On 23 July 1622, Archbishop Paris Lodron appointed the scholar Albert Keuslin first rector of the Benedictine university.

Keuslin, a graduate of the Jesuit University of Dillingen, had established the Akademisches Gymnasium, a secondary school, at Salzburg five years earlier.

After Salzburg was annexed by the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810, however, the university was closed on 24 December and replaced by a Lyzeum college with sections for divinity and philosophy, as well as a school for medicine and surgery.

[citation needed] The traditional faculty building of Humanities (Communication Studies, Sociology and Political Science) is located by the Rudolfskai.

[citation needed] Completed in 2011, the Unipark Nonntal campus (replacing the old location at the Akademiestraße) is home to the departments of modern languages, and cultural and social sciences.

Financing for the construction of the Unipark Nonntal was enabled by successful negotiations between Salzburg’s state governor Franz Schausberger and the Federal Ministry of Education.