Online Degrees and Courses

Art Education / Bachelor of Fine Arts
When you study art education at Adrian College, you also teach art. Every summer, art education majors design and implement the youth art program, which exposes local K-12 students to high-quality visual arts programming. You and your peers will experience a range of real-world issues: curriculum design, budgeting, classroom management, developmental issues, working with students with special needs, and finding scholarship and grant programs for students who cannot afford to participate. Through activities like “Me and My Pet,” “Multicultural Me,” and a story illustration project, you’ll touch children with art.

Adrian art education instructors are experienced and practicing teachers who bring actual experiences into the art classroom. Instructor Debra Irvine has ten years of teaching experience at the elementary and secondary school levels.

Art History / minor

Interested in art history? If you choose any of the art or design programs as your major, you’ll study Western art and architecture within the art history program, as well as have the opportunity to take non-Western courses, such as the art of Asia. The art history minor complements majors in history, international business, modern languages and cultures, and English, and can lead to careers in historic preservation, museum work, gallery work, or graduate studies.

Although we have a 15,000-image slide collection that brings art into your classroom, you’ll have the opportunity to leave the campus and experience art and architecture in galleries, museums, and cities. The city of Adrian is a learning laboratory for our Western architecture classes. Its famous collection of 19th century houses offers examples of all the major styles of American domestic architecture. We also arrange one off-campus trip per semester to art museums in places like Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Grand Rapids. Study abroad is also available - art students have spent semesters in Spain, Wales, Mexico, Italy, England, and Germany studying archaeology, Renaissance art, and German painting.

Studio Art / Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Fine Arts
AC’s art professors practicing artists who bring professional experience into the classroom. Professor Pi Benio has exhibited her work in Michigan, Iowa, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, and was awarded artist’s residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Women’s Studio Workshop in New York, and Oxbow in Saugatuck, Michigan. Professor Cathie Royer’s paintings have been shown in Montana, North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio.

Each professor has developed his or her own artistic visions-whether it’s Brian Steele’s use of electronic art to grapple with drastic changes of place, or Niki Havekost’s physical relationship with her print-making. However, their real passion is teaching. They understand the power and importance of art, and as a result, have crucial insight into the role art can play in your development as a person.

The studio art program will offer you a foundation in artistic production and visual thinking, and you’ll be challenged to develop your own expressive language. You may choose to study a variety of two-dimensional and three-dimensional media, including painting, printmaking, ceramics, fibers, photo, electronic art, or sculpture.

You’ll also benefit from our guest artist program. Regional and national guests artists are invited to exhibit in the department’s Stubnitz Gallery in Downs Hall. You’ll have the opportunity to attend artists’ talks, gallery openings, and to meet and learn from working studio artists. You may also take day trips with ACAC (Adrian College Art Club) to the Detroit Institute of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, or the Chicago Art Institute.

Pre-architecture Program

Adrian College offers a dual degree program with Washington University in St. Louis. You’ll spend three years at Adrian for basic studies in design science, mathematics, and liberal arts followed by one year at Washington for specialized study in architecture. By starting your program at AC, you’ll have the advantage of a liberal arts education, including communication and critical thinking skills, so you’ll be well prepared to enter the last year of architecture school. Once you have completed your bachelor’s degree at Washington University, it is possible to remain there in the Masters of Architecture program. Pre-architecture students generally major in studio art or interior design.

Pre-art Therapy Program

How can the powerful tool of art be used to help people understand themselves and the world better? Professor Liz Hartz will help you learn how. Not only has she worked with Hospice, but she also works with youth at the Adrian Training School, one of the many places where you might intern. Internships are an important part of the program, because that is where you’ll learn how to apply what you’ve learned about the main fields of art-painting, ceramics, and drawing-to actual situations. You will develop a sophisticated portfolio that demonstrates your mastery of imagery-a mastery that will one day allow you to decipher the imagery of the people you work with.

The flexibility of the pre-art therapy program provides you with many options. You can major in art and minor in psychology, or major in psychology and minor in art. You can also major in art and human services. Adrian students have a 100 percent acceptance rate at Wayne State University, and have attended The University of Louisville, and New York University.

