around the green – campus

Bethel’s “castle of learning” turns 120

Bethel College’s Administration Building – the symbol of the college for generations of alumni and a tangible piece of history – was also the centerpiece of this year’s Fall Festival.

Chartered in 1887, Bethel will mark its 125th year in 2012, but the celebration began already this year when the Ad Building turned 120. Students competed with each other and the clock to build replicas of the Ad Building out of recycled materials. Ad Building memorabilia was on display Saturday during Fall Festival and the afternoon wrapped up with birthday cupcakes for all. Emeritus professors Bob Regier ’52 (art) and Keith Sprunger (history) put together “A Castle on the Prairie: Bethel College’s ‘Old Main’ in Word and Image,” a multi-media presentation given twice during Fall Festival weekend

Sprunger remembers his first glimpse of the Ad Building in 1963, when he drove to Kansas with his family to begin his nearly 40-year teaching career at Bethel. “Even from a great distance, [the Ad Building loomed] over the Kansas landscape,” he says, “a castle on the prairies.” Seeing the building was “a dramatic experience,” he recalls.

When the Bethel College board of directors laid the cornerstone for the Administration Building on Oct. 12, 1888, they stepped squarely into history. Church-related liberal arts colleges were rising by the hundreds across the Great Plains as part of the movement to “civilize and educate the American prairies.” Southwestern College at Winfield, Kansas Wesleyan University at Salina and Bethany College at Lindsborg were all chartered in 1886, Sterling College in 1887 and McPherson College in 1888. In those days, it was common to build one large, main college building, frequently referred to (even today) as “Old Main.”

More than that, however, Bethel was the first Mennonite college in the Western Hemisphere. Its founders, well aware of the precedent they were setting, were determined that the college’s main building would be an outstanding structure. Varney Brothers Architects of Newton drew up the first set of plans, which would have produced a four-story building with a 60-foot bell tower. The board later changed to a firm of unknown but promising architects from Wichita, Willis T. Proudfoot and George Washington Bird.

Changes over the years have included a flagpole, originally erected in 1893 and moved to its present location just to the west of the front entrance in 1934; fire escapes, 1910; and attic rooms completed, with a dormer added, originally to house the departments of art and dramatics (now the Alumni Relations office and a teacher education classroom), 1935. In the early 1960s, the interurban trolley line that ran from Newton to the Ad Building steps closed and the college Green began to take shape in front of the building. A new roof of flat concrete shingles went on in 1992, at a cost of $78,926.

Almost since the beginning, the Ad Building has attracted the eye of artists and photographers. Its image shows up on everything from T-shirts to china cups. It has appeared as a wheat parquetry portrait, a molded metal coin bank and a wooden birdhouse.

Across the Midwest and the Great Plains, half the colleges so optimistically chartered in the late 1800s have closed their doors. Of those that remain, only a handful have “Old Main” buildings still standing.

“Our Bethel College founding fathers and mothers stretched and sacrificed to erect a [worthy] building,” Sprunger says. “It embodied all the hopes and ideals of Mennonite higher education. Our ‘castle of learning’ [is] where, for 120 years, Bethel students and professors have collected, created, preserved and interpreted knowledge on a Christian foundation.”

For the complete story, see http://www.bethelks.edu/bc/news_publications/news/bc/index.php/2008/09/23/a-castle-of-learning-at-120-ad-building.

Melanie Zuercher

Return to top

Shelly joins meeting with Iranian president

Peace and reconciliation are things to pursue with your enemies rather than your friends, says Bethel College Professor of Bible and Religion Patricia Shelly.

She doesn’t claim the observation as original, but it has become even more important to her personally since she visited Iran in February 2007 and attended two subsequent meetings in New York with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, most recently this past Sept. 25.

A year ago, Shelly was part of an interfaith gathering with Ahmadinejad in New York at which she offered a closing blessing. This time, she was one of the speakers at a meeting where about 300 religious leaders, including Ahmadinejad, discussed religion’s role in responding to global challenges and in building peace and understanding between societies. Shelly presented “the Anabaptist/Mennonite Christian perspective.” Mennonite Central Committee, American Friends Service Committee and three other religious organizations were the dialogue sponsors.

