During its first academic year, the university had a single faculty of history and linguistics, with 32 academic staff and 262 students. Historian Hakob Manandyan, linguist Manuk Abeghian, and historian Ashkharbek Kalantar along with Stepan Malkhasyants were among the first lecturers of the university. Later during the same year, the university was relocated to Yerevan and housed within the former Yerevan teachers' seminary building built between 1900 and 1906 on Astafyan Street (designed by architect Vasily Mirzoyan, currently home to the Faculty of Theology, Faculty of History and Faculty of Economics and Management).