the GPS Program brings together students’ co-curricular achievements on a personal co-curricular record (CCR). Students’ activities are registered from semester to semester through attendance tracking, synced through AUP’s student-facing online campus activity platform (AUP Engage). Students who complete GPS Program requirements will also earn a GPS Certificate and a mention of GPS achievement is added to their official AUP academic transcript.[21]

The GPS program is structured around AUP’s faculty-defined four core capabilities:[22]

• Professional: Independent, Creative Thinkers
• Cultural Fluency: Adaptable Communicators with a Global Perspective
• Leadership: Responsible, Empowered Leaders
• Personal: Engaged, Lifelong Learners

The GPS Program consists of the following three program requirements plus a fourth optional Panel Presentation.[23]

1. Minimum involvement requirement. This is referred to as the GPS path, which lives on AUP Engage. This involves attending a minimum number of events and activities that feed into each of the four pillars listed above.
2. Designing Your Narrative (DYN) Workshop. This design thinking workshop for seniors (open to all, regardless of GPS participation) helps students make explicit the connections between experiences at university and post-graduation plans. This two-hour workshop promotes strategies for how students can “pitch” themselves to prospective employers, graduate school admissions decision-makers, investors, etc. They are given the guidelines for how to translate all of this into their Personal Narrative – the third and final requirement for the GPS Program.
3. Personal Narrative Submission. Students identify a specific objective, and then construct a narrative imagining they are presenting themselves in the context of that objective – to an employer, graduate school admissions counsellor, angel investor, etc. The format of the narrative is open, but common formats include PowerPoint/Prezi, video, website, portfolio, essay, etc.
4. (Optional) Panel Presentations and Coaching Sessions. In addition to the three program requirements, GPS seniors have the option to present their personal narrative to a panel of AUP alumni, employers, and faculty in April of their senior year. Participants get immediate constructive feedback on their presentations, and top presenters are invited to the GPS President’s panel, which takes place during the GPS Award Ceremony, just before commencement. To prepare for the panel presentations (and in so doing, prepare for interviews), the Careers and Internships Office organizes a large number of collective drop-in style coaching sessions.

The Cultural Program provides students with the opportunity to participate in cultural excursions, faculty-led study trips, and other activities. They range from one-day trips to month-long excursions to a variety of destinations across the globe including London, Iceland, Rome, Fez and Auroville, India.[24] The Coup de Pouce fund gives students the possibility to apply for financial assistance for faculty-led study trips.[25]

The atrium library in the Learning Commons.

The university is located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, on the left bank and in close proximity to the Eiffel Tower, the Seine River and the Invalides. Its urban campus consists of seven buildings.[3]

In 2014, the university began a campus renovation plan to renovate every university building. The Combes building was renovated in 2014 and became the Combes Student Life Center, housing the university's own AMEX Café, student clubs, student government, the Thamer Salman Media Center, and the Joy and Edward Frieman Environmental Science Center, as well as art studios, faculty offices, classrooms and the AUP Fine Arts Gallery.[26] The gallery, founded in 2003 by Professor Emeritus Ralph Petty, has welcomed over 120 exhibitions to date and is today curated by Jonathan Shimony, a Professor of Fine Arts.[27]

In the summer of 2015, the university's administration moved into a renovated building on Boulevard de La Tour-Maubourg.[26] In 2019, the university finished renovations on a newly acquired building, which is now known as the Quai d'Orsay Learning Commons. The building consists of 2000 square meters over ten floors. It houses the AUP Library, Academic Resource Center, and an integrated center for academic, career and experiential advising. It connects to the Combes Student Life Center via a glass atrium. The two buildings together form the Student Life and Learning Commons, which between them centralize all student services in a single building complex.[12] Finally, the Monttessuy Center for the Arts was created in the library's former home at 9, rue de Monttessuy, which houses classrooms, studio spaces and the university's first auditorium, the Olivia de Havilland Theater.[28]

The university library, open to the AUP community, is located in the Quai d'Orsay Learning Commons. The library offers students over 41,000 books, more than 545,000 electronic books, 2,900 DVDs and videos and additional access to other libraries around Paris. The university library also provides online resources including e-books, e-encyclopedias, e-journals, and full text databases. Group study rooms and reading areas, wireless Internet access, electrical outlets for laptops, and flat screens are available. The library's staff assists with research and provides information concerning additional resources in Paris.[29]

