On March 20, 1950, Emperor Haile Silassie I declared the foundation of the University College of Addis Ababa, which includes the faculties of Arts and Science. 

At the time there were only 33 students enrolled compared to the current number of 1874 undergraduate, 1111 extension, 982 MSc and 31 PhD students. Starting from only one diploma and certificate granting department, namely Biology, the Faculty today comprises six departments: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics and four programs namely Biothechnology, Food Science, Computational Science, Matreials Science and Environmental Science.

The number of academic staff members has grown from about ten in the early 50's to more than 160 currently. This year the number of prospective undergraduate students is 590 and about 190 students are expected to graduate with MSc.