News Articles

For the Michigan natives and longtime New Englanders, the intention is broad yet straightforward: The Murray and Jean Penzotti Swindell Student Impact Scholarship will support bright students with financial need, support President Mauri Ditzler’s vision of growth for both the College and the Albion community, and help make Albion College well known nationally as a top-notch liberal arts school.

Professor emeritus of religious studies William Gillham, age 84, died unexpectedly in Albion on Saturday, October 14. Gillham was hired by the College in 1961 as a combination philosophy and religion professor; his arrival doubled the size of both departments and he held that joint appointment for many years. He was an ardent champion of the liberal arts tradition focused in the Western classical canon.

Richard and Marilyn Vitek, ’56 ’56, have shared their lives together for more than 60 years. Part of that sharing has come in the form of years-long generosity to their alma mater. Now, the couple is celebrating the timelessness and universality of music through their largest gift to the College. The Viteks have formally made a significant gift commitment—the biggest by an individual or couple in Albion College’s 182-year history—that will result in a new campus building to be called the Richard and Marilyn Vitek Center for Musical Arts.

“It’s a huge legal document with a lot of SEC regulations,” says Laura Newbury, ’18, of Intel’s annual report. “I wasn’t breaking them or going over the line, but sometimes nudging what we could do within those rules.” An intern who “nudges” SEC guidelines sounds like a supervisor’s worst nightmare, but Newbury says her work was about best practice. She spent the summer with Intel’s external reporting headquarters in Portland, Oregon, following the company mandates to “rock the boat” and “change something.”

Diversity, inclusion, free speech and respect were the topics of discussion at a September 28 campus-wide forum where students were challenged “to be open-minded and be willing to change your own mind.” In Goodrich Chapel, a faculty panel answered student-submitted questions amid the backdrop of recent events on campus.

Drew Christopher, Albion College psychological science professor, has been honored with the 2017 Teaching and Mentoring Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. “I try to teach [students] that there are oftentimes multiple ways to solve a problem,” he says of his teaching style.

The 25-block Harrington Neighborhood, located on and around Cass Street just west of the Albion College campus approaching downtown, is featured in the September/October edition of The Review, a publication produced by the Michigan Municipal League. The project, which launched in early 2016 following a $1 million gift from Michael and Judy Harrington, ’85 ’86, is starting to make a notable impact as faculty and staff renovate existing homes, construct new houses and become an even closer part of the Albion community.

Zach Fischer has brought his lifelong love of acting to Albion College and hopes to show students, through his experience in the rough-and-tumble industry, that doing good work is often its own reward.

Ben Greenberg, an investigative journalist who focuses on cold cases and unpunished violence during the Civil Rights Movement, spoke to a standing-room-only audience in Bobbitt Auditorium on September 13 about more recent history for the annual Coy James Memorial Lecture.

After more than two years of work and planning and some $400,000 in generous grants, the City of Albion and Albion College will celebrate a new 1.2-mile biking and walking College-Community Trail with a ribbon cutting and grand opening Saturday, September 16, at 3 p.m. at Victory Park near the bandshell.