The first sports team at the university was founded one year after the university's creation in 1962. Over the following decades, other sports teams were introduced, some of which are still active at AUP today, including volleyball and equestrian sports.[4]

After the re-establishment of a small sports activities program in Fall 2008, today's teams participate regularly in Regional University Championships (CRSU) with various teams.[30] Students can go to tryouts and integrate competitive teams, but also have the possibility to engage in recreational activities.[31]

Due to its collaboration with local sports clubs and fitness companies, AUP students benefit from preferential deals for gym memberships. The Athletics Office also supports students in launching their own sports team/club at the university.[32]

The AUP Athletics Office also organizes charity events, to which student athletes contribute.[30]

The university hosts 1,115 students with over 100 nationalities represented on campus.

Students have the opportunity to learn and meet other students through clubs and organizations, including AUP for Consent, AUP Oslo Pax Club, Migrant Justice Club, the Debate and Politics Club, AUP Cares (philanthropic club), AUP Green (environmental club), the Student Government Association (SGA), and the Graduate Student Council (GSC).[33]

Students also manage student-run media production for print, digital and broadcast media. They produce the Peacock Magazine, write articles for The Plume, a news student-run news website, and film videos for Peacock TV, the university's own student-run video production club. The AUP Radio Club also organizes a daily radio show.[34] The university supports student media through three media workshops that allow students to get involved in production teams, overseen by faculty and staff.[35]

Students live in the city of Paris. All incoming first-year, transfer, and visiting students are required to arrange their housing through the university, either in a shared student apartment, or in a home stay. Graduate students or returning undergraduate students have the option of searching for an independent apartment with the assistance of the Office of Residential Life.[36]

The Academic Resource Center (ARC) was created to link technology to the curriculum and to supplement academic support services at the university. Located in the Quai d’Orsay Learning Commons, ARC provides multiple services to students, including library research stations and video production equipment, peer tutoring services, and a writing lab.[37]

• Jim Bittermann - senior European correspondent for CNN in Paris
• Oliver Feltham - philosopher
• Matthew Fraser - British-Canadian academic, author and former journalist. He was the former editor at the Post and co-hosted a weekly CBC Newsworld television show, "Inside Media"
• Hall Gardner - professor of International Politics
• Ziad Majed - political researcher
• Ali Rahnema - economist and historian

The university has over 20,000 alumni who work and live in 145 countries.[38] A study of more recent graduates indicates that 93% are employed or pursue graduate studies within one year of graduation. The majority of alumni report that AUP was helpful in their career paths. Half of alumni reported that they were pursuing graduate or professional studies three years out. Nine out of ten alumni are fluent in two or more languages, and 87% say that their careers have an international element. More than half also having worked in a country not native to them.[39]

Individuals of note who have attended the university include:

• Cleo von Adelsheim - German noblewoman and actress
• Diana Álvares Pereira de Melo, 11th Duchess of Cadaval - Portuguese noblewoman
• Tarak Ben Ammar - movie producer and distributor
• Pamella Bordes - Indian model, photographer and Femina Miss India Universe 1982
• Andrea Casiraghi - fourth in line to the Monegasque throne
• KC Concepcion - actress, singer, VJ, model, stage actress and ambassador against hunger of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP)
• Eva Green - French actress and model
• Tara Jarmon - Canadian fashion designer
• Alex Ko - Broadway star Billy Elliot the Musical; author; award-winning film writer/director
• Claire Lademacher - German bioethicist and princess of Luxembourg
• Peggy Lehner - former Ohio State Senator
• Olivia Palermo - American socialite, features on the MTV reality show The City
• Fernando Rees - Brazilian professional race car driver
• Daniel Rose - American chef based in Paris
• Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi – translator, art curator and journalist
• Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis - German princess and blogger
• Michael J. Varhola - American author, editor, and publisher
• Michael Weatherly - American actor

• American University (disambiguation) for a list of similarly-named institutions
• The American University of Rome
• The American University in Cairo
• AUC Press
• Cairo International Model United Nations
• American University of Sharjah (AUS)
• American University of Beirut (AUB)
• American University of Iraq - Sulaimani (AUI)
• American University in Dubai (AUD)
• The American University of Kurdistan

Wikimedia Commons has media related to American University of Paris.

• Official website