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Bruce and Jane Harper want to do their part to help the planet, the environment and Albion College, and they hope their $108,000 Earth Day 50th Anniversary Gift will be a meaningful step in that direction. “The envionrment has become a much more urgent issue the last couple of decades,” Bruce Harper, ’67, says.

It looks pretty easy on television, but Charlie Downey, ’20, knows that getting information from human remains isn’t something you can do during the commercial break. “We examined thousands of fragments of bone,” says the anthropology and German major and member of the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program, who spent the summer doing National Science Foundation-sponsored archaeology research at the University of South Alabama.

“Consistency” could be one word to describe Albion’s incoming Class of 2023, which moved in August 23 in advance of the start of fall semester August 26. According to Director of Admission Mandy Dubiel, the 419 first-year students and 27 transfer students match the qualities that positively distinguish Albion’s current student body.

In addition to his studies, Chris Bell, ’20, gives back to the Albion community as part of the College’s Build Albion Fellows Program. Little did he know that he also would have a month-long opportunity this year to give back to Albion’s sister cities, Noisy-le-Roi and Bailly, France.

Elizabeth Palmer, ’10, has a family background full of teachers that includes her father, mother and sister. But she was interested in another direction: historic preservation. Now she is Albion’s new Marilyn Crandell Schleg Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, and ready to make available the College’s impressive archives to all those interested. Says Palmer: “I’m of a mind that why do we have it if it’s not benefiting others?”

Albion College alumni and friends answered a call for support over the last year in inspiring fashion, sparking a record fundraising total that will benefit the College for years to come in ways that will prove beneficial and dramatic.

“When I began embracing my autistic identity and getting involved in disability rights, I didn’t know what I wanted to contribute and where my place should be,” writes the sociology and English double major and Brown Honors Program and Ford Institute member. “This summer, the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) ended up being the perfect place for me to explore those questions.”

“This summer I interned in Michigan’s 44th District Court in my hometown of Royal Oak to gain a better understanding of the judicial system in Michigan,” writes Brittan, a political science major and Ford Institute member. “I was surprised to learn that there are many ways our district court helps people in my community.”

Albion College’s “great reputation,” as well as its “small-town feeling” and “rigorous but rewarding” academic experience, are just some of its qualities cited by The Princeton Review in the 2020 edition of the test-prep company’s annual college guide, The Best 385 Colleges.

Chemistry professor Craig Streu, a 2004 Albion alumnus, and his student researchers are on the cutting edge of developing light-responsive chemotherapy to battle different types of diseases, from arthritis to Alzheimer’s to perhaps the biggest obstacle of all—cancer.