Albright College

Albright College
Motto Veritas et Justitia
Motto in English
 Truth and Justice
Type Private
Established 1856
Affiliation United Methodist Church
Endowment $63 million[1]
President Jacquelyn S. Fetrow, PhD '82
Students 2,320
Undergraduates 1,800 traditional day and about 700 Accelerated Degree programs and graduate students
Location Reading, Pennsylvania, United States
Campus Suburban
118 acres (48 ha)
Colors Red and white
Athletics NCAA Division III
MAC Commonwealth[2]
Nickname Lions
Website www.albright.edu

Albright College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college. It was founded in 1856 and is located in Reading, Pennsylvania, United States.

Albright College has been named one of the "Best Northeastern" schools for 14 consecutive years by The Princeton Review.[3][4][5] Albright College has also been named one of the most ethnically and economically diverse schools in the country by U.S News and World Report. In the “Campus Ethnic Diversity” category, as part of its 2018 Best Colleges rankings, U.S. News ranked Albright 33rd out of 208 national liberal arts colleges.[6] In the “Economic Diversity” category, Albright ranked 27th out of 210 national liberal arts schools named.[7] The Economist magazine listed Albright among the top 50 American colleges and universities for economic value in 2015.[8]

Academics

Albright College 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 10 locations throughout Pennsylvania.

Albright offers liberal arts and pre-professional programs. It created one of the first undergraduate psychobiology programs in the nation in the 1960s. The college's liberal arts curriculum has an interdisciplinary focus that allows students to create an individualized education. Fully half of Albright students have concentrations that combine two or three fields of learning.[9]

Three Albright programs that have received national attention in the past decade are fashion, theatre, and music.[10] Albright was named one of the nation's top private fashion merchandising schools in 2015, 2016 and 2017 by Fashion-Schools.org.[11][12][13] The theatre program has been honored by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival consistently for the past 15 years.[10] The Albright College Domino Players' production of Clybourne Park was named one of the best collegiate theatrical productions in the country by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in 2016. The national award recognized "Clybourne Park" for outstanding production of a play.[14] The Music Industry Studies program at Albright College has been recognized as one of the top 35 music business programs in North America by Billboard magazine. [15]

The Albright Creative Research Experience (ACRE) is a multi-disciplinary program that affords undergraduate students the opportunity to conduct research or pursue creative endeavors during the three-week January Interim or summer break. The students, who work one-on-one with faculty members, can be from any discipline, from STEM subjects to the humanities.[10]

History

Berks County's oldest institute of higher learning, Albright College traces its founding to 1856 when Union Seminary opened. Present-day Albright was formed by the mergers of several institutions.

Albright Collegiate Institute opened in 1895 and was renamed Albright College three years later. Union Seminary became Central Pennsylvania College and, in 1902, merged with Albright College. Schuylkill College, previously called Schuylkill Seminary, merged with Albright College in 1928. Albright's campus relocated from Myerstown, to Schuylkill College’s campus, which is the present location of Albright, at the base of Mount Penn in Reading.

The College is named for Pennsylvania-German evangelical preacher Jacob Albright, who founded the Evangelical Association (later known as the Evangelical United Brethren Church). Born in 1759 in Douglass Township, (now Montgomery County) with the given name of Johannes Jacob Albrecht, the family changed their surname to "Albright" following Jacob's 1808 death.[9]

Athletics

Albright College athletic teams compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III as a member of the Middle Atlantic Conferences.

Notable individuals and events

Charles "Pop" Kelchner founded the men's basketball team in 1900 and was athletic director at Albright College for 21 years. He was involved in aspects of Major League Baseball for over 50 years. Albright College dedicated the baseball field as Kelchner Field in 1952. Branch Rickey gave the dedication speech, with Connie Mack in attendance. Kelchner was a graduate of Lafayette College with two degrees and was proficient in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Classical Latin and Greek. He served as Professor of Languages and athletic director.[16]

Clarence Lester "Biggie" Munn (September 11, 1908 – March 18, 1975) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He was the head football coach at Albright College (1935–1936), Syracuse University (1946), and most notably Michigan State College (1947–1953), where his 1952 squad won a national championship. Munn retired from coaching in 1953 to assume duties as Michigan State's athletic director, a position he held until 1971.

