Welcome to the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program
Albion College's Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program 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.
Our home is the historically significant Observatory on the north side of the Albion quadrangle. Honors students have 24-hour access to the Observatory building. The Observatory has 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.
Many of our social events occur in the Observatory—including movie 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 Honors convocation on Art History. Each year we have taken an annual trip to Chicago for a day of museum-hopping and a show.
The Honors Program sponsors a first-year retreat for all first-year students, usually the first Saturday after classes begin. We run mock honors seminars, where students learn about all the functions of the program. We blow off steam by performing impromptu skits around a late-night campfire (sometimes shockingly acerbic portrayals of campus life). Upperclass honors students have an opportunity to work with new students concerning College life and success at Albion. Many friends are made.
There are other social and cultural events that students enjoy. Our Midnight Dessert, just before finals, is routinely attended by more than a hundred students. We sponsor a Welcome Back Dinner in early spring. We welcome new honors students as well as students returning from overseas. Some 20 students who recently traveled off-campus conversed with their colleagues about overseas educational opportunities at Albion. We are always adding events, so check back occasionally!
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 Distinguished Albion Scholars dessert, and decide how we will build our social program each year.
Prentiss M. Brown students have won a number of prestigious awards in the last several years, including a National Science Foundation research award, two Morris Udall awards and a number of Fulbright fellowships. The Chronicle of Higher Education has listed Albion as a College with an unusually high number of student Fulbright scholars.
Thanks for thinking about the Prentiss M. Brown Honors program. You should address any questions to our coordinator, Renée Kreger, at 517-629-0614 or by using our contact form. Renée is a remarkably energetic and helpful person who is known alternatively as the "mom" of Honors.
