News

Class of 2016 member Audrey DeGroot will soon begin a two-year adventure in the West African country of Guinea as Albion’s first Peace Corps volunteer since Christin Spoolstra, ’11. “I don’t want a 9-to-5 job and an apartment, I want an adventure,” she says, listing some of the “million and one” reasons she decided to apply for the position

“What I loved most about President Vulgamore was his unmitigated joy at being surrounded by and involved with students.” Those were the words of one Albion alumna this week following the August 12 passing of Dr. Melvin L. Vulgamore, the College’s 13th president whose 14-year administration ran from 1983 to 1997.

The history of New Orleans has long fascinated Albion College French professor Dianne Guenin-Lelle. After all, she was born and raised there, and lived there for the better part of 30 years. Her recent book, The Story of French New Orleans: History of a Creole City, describes the fractious, diverse, unusual history of the city and how, in many ways, it is so different from most other American cities. And during her research, she came across an unexpected connection.

“When I first heard that there was a 16-year-old autistic race car driver, I was amazed,” says Queana Langston, ’18, whose recent Ford Institute internship was inspired by the story of driver Armani Williams. Langston first learned about Williams and the Race4Autism Foundation through her uncle, who was hired to shoot a documentary about the nonprofit. “I wanted to work there out of the goodness of my heart,” Langston says, realizing later that an internship would both benefit her Albion studies and allow her to apply certain skills on behalf of the foundation’s goals.

Students from six different high schools in southern Michigan got a day off from school in May to compete in Albion College’s first W. Keith Moore Math Competition. The students competed both as individuals and teams, with pencil-and-paper quizzes and even a math scavenger hunt that took them across campus.

“As a parts intern with AIS Construction Equipment this summer, I have had the opportunity to operate many pieces of heavy equipment. Without question the John Deere 470G LC excavator is my favorite,” says Gerstacker Institute member David Brown, ’18. “Standing at 40 feet tall and weighing in at 45 tons with a price tag of $400,000, it’s a beast. Most Fridays I’m out on the AIS New Hudson branch’s test site. It’s easy to say I have some fun doing my internship.”

Summer camps have become a part of life for many American teens, an opportunity to hone skills and pursue interests. Albion College’s first “Camp Med,” held last month, went one step further, giving campers a quarter-unit of college credit in the bargain. Camp Med “Cardiology 101” was three intensive days specifically designed for high school seniors and juniors interested in a medical career.

On May 10, somewhere deep on the Appalachian Trail, Tom Poirier celebrated 30 years of sobriety all by himself. It was perhaps the perfect irony that on that momentous spring day he found himself acknowledging the vanquishing of one challenge in the place where he was attempting to embrace another. For Poirier, trekking the Appalachian Trail had found a place in his psyche for decades, an opportunity that haunted and dared him.

The discovery of the story of African American Paul Cuffee, and the unfolding of others like his, was a revelation to Albion students Corey Wheeler, ’18, and Elijah Bean, ’19, and made the recent three-week Boston Summer Seminar, sponsored by the Great Lakes Colleges Association and hosted by the Massachusetts Historical Society, an experience they’ll never forget.

The first time Mareike Wieth realized her field of interest resonated beyond her office walls was the day in 2012 she got a message she didn’t expect. “When I got a voice mail from the BBC, it was like, ‘What?’ I think I hyperventilated,” she said. After all, it wasn’t every day that the British Broadcasting Corporation called an associate professor of psychology at Albion College. But Wieth was working on something that not only intrigued that news organization, but has sparked the interest of media on this side of the Atlantic as well.