Music Degree Programs

Bachelor of Music in Performance (B.M.)
This is a degree specially designed for students who wish to pursue a career as a professional performing musician. Students in this degree program traditionally go directly on to graduate school in order to complete a Masters or Doctorate in Performance.

Bachelor of Music in Music Education (B.M.E)
This degree prepares students to teach K-12 music in public and private schools. Students receive Michigan Teacher Certification with this program and are prepared to enter the teaching profession upon completion of the degree.

Bachelor of Arts in Music (B.A.)
This degree program is designed for the student who may wish to double major in music and another field of study. This is a liberal arts degree that provides a strong foundation for graduate studies in Music as well as other arts-related fields.

Bachelor of Arts in Arts Mgt - Music (B.A.)
This degree is offered in conjunction with the Adrian College Business Department and prepares students for a career in music-related administration or marketing. This degree includes a student internship with local non-profit music and/or theatre organizations.

Bachelor of Arts in Musical Theatre (B.A.)
This degree is offered in conjunction with the Adrian College Theatre Department and provides extensive training in voice, dance and theatre. Students also receive basic training in set design, choreography and stage directing.

Music Minor
The Music Minor is available to all students who wish to study music as an area of interest during their college education. The degree includes private instruction, an introduction to music history and theory, and ensemble experience.

Athletic Training

You’ll work in and out of the classroom, taking courses on injury assessment, therapeutic training, and administration, as well as participating in clinical observations and studies. You’ll be prepared for a career as a high school, college, or professional athletic trainer.

Corporate Fitness

You’ll have the opportunity to supplement your core courses in exercise science with business courses such as marketing, management, and professional communication. You’ll be prepared to attend graduate school or to design corporate exercise programs.

Pre-physical Therapy

With a curriculum that is similar to pre-health sciences, this program prepares you for graduate school in physical therapy, occupational therapy, or exercise physiology. You’ll take courses in biology, physics, psychology, computer science, math, and philosophy. More about our pre-physical therapy program.

Physical Education / BA

In Adrian’s Physical Education program, you’ll work with faculty who are experts in their fields. For example, Professor Kevin Darr has researched muscle growth and regeneration, as well as the effects of exercise on muscle. He also has experience in coaching, cardiac rehabilitation, and corporate fitness

As professors and teachers, their mission is to offer you a unique blend of academic preparation, practical application, and personal attention to prepare you for a wide variety of career options. The bottom line is that you’ll be taking what you learn and putting it into practice. You’ll learn and teach various sport and recreation skills your very first year. Your senior year you’ll take Administration of Physical Education and Sport, in which you’ll organize and administer a PE or sport program, emphasizing legal considerations, public relations, personnel, and facilities, equipment, and financial management.

In addition to your academic coursework and the experiences available in the teacher education program, you’ll have ample opportunity to get involved in coaching, officiating, and sports camp counseling. You’ll even have the chance to officiate, organize, or direct collegiate intramural programs. There are also a variety of internships available to you both on and off campus.

Art Education / Bachelor of Fine Arts

When you study art education at Adrian College, you also teach art. Every summer, art education majors design and implement the youth art program, which exposes local K-12 students to high-quality visual arts programming. You and your peers will experience a range of real-world issues: curriculum design, budgeting, classroom management, developmental issues, working with students with special needs, and finding scholarship and grant programs for students who cannot afford to participate. Through activities like “Me and My Pet,” “Multicultural Me,” and a story illustration project, you’ll touch children with art.

Adrian art education instructors are experienced and practicing teachers who bring actual experiences into the art classroom. Instructor Debra Irvine has ten years of teaching experience at the elementary and secondary school levels.

Art History / minor 
Interested in art history? If you choose any of the art or design programs as your major, you’ll study Western art and architecture within the art history program, as well as have the opportunity to take non-Western courses, such as the art of Asia. The art history minor complements majors in history, international business, modern languages and cultures, and English, and can lead to careers in historic preservation, museum work, gallery work, or graduate studies.