William "Lone Star" Dietz was the Director of Athletics and head football coach at Albright from 1937 to 1942. Dietz led the football team to their first undefeated season in 1937. He previously led Washington State to 1916 Rose Bowl victory. In the National Football League, Dietz had coached the Boston "Redskins" (1933–1934), the forerunner of the Washington Redskins. Dietz is in the Albright College Athletic Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.[17]

In 1948, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) and Albright College played the first intercollegiate football game between an Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) institution and a majority-white institution.[18]

Dr. Wilbur G. Renken was athletic director and basketball head coach for 38 consecutive seasons. A highly regarded figure in collegiate athletics in general and specifically basketball, Renken was the president of the United States Olympic Basketball Team Selection Committee for the 1976 Olympic Games.[19] He also served as the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) in 1979–1980.[20]

On October 11, 2017, sophomore backup quarterback Gyree Durante was dismissed from the football team for kneeling during the national anthem before the team's game against Delaware Valley University, going against a collective team decision made before the game to kneel for the coin toss and stand for the anthem.[21] President Fetrow later offered reinstatement to the team to Durante (and two other players who did not fully kneel during the coin toss), saying that further review of the details surrounding the game's events found that "what we understood to be shared agreement among players, student leaders and coaches has not been adequately supported.”[22]. Durante, however, declined reinstatement, citing his former teammates' stated lack of trust in him.[23]

WXAC

Albright's campus radio station, WXAC 91.3 FM[24] is a student-operated college radio station. The initial call name was WALC, but was later changed to WXAC on March 8, 1965. WALC had been the same call name for the Alcoa Steamship Lines.

Notable alumni

References

  1. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 15, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  2. ↑ "Albright College Athletics Website". Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  3. ↑ "Best Northeastern - The Princeton Review". www.PrincetonReview.com. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  4. ↑ "Albright College Named One of the Best Schools in the Northeast for 14th Consecutive Year". www.Albright.edu. Archived from the original on September 12, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Albright, Kutztown on list of top schools - Reading Eagle - NEWS". ReadingEagle.com. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  6. ↑ https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/campus-ethnic-diversity
  7. ↑ https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/economic-diversity
  8. ↑ "Our first-ever college rankings". Economist.com. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  9. 1 2 "Albright College - Mission, History and Tradition". Archived from the original on December 6, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 "Reading's Albright College pioneers flexible, interdisciplinary learning". KeystoneEdge.com. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Top 25 Private Fashion Merchandising Schools and Colleges – 2015 - Fashion Schools". www.Fashion-Schools.org. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  12. ↑ "Top 25 Private Fashion Merchandising Schools and Colleges in the US – 2016 - Fashion Schools". www.Fashion-Schools.org. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  13. ↑ "Top 25 Private Fashion Merchandising Schools and Colleges – 2017 - Fashion Schools". www.Fashion-Schools.org. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Spotlight: theater awards, jazz opera, breaking into acting, auditions - Reading Eagle - LIFE". ReadingEagle.com. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  15. ↑ "Billboard Magazine Ranks Albright's Music Business Program as One of Best in North America". www.Albright.edu. Archived from the original on September 1, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  16. ↑ "Baseball Reference Bullpen: Pop Kelchner". Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  17. ↑ "Lone Star Dietz Website". Archived from the original on August 18, 2007. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  18. ↑ "Vernon "Skip" McCain/UMES Football Reinstatement Fund Second Quarter 2007 Report". Archived from the original on June 14, 2011. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  19. ↑ "Olympic Review No. 105-106 July - August 1976" (PDF). Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  20. ↑ "NABC Presidents".
  21. ↑ Boren, Cindy (October 11, 2017). "'I was just taught you fight for what you believe in': A college football player is cut for kneeling during the anthem". Retrieved October 20, 2017 – via www.WashingtonPost.com.
  22. ↑ "Albright College offers to reinstate dismissed football players - Reading Eagle - NEWS". ReadingEagle.com. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  23. ↑ Shuey, Karen (October 18, 2017). "Albright backup quarterback says he won't rejoin team despite school's invitation". Reading Eagle. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  24. ↑ "Home". 30 December 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2016.

Coordinates: 40°21′36″N 75°54′43″W / 40.360°N 75.912°W / 40.360; -75.912

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