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Invited to perform “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” on the main stage of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre (KCACTF) Region II Festival in January, Albright’s Domino Players earned two standing ovations in the University of Maryland’s Kay Theatre.

Although most 2020 awards were not yet announced at Reporter printing time, the troupe learned during the festival that longtime professor Wayne Vettleson was awarded a prestigious Gold Medallion for his outstanding artistry and leadership in theatre education.

“This is the 11th time that Albright College had been invited to bring a production to this prestigious regional theatre festival,” says Director Jeffrey Lentz ’85. “Albright is a three-time recipient of KCACTF’s highest honor — the National Award for Best Production of a Play (in 2007, 2016 and 2019) — along with dozens of other national accolades for design, directing, acting, etc., throughout our history with this organization.”

All four Albright College juniors who were nominated for the Early Assurance Program at Penn State College of Medicine — Hershey have been accepted for a 2021 start. Chemistry major Maya Fares, and biology majors Jennifer Crumling, Nicole Crumling and Donna Saboori will join senior Mara Trifoi, who enters the College of Medicine in fall 2020, as well as two more Albright students, Ty Achtermann and Rebecca Morgis, who entered the program in 2019.

“This means a lot to me as it indicates that I’ve worked hard enough to be accepted into such a great program as the Penn State Hershey program,” says Fares, who is considering specializing in emergency medicine after Hershey.

Shown through the lens of business ethics, a student-produced documentary “Reading’s Pagoda: The Business That Never Was” showcases why the Pagoda never became the business it was intended to be, as well as why the landmark’s founder, William A. Witman Sr., never realized his dreams. Albright business administration major Sean Darrar ’20 produced the film after conducting research with business faculty member Richard Schott, MBA.

In a new measure for 2020, U.S. News & World Report named Albright a top national and state performer in social mobility. The college placed 31 out of 108 national liberal arts colleges on the new social mobility measure — above Vassar, U.S. Air Force, Navy and military academies.

Although economically disadvantaged students are less likely than others to finish college, some colleges are more successful than others at enrolling and seeing disadvantaged students through to graduation. The new social mobility scale ranks institutions based on how well they graduated students who received federal Pell Grants. Typically, Pell Grants are awarded to students who come from households with a family income of less than $50,000. But because Pell Grant award amounts vary, most Pell Grant dollars actually go to students with a total family income below $20,000.

Ten annual 30 percent tuition reduction scholarships are now available for Albright College students and alumni who are accepted to Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College.

Accepted into Carnegie’s Master of Entertainment Industry Management degree program this year, Whitney Jefferson ’19 is already taking advantage of the new partnership. The Albright music industry studies graduate hopes to turn her interest in licensing for virtual reality in live entertainment into a career.

“Making live entertainment accessible to as many people as possible is important to me and that’s what I will try to do post graduate school,” says Jefferson.