Ever since Shelly’s visit to Iran as part of a delegation sponsored by MCC and AFSC, she has “felt a strong commitment to be in conversation with people about U.S.-Iranian relations,” she says. “I think I’ve spoken in almost two dozen public meetings [in Kansas, Arizona, California, Iowa and South Dakota] about my part in the delegation and what I’ve learned. Almost 30 percent have been ecumenical or interfaith gatherings that included Jews or Muslims or both. The rest have been in Mennonite church settings.”

The interfaith gathering with Ahmadinejad a year ago raised local protests, causing it to be moved from a church in Manhattan to a chapel in the U.N. building. There were also protests surrounding this year’s dialogue. In addition, MCC has been taking some heat from constituents for co-sponsoring the meeting.

Shelly has heard some of that but also continues to hear appreciation expressed for her own efforts to foster peaceful, respectful dialogue on Iran. At a Life Enrichment event at Bethel where Shelly spoke soon after the Sept. 25 meeting, “towards the end, a woman from the audience said something I’ve heard several times before in other settings: ‘Thank you for going – you were representing my voice.’ There was a huge outbreak of applause. I was glad that [two staff from the MCC Central States office in North Newton who were present] could hear the support after some of the criticism they’ve been fielding.”

She adds, “Our meeting on Sept. 25 lasted three-and-a-half hours, during which many people talked about common ground but also made very pointed challenges to some of Iran’s policies [and things the president has said], to the point that both the Iranian ambassador and the president were upset and addressed these. That says to me that he heard what we were saying, because we were there, sharing a meal, speaking face-to-face. Those standing across the street hurling insults didn’t get his ear. We did.

“I find many of Ahmadinejad’s views deplorable,” she concludes, “but it’s not useful to demonize a leader and stereotype a whole country. We’re not going to make peace that way. Yitzak Rabin said, ‘You make peace with your enemies, you don’t make peace with your friends.’”

For the complete story, see http://www.bethelks.edu/bc/news_publications/news/bc/index.php/2008/10/22/a-table-of-reconciliation-bethel-profess.

Melanie Zuercher

Return to top

First-time freshman, legacy numbers up at Bethel

Bethel saw an increase in enrollment of both first-time freshman students and legacy students this fall.

First-time freshman numbers went from 108 in fall 2007 to 119 in fall 2008, a 10.2 percent increase. The class of 2012 has a National Merit finalist, 14 valedictorians and one salutatorian, with 26 percent coming from the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class, reported Vice President of Admissions Allan Bartel ’73. Fifty-nine first-time freshmen – up by 17 – are legacy students, meaning they had parents, grandparents and/or siblings attend Bethel.

“This represents our third straight year of increased first-time freshman enrollment,” Bartel said.

While enrollment numbers are up in the top two priority recruitment segments, overall enrollment at Bethel is down, holding at 500 compared to 541 in fall 2007. The biggest drop came in transfer numbers, down from a record 95 in 2007 to 51.

This fall’s numbers represent a retention rate of 83 percent of the students who were on campus last spring, excluding those who graduated.

For the complete story, see http://www.bethelks.edu/bc/news_publications/news/bc/index.php/2008/10/07/freshman-legacy-enrollment-rises-at-beth.

Melanie Zuercher

Return to top

Students sing, build relationships at Newton First Presbyterian

As a lifelong resident of Newton, Walter C. Claassen ’39, who now lives in North Newton, believes in giving back to his community.

That includes his church, First Presbyterian in Newton. Starting in 2007, Claassen has endowed a scholarship at Bethel College that provides up to five students to practice and sing with the church choir each Sunday during the school year.

“With the size of our church attendance [an average of 160-75 a Sunday], it’s rare to have all the parts equally balanced,” says Claassen, who has sung in the First Presbyterian choir himself for 50 years. “This provides a [consistent] strong voice in each part.”

According to the terms of the scholarship, Bethel College Professor of Music William Eash, who directs the Bethel College Concert Choir, selects the students in cooperation with the First Presbyterian choir director, currently Rachel Hill Newell, “based on their discipline within the Concert Choir, ability to read [music] and whether they serve as section leaders.”

For the 2007-08 school year, those students were Chelsea Chaffin, senior from Lawrence, Kelsey Easterday, sophomore from Manhattan, Adam Larson, sophomore from Lena, Ill., and Austin McCabe-Juhnke, sophomore from North Newton. For this school year, Larson has returned, along with Lisa Geist, sophomore from Scott City, and Kelsey Ortman, freshman from Marion, S.D.

