Welcome to the Website for our

          Prentiss M. Brown Honors Community

 
Albion's Prentiss M. Brown Honors Institute sponsors a number of educational opportunities and special events. Our curriculum consists of a series of four Great Issues courses in Science, Humanities, Fine Arts and Social Sciences, and culminates with a thesis project. For a link to descriptions of current honors course offerings click here:
 
Our home is the historically significant Observatory on the north side of the Albion College quadrangle (see photo). Honors students have twenty-four-hour access to the Observatory building. The Observatory is wi-fi, contains a fully equipped computer room, has a comfortable upstairs lounge in the honors thesis library, and is the site of the primary honors seminar room and offices. There is a unisex restroom on the first floor. Many of our social events occur in the Observatory—including movie critic nights, rootbeer “keggers ,” Euchre tournaments, and occasional games of trivial pursuit with honors faculty.

Several times a year, honors students take part in off-campus cultural field trips. We have traveled to Broadway plays at a number of sites in Michigan and have taken students to the Art Institute of Chicago following a campus-wide PMB honors convocation on Art History. Last  year we traveled to Chicago to spend a day museum-hopping and then spent the evening watching a play at the Annoyance Theatre. This fall, our students took a trip to Chicago for a day of museum hopping and an evening at Second City. This spring we are taking a mystery train tour.

The Brown Institute sponsors an overnight first-year retreat for all first year students early in the fall semester. Here we run mock honors seminars and engage in preparation for our fall convocation speaker by reading/listening and discussing the author or performer whom students have chosen for the year. We blow off steam by performing impromptu skits around a late night campfire (sometimes shockingly acerbic portrayals of campus life). Upper class honors students have an opportunity to work with new students concerning College life and success at Albion College. Many friends are made.

There are other social and cultural events which students greatly enjoy. Our Midnight Dessert, just before finals, is attended by more than a hundred students. We also sponsor a PMB Welcome Back Dinner in early spring. Here, we rent space above Bella Notte in Jackson, and we welcome new PMB students as well as students returning from overseas. Some twenty students who recently traveled off-campus conversed with their colleagues about overseas educational opportunities here at Albion. Good food and a dance floor provide a warm and communal welcome to our returning number. For a general calendar of events click here . We are always adding events, so check back once in awhile!
 

Interested students enrolled in Prentiss M. Brown are invited to join the Honors Council. The Council is an all-volunteer group of students who lead our fall retreat, serve as mentors to incoming students, explain our program at the DASP dessert, and decide how we will build our social program each year.  To see the minutes and agendas for these meetings click here.  Some evidence of how unorthodox we are may be detected in these minutes. 

A notable aspect of the program last fall was the annual Prentiss M. Brown Convocation Lecture given by Kwame Anthony Appiah, the Rockefeller Chair of Ethics at Princeton. On September 20th, professor Appiah discussed the topic of his latest book: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. The conversation was great fun. His webpage is to be found at http://www.appiah.net/ .  Professor Appiah is this year's national Phi Beta Kappa scholar of the year.

Spring 2008, Robert Audi spoke to the campus on the appropriate uses of religious reason in the public sphere. A former president of the American Philosophical Association's Midwest Division, and former president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, professor Audi discussed religion and politics with a packed house In Bobbitt. Many students, colleagues and several emeriti expressed pleasure that PMB sponsored professors Audi and Appiah this year.

September 17, 2008, professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University will present the Prentiss M. Brown Convocation lecture.  An expert on anti-Semitism, professor Lipstadt will speak on her role in the internationally famous David Irving holocaust denier trial.

Another significant feature of our program is the appointment of Dr. Geoffrey Cocks as our 2008-2009 Prentiss M. Brown Distinguished Honors Professor.  Professor Cocks was one of the first directors of the program and is an acclaimed historian. He is also an expert on the holocaust and partly responsible for bringing professor Lipstadt to Albion's campus.   

Thanks for thinking about Prentiss M. Brown,

Gene Cline
Director, Prentiss M. Brown Honors Institute
Professor of Philosophy

You should address any questions to our coordinator Renee Kreger at rkreger@albion.edu or 517-629-0614. Renee is a remarkably energetic and helpful person who is known alternatively as the “Queen of Honors” and as the “mom” of Honors.

The Observatory, home to the Honors Institute. Click on the image above to download a full-size photo suitable for desktop wallpaper.

The site is divided into three sections: one serving current students, one serving prospective students and visitors, and one serving alumni of the Honors Institute.