Albright College

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Albright College

Motto: Truth and Justice
Established: 1856
Type: Private
Endowment: $45.7 million[1]
President: Lex O. McMillan III
Students: 1,650
Location: Reading, Pennsylvania, USA
Campus: Suburban
118 acres
Athletics: 20 varsity/club sports
Colors: Red and White
Mascot: Lion
Affiliations: United Methodist Church
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 Reading, Pennsylvania.

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[edit] Overview

Albright College is a 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.

With a student/faculty ratio of 13:1, Albright College enrolls some 1,650 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. By their senior year, about two-thirds of students have a dual, combined or interdisciplinary concentration. In 2007, students had more than 200 unique combinations of concentrations.

Albright College athletic teams compete in the MAC Commonwealth League.

Albright also participates in the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU)'s University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN).

[edit] Curriculum

Albright offers liberal arts and pre-professional programs. The college emphasizes the ability of students to combine fields of learning to create individualized and interdisciplinary majors. Albright has focused on interdiciplinary learning for decades. It 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.

[edit] History

The year 2006 marked 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.

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.

Albright College is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The beliefs of the Evangelical Association and the Methodist Church were closely related. In 1968 the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church merged to become the United Methodist Church.

[edit] Notable alumni

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