Although we have a 15,000-image slide collection that brings art into your classroom, you’ll have the opportunity to leave the campus and experience art and architecture in galleries, museums, and cities. The city of Adrian is a learning laboratory for our Western architecture classes. Its famous collection of 19th century houses offers examples of all the major styles of American domestic architecture. We also arrange one off-campus trip per semester to art museums in places like Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Grand Rapids. Study abroad is also available - art students have spent semesters in Spain, Wales, Mexico, Italy, England, and Germany studying archaeology, Renaissance art, and German painting.

Studio Art / Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Fine Arts 

AC’s art professors practicing artists who bring professional experience into the classroom. Professor Pi Benio has exhibited her work in Michigan, Iowa, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, and was awarded artist’s residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Women’s Studio Workshop in New York, and Oxbow in Saugatuck, Michigan. Professor Cathie Royer’s paintings have been shown in Montana, North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio.

Each professor has developed his or her own artistic visions-whether it’s Brian Steele’s use of electronic art to grapple with drastic changes of place, or Niki Havekost’s physical relationship with her print-making. However, their real passion is teaching. They understand the power and importance of art, and as a result, have crucial insight into the role art can play in your development as a person.

The studio art program will offer you a foundation in artistic production and visual thinking, and you’ll be challenged to develop your own expressive language. You may choose to study a variety of two-dimensional and three-dimensional media, including painting, printmaking, ceramics, fibers, photo, electronic art, or sculpture.

You’ll also benefit from our guest artist program. Regional and national guests artists are invited to exhibit in the department’s Stubnitz Gallery in Downs Hall. You’ll have the opportunity to attend artists’ talks, gallery openings, and to meet and learn from working studio artists. You may also take day trips with ACAC (Adrian College Art Club) to the Detroit Institute of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, or the Chicago Art Institute.

Pre-architecture Program 

Adrian College offers a dual degree program with Washington University in St. Louis. You’ll spend three years at Adrian for basic studies in design science, mathematics, and liberal arts followed by one year at Washington for specialized study in architecture. By starting your program at AC, you’ll have the advantage of a liberal arts education, including communication and critical thinking skills, so you’ll be well prepared to enter the last year of architecture school. Once you have completed your bachelor’s degree at Washington University, it is possible to remain there in the Masters of Architecture program. Pre-architecture students generally major in studio art or interior design.

Pre-art Therapy Program 
How can the powerful tool of art be used to help people understand themselves and the world better? Professor Liz Hartz will help you learn how. Not only has she worked with Hospice, but she also works with youth at the Adrian Training School, one of the many places where you might intern. Internships are an important part of the program, because that is where you’ll learn how to apply what you’ve learned about the main fields of art-painting, ceramics, and drawing-to actual situations. You will develop a sophisticated portfolio that demonstrates your mastery of imagery-a mastery that will one day allow you to decipher the imagery of the people you work with.

The flexibility of the pre-art therapy program provides you with many options. You can major in art and minor in psychology, or major in psychology and minor in art. You can also major in art and human services. Adrian students have a 100 percent acceptance rate at Wayne State University, and have attended The University of Louisville, and New York University.

Accounting / BBA 

When you enter the accounting program at Adrian, you’ll work with professors who are Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) with real life experience. Professor David Coy serves on the board of directors of a national multi-million dollar organization and Professor Bill Nalepka worked for years in the former Big 8 (now Big 5) international public accounting firms, in locations across the country. In Professor Nalepka’s managerial finance courses, you’ll work in small teams to analyze current financial statements of a major corporation by preparing a written analysis and a group presentation. In his Investments and Security Analysis class, you will participate in an online stock trading project where you buy and sell securities over the Internet.

The accounting department will also offer you opportunities beyond the classroom. Accounting students recently participated in a criminal investigation simulation hosted by special agents from the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS. Professor Nalepka is on a task force to recruit and connect students to the Michigan Association of CPAs. And faculty encourage you to pursue internships where you take on full professional responsibilities for financial accounting, cost accounting, and internal auditing.

The accounting program is approved by the state of Michigan’s Board of Accountancy. It will prepare you to enter and succeed in accounting in the public, private, or governmental sectors, or as an educator. You’ll take with you a comprehensive understanding of the technical knowledge behind accounting, the code of ethics of the profession, and most importantly, the responsibility accountants owe to society.