Larson says, “As students, we don’t always have ways to interact with the community, and this was a fun experience, to get to know community members.”

Melanie Zuercher

Return to top

Endowed chairs awarded in biology, business

Bethel College conferred two endowed chairs on two faculty members this fall.

Professor of Business and Economics Allison J. McFarland is the first recipient of the Walter C. and Helen E. Claassen Endowed Chair in Business Administration, presented at a ceremony Oct. 27.

Endowed by gifts from Walter Claassen ’39 and his late wife Helen, the chair will fund the salary of an outstanding scholar and teacher in the business and economics department.

Claassen attended Bethel College and graduated from the University of Kansas in 1939 with a bachelor’s degree in business. He then went on to the Harvard Business School, where he received a master of business administration. After completing his education, Claassen worked in Chicago before serving for four years in the U.S. Navy. In 1946, he returned to Newton to work in the Kansas State Bank, which his grandfather had helped start. From 1962-82, he served as bank president.

Walter Claassen has a long history of service to the Newton community. He has served on numerous boards including the Bethel College Board and the United Methodist Youthville Board. In his retirement, he has stayed busy with church activities, civic organizations and voluntary service. Helen Claassen was also active in church and community, serving on the Newton Public Library Board, the Newton Mid-Kansas Symphony Orchestra Board and the Newton Community Theater Board.

“[Walter Claassen’s] wealth of life experiences, coupled with his lifelong commitment to education, faith, community and service, provide a benchmark for business faculty and students at Bethel College,” says McFarland, adding that she is inspired by Claassen’s legacy. “Accepting this award in his name is motivational, challenging and meaningful for all facets of my work at Bethel College. I look forward to building on the Claassens’ tradition of excellence.”

McFarland received a bachelor’s degree from Geneva College and earned her master’s degree and doctorate at the University of Kansas. She also received a master of business administration degree from Western Michigan University. McFarland joined the Bethel College faculty in 2006 as professor of business and economics and currently chairs the department. (For the complete story, see http://www.bethelks.edu/bc/news_publications/news/bc/index.php/2008/10/16/claassen-establishes-endowed-chair-in-bu.)

Professor of Biology Jon K. Piper has been appointed to the Katherine Esau Distinguished Chair in Plant Sciences, presented at a Nov. 14 ceremony.

The distinguished chair endowment was started by a gift from the Katherine Esau estate. Esau, an international expert on plant anatomy, was born in Ukraine and fled to Germany with her family during the Bolshevik Revolution. In 1922, they emigrated to Reedley, Calif. Esau earned her Ph.D. in 1932 from the University of California-Berkeley and went on to teach at UC-Davis, first as an instructor and later as professor of botany. In 1963, she began teaching at UC-Santa Barbara. She remained actively engaged in research for 24 more years.

In addition to authoring six textbooks, Esau was a renowned scholar, president of the Botanical Society of America, recipient of the National Medal of Science and by all accounts an outstanding teacher. Although she never attended a Mennonite school, she felt strong ties to Mennonite higher education and when she died in 1997 at the age of 99, she left a large estate gift to Bethel College.

“Jon’s recent success in securing a large National Science Foundation grant to fund student scholarships in the sciences and mathematics is a vivid illustration of his outstanding performance in service to his profession, the college and especially to student learning,” said Brad Born ’84, Bethel College vice president of academic affairs. “On a smaller scale than that $257,000 grant, Jon has landed three successive Kingsbury Family Foundation awards to support research, including student research, on prairie restoration.”

Piper received a bachelor’s degree from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and earned a Ph.D. from Washington State University. He has taught at Bethel College since 1997 and currently chairs the biology department.

Piper said he appreciates the contribution Esau made to his field of study. “For decades, Katherine Esau’s plant anatomy text was ‘the bible’ for all graduate programs in plant sciences. I expect this book is sitting on the shelf of nearly every professional botanist.

“Dr. Esau’s recognition and honoring of Bethel’s biology program with an endowed chair provides yet another affirmation from outside the institution of Bethel’s strong tradition of academic excellence,” Piper added. “I feel a responsibility for carrying on the legacy established by some truly outstanding biologists such as Dwight Platt ’52 and Jacob Doell 1908, who went before me.”

Krista Graber

Return to top