- Founded in 1967, James Madison is a residential college—the first of the coeducational living-learning centers at MSU and one of the first in the nation. Administrative and faculty offices, classrooms, a library, and seminar rooms are all located in Case Hall, providing a small-college environment that facilitates student-faculty interaction, both inside and outside the classroom.
- James Madison College at MSU offers sophisticated multidisciplinary programs in the social sciences founded on a model of liberal education. Students examine how public policy problems are identified, analyzed, and resolved in the United States and globally through the following majors: international relations, political theory and constitutional democracy, social relation, and comparative cultures and politics.
- College enrollment is limited to about 1,200 students, and classes range in size from 8 to 35 students, with most sections averaging about 25 students. As a result, most classes are conducted as lively discussions in which students are encouraged and expected to participate.
- Madison offers one of the most extensive field placement programs in the nation, and students must fulfill a field experience requirement by completing an internship and/or a study abroad program. The college offers study abroad programs in locations such as Brussels, Budapest/Prague, the Caribbean, and Cambridge.
- Development of strong analytical writing and verbal skills is an expectation for students in James Madison College, which provides free writing support to all its students through the Madison Writing Consultancy, the first and only unit-level writing center at MSU.
- Madison faculty are PhD recipients and, occasionally, PhD candidates. Faculty honors include ten MSU Teacher-Scholar awardees, six State of Michigan awardees, four MSU Distinguished Faculty awardees, and two University Distinguished Professor designees.
- Twenty percent of Madison students are members of the Honors College, and Madison students have an outstanding record of academic honors: fourteen Fulbright Scholars, eleven Truman Scholars, seven Marshall Scholars, five Rhodes Scholars, five National Science Foundation fellowship winners, and one George Mitchell Fellow.
- Twenty percent of the 2006–07 Phi Beta Kappa class members at MSU were Madison students.
- Madison alumni have attended numerous graduate and law schools in addition to MSU, including Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, Georgetown University, Cornell University, Columbia University, the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan, the University of Detroit Mercy, Wayne State University, Vanderbilt University, George Washington University, Duke University, and the London School of Economics.
