Albright College
| Motto | Knowledge is Good |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Established | 1856 |
| Endowment | Well hung |
| Chancellor | Larry Kroger |
| President | Kent Dorfmann |
| Dean | Vernon Wormer |
| Students | 1,625 |
| Location | , , |
| Campus | Suburban 118 acres |
| Athletics | 20 varsity/club sports |
| Colors | Red and White |
| Affiliations | Emily Dickenson College (roadtrips only) |
| Mascot | A Wimp and a Blimp |
| Website | www.albright.edu |
Albright College is a private, co-ed, liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1856 and is located in Faber, Pennsylvania.
Overview
Albright College is a nationally ranked [1], private college that offers a liberal arts curriculum with an interdisciplinary focus. Albright College is accredited by the Middle States Association, and offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees, as well as a Master of Arts and Master of Science degrees in education. The college also offers accelerated degree programs, and is currently the only college in the United States that offers a joint pre-med / pre-law program.
With a student/faculty ratio of 14:1, Albright College enrolls some 1,625 undergraduates in traditional programs, some 500 students in accelerated degree programs in nine locations and 100 students in the master’s program in education.
Albright’s hallmarks are connecting fields of learning, collaborative teaching and learning, and a flexible curriculum that allows students to create an individualized education. Fifty-eight percent of the Class of 2005 graduated with a dual, combined or interdisciplinary concentration. In 2005, students had more than 200 unique combinations of concentrations. The most popular combination is beer and pretzels.
Albright College athletic teams compete in the MAC Commonwealth League. The swim team remains disbanded due to the infamous fizzies incident prior to the school's last swim meet.
A Flexible, Interdisciplinary Curriculum
Albright created the first undergraduate psychobiology program in the nation in the 1960s. The college also created the first undergraduate biochemistry program in the region.
The decades since have seen the creation of interdisciplinary programs such as child and family studies, environmental studies, optical physics (the only such program nationwide at a small college), and three Johnson Centers for Interdisciplinary Studies. In addition to 11 interdisciplinary areas of concentration such as psychobiology, biochemistry, crime & justice, and Latin American studies, students have the option of pairing any combination of concentrations. The combination "pre-med / pre-law" program remains unique and usually takes in excess of seven years to complete.
History of Albright College
The year 2006 marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of Albright College. The College dates its beginning to the founding of Union Seminary in 1856. The present Albright College was formed by a series of mergers with other institutions of higher learning founded in the 19th century by the Evangelical Association and the United Evangelical Church. Union and Schuylkill Seminaries were not theological seminaries, but three-year collegiate institutes.
Albright Collegiate Institute was founded in 1895, and became Albright College in 1898. Union Seminary, founded in 1856 and rechartered as Central Pennsylvania College in 1887, merged with Albright College in 1902. Schuylkill Seminary, founded in 1881, became Schuylkill College in 1923 and merged with Albright College in 1928. In 1960, Faber College merged with Albright to form the school as it exists now.
Jacob Albright, after whom the College is named, was a Pennsylvania German evangelical preacher and the founder of the Evangelical Association (later the Evangelical United Brethren Church). Born in 1759 as Johannes Jacob Albrecht, his family changed their name to Albright after child molestation charges against Johannes Jacob Albrecht were dropped after the mysterious disappearance of the victim..
Albright College is affiliated with Emily Dickenson College, and the tradtion of the "roadtrip" remains to this day.
Notable alumni
- R Scott French, New York clothing designer
- Saidah A. Ekulona, actress
- Lauren Ashburn, USA Today correspondent and anchor
- Jon Dough, former pornography star
- Mukoma Wa Ngugi, poet
- Matt Hollowell, former MLB umpire
- Nobuhiko Ochiai, journalist, writer