Albion College

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Albion College prepares students to act. Our graduates emerge with the insight, focus, and confidence it takes to pursue rewarding careers, live meaningful lives, and build a better world.
Albion College is nationally recognized for its academic excellence in the liberal arts tradition, a learning-centered commitment, and a future-oriented perspective. The College is a leader in preparing students to anticipate, solve, and prevent problems to improve human and global conditions. The College immerses students in the creation and processing of knowledge and graduates skilled architects of societal change, active citizens, and future leaders.
Albion College is an undergraduate, liberal arts institution committed to academic excellence. We are learning-centered and recognize that valuable learning occurs in and outside the classroom, on and off-campus. We prepare students to translate critical thought into action.
Albion College is committed to liberal education in the arts and sciences. We believe such an education empowers individuals to live lives of useful purpose and accomplishment, enriched by the confidence and pleasure that come from thinking logically, imaginatively, and humanely. In light of this vision, we seek to create and maintain, in a residential setting, a supportive, intellectually stimulating community that exhibits and prizes curiosity, creativity, dissent, and diversity.
We believe in the fundamental worth of a broad exposure to intellectual and artistic achievement, to the best that has been thought and said about the world and our place in it. An Albion College education introduces students to classical modes of analysis, interpretation, and argument to unfolding scientific inquiry into the nature of the physical world to how contemporary debates derive from and extend a historical but continuing dialogue about enduring questions.
At Albion College, we invite students to engage in ongoing conversations centered on their cultural heritage, yet they are responsive to global concerns. We believe our students will find their voices by paying attention to the most beautiful expressions of Western and other intellectual and spiritual traditions. Far from inviting a passive acceptance of such traditions, we encourage students to question and challenge them to evaluate ethically the social uses they serve and the ends they advocate. In our view, liberal education is an education in active citizenship and service.
Teaching and learning are central to our mission. This means that while the faculty are productive in scholarly and creative endeavors, their primary commitment is to teach, explicitly, to foster students' intellectual engagement and growth. The primary responsibility of students at Albion College is to develop mastery in the methods by which knowledge is acquired, critically evaluated, and appropriately applied. We believe such an emphasis prepares students for a lifetime of learning and a multiplicity of possible careers by developing their broad reasoning, writing, and speaking abilities. While the classroom is at the heart of our educational mission, we believe that the entire College community should share in the learning experiences found in our residential setting and through involvement in out-of-classroom opportunities and experiences, including those in the City of Albion.
In recruiting new members to the College community, we seek men and women of intellectual promise from various racial, class, ethnic and geographic backgrounds, whose perspectives can contribute to a process of mutual education within and outside the curriculum. This aim can best be achieved in an environment where individuals value differences and enter into constructive dialogue toward common goals. By pursuing our educational mission, we believe all members of the Albion community will grow to work, live, and serve effectively with others.
A liberal arts education, by definition, should liberate minds. This process is enhanced in a community committed to educational equity, diversity, and open inquiry. Therefore, we seek to foster an environment of mutual respect, acceptance, appreciation and caring for all members of our community. To this end, Albion College condemns all forms of discrimination and harassment, while reaffirming our commitment to academic free speech. We also commit to the recruitment and retention of both women and minority faculty, staff, and students, the integration of cultural diversity in the curriculum, and the development of a truly inclusive multicultural campus environment.
Albion College initially met the educational needs of the children of Native Americans and settlers in the area. In 1835, the College was awarded a charter by the Michigan Territorial Legislature, thanks to Methodists' efforts, which were early settlers in the Michigan Territory.
Always on the leading edge, Albion became one of the first schools in the Midwest to introduce coeducation. In 1850, the legislature approved the founding of the Albion Female Collegiate Institute, which was then controlled by its counterpart, the Wesleyan Seminary Corporation. However, in 1857, the two schools merged under the name of the Wesleyan Seminary and Female College at Albion. Albion College was fully authorized by the state legislature to award four-year college degrees to both men and women on February 25, 1861.
Today, Albion stands on 225 acres with more than 30 significant buildings. Since 2000, we have completed tremendous additions that range from the Ferguson Administrative Building to our LEED-certified Science Complex. The aquatic, recreation and learning centers are complemented by our 340-acre equestrian facility and Davis Athletic Complex. In 2017, the Ludington Center opening officially established a College presence in downtown Albion, providing more opportunities for engagement and collaboration with the City of Albion and the surrounding community.

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