Business Administration Degrees 

If you choose to study business administration, your curriculum will include a basic core of business courses, plus study in economics, computer applications, and mathematics. You will also choose a specialization, either management or marketing. Each program stresses the decision-making approach to business, where you’ll learn how to think logically, analyze objectively, and communicate clearly.

Knowing how to manage information is also a critical skill. Combine your business major with a computer science minor and you’ll learn how to make reasonable and insightful decisions based on the data you’ve gathered. You’ll become an effective facilitator, one with a thorough understanding of organizational systems and information patterns. Through our computer science courses, you’ll gain a working knowledge of the most commonly used programming languages, increase your ability to think logically, and learn to manage systems and databases effectively.

Management / BBA 

How should a CEO handle a situation where being honest will hurt the company, which in turn might put company employees on hard times? What about Firestone’s faulty tires,
or the fall of Enron? You’ll wrestle with ethical issues such as these in Professor Ann Theis’ Management class. Drawing from current events, you will prepare yourself to successfully navigate the dilemmas in the business world. Recently, her students in Information Resource Management class delved into a story in Business Week titled “Privacy in an Age of Terror” in order to debate the government’s increasing power to monitor phone and e-mail communication.

You’ll also benefit from her real world experiences as an information systems director at Blue Cross. She will offer insight into hiring and firing, motivating employees, making organizational changes, designing new systems, and leading major projects. Want to move up the ladder? She’s done it, so she’ll tell you what skills it took to make the move.

In the management program, you’ll learn to work in groups. You’ll learn to write and think critically, and you’ll develop your personal management style. You’ll learn to use PowerPoint to make professional presentations and to use business software. In addition, you’ll have opportunities for internships. For instance, one operations intern integrated the purchasing systems of several healthcare groups when they merged to create Lenawee Health Alliance. Such experiences will provide you with invaluable practical experience.

Marketing / BBA

Figuring out which product will actually appeal to consumers requires a lot of expertise, so in Professor Pat Quinlan’s Consumer Behavior class, you’ll gain first-hand knowledge of how to do it. You’ll come up with a new product-such as fruit-flavored toothpaste-and then conduct an actual survey among your peers on campus. You’ll use a software program to sort and analyze the data. At the end of the class, you’ll present your findings just as if you were presenting to company executives. Wearing business attire, you’ll make multi-media presentations with 3-D graphs and high-tech illustrations to demonstrate your findings. How did you eliminate bias? Which flavor did the survey group prefer? Is it smart to spend the company’s money on pursuing this product?

You’ll benefit from Professor Quinlan’s extensive experience as a marketing consultant and focus group moderator as he teaches you industry-demanded research and analysis skills. You’ll use case studies of real life marketing problems in your classes. You might use a computer simulation to analyze the marketing decisions made by a company over the course of six years, then develop a plan for the company’s seventh year. In other marketing courses, you might moderate a focus group for a local business’s customer satisfaction survey, or develop a nationwide distribution of educational software. Adrian College marketing graduates are prepared to hit the ground running, and industry leaders such as Kellogg’s, General Motors, and Eli Lilly have recently hired Adrian graduates because they have the critical thinking skills that are necessary for success in sales, marketing research, and advertising.

International Business / BA 

Drawing on his experience from operating his own consulting business, Professor Bill Bachman believes that the projects you do should be market-driven-that they should be based on the real work you’ll do someday. That’s why in his International Business class, you will choose a well-known firm and two different countries. It’s up to you to decide which country is best for the firm to enter and what your entry strategy should be, so that you can make a professional presentation of your findings.

To give you an edge in the global market, you will be required to take at least 20 credit hours in foreign language courses. You are also strongly encouraged to spend at least one semester in a study abroad program, in a country such as Australia, Austria, China, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, or Russia. At the same time, you will benefit from the flexibility of the BBA degree curriculum, which allows in-depth study of a range of business disciplines. In addition to lending you cultural understanding, this may also lead to business experience. For instance, while studying in Mexico recently, an Adrian student designed and completed an independent study to research the effect of NAFTA on small Mexican businesses.