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 to 10 years from the WASC Senior College and University Commission 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."