Albright College

Albright College

Motto	Veritas et Justitia
Motto in English	Truth and Justice
Established	1856
Type	Private
Affiliation	United Methodist Church
Endowment	$52 million[1]
President	Lex O. McMillan, III
Students	2,335
Undergraduates	1,700 traditional day and about 800 accelerated degree program and graduate students
Location	Reading, Pennsylvania, USA
Campus	Suburban 118 acres (48 ha)
Colors	Red and White
Athletics	23 varsity/club sports[2]
Mascot	Lion
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, United States.

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 does not require applicants to take the SAT or submit SAT scores; submission of these scores is optional.

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.^[3]

History

Berks County's oldest institute of higher learning, Albright College traces its founding to 1856 when Union Seminary opened. Present-day Albright was actually 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, Pa., 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, Pa., (now Montgomery County) with the given name of Johannes Jacob Albrecht, the family changed their surname to "Albright" following Jacob's 1808 death.^[4]

Athletics

Albright College athletic teams compete in the Middle Atlantic Conference.

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.^[5]

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 NFL, 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.^[6]

In 1948, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) and Albright College played the first intercollegiate football game between an Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) institution and a majority-white institution.^[7]

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, Dr. Renken was the President of the United States Olympic Basketball Team Selection Committee for the 1976 Olympic Games.^[8] He also served as the President of the NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches) in 1979–1980^[9]

WXAC

Albright's campus radio station, WXAC 91.3 FM^[10] is a student-operated college radio station.

Notable alumni

• Brent Hurley '01, YouTube co-founder^[11][12]

• Brian Turtle ’95, Craig Fass ’96 and Mike Ginelli ’95 created “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” while students at Albright in 1994. What started as a campus parlor game, with players challenged to connect any actor to Bacon in six steps or less, soon morphed into a global social phenomenon.^[13] In 2014, after appearing at South by Southwest with Bacon to mark the game's 20th anniversary, Turtle said Albright was the perfect place for the game to develop. “Albright is an incubator for creativity," he said. "We were snowed in watching a movie and this whole thing spawns out. It’s nice that Albright can cultivate that kind of seed.”^[14]

• Matthew Urbanski '85, a landscape architect and principal of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. Collaborating with Van Valkenburgh, he was a lead designer of Brooklyn Bridge Park; Alumnae Valley at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass.; Allegheny Riverfront Park in Pittsburgh; and Teardrop Park in New York City.^[15] He is an Associate Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.^[16]

• Joseph Spagnoletti '86, Senior Vice President - Chief Information Officer of Campbell Soup Company. He was named one of the Top 50 Distinguished CIOs in 2012.^[17]

• Homer Gilbert, "Knuckles Boyle" football player

• ^[18]

• The Honorable Patricia Jenkins ’73, appointed in December 2013 to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
• Saidah Arrika Ekulona ’92 is an actress who starred in the play, “Ruined,” which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She has also starred in TV shows such as Law & Order: SVU, Scandal and General Hospital.^[19]

• Bob Spitz ’71, a noted celebrity biographer. A longtime musician, Spitz managed both Bruce Springsteen and Elton John. He is the author of several books, including Barefoot in Babylon, the eye-opening documentary of the Woodstock Music Festival, and The Beatles, his definitive bestselling biography of the phenomenal super group.^[20]

• James A. Morrison ’64 (aka: J.J. Dillon), is a retired professional American wrestler and manager of “The Four Horsemen,” and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012 J.J. Dillon^[21]

• George "Stormy" Petrol, played professional football for the Providence Steamrollers, coached at University of New Mexico for almost 40 years in four different sports (baseball, swimming, football and golf)^[22]

• Lieutenant General Steven A. Hummer, USMC '77, among the leading officers of the United States Marine Corps, has held numerous assignments including as Commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve and Marine Forces Northern Command. He is presently Deputy to Commander for the USMC operations on the African continent.^[23]

References

External links

• Albright College website
• Albright College Athletics website