printer-friendly

take note

• For the second straight year, Bethel is the only private college in Kansas and one of only three institutions of higher education in the state to be ranked in a Forbes.com analysis of top colleges and universities in the United States.


• Recipients of Bethel College’s on-site service project at the Mennonite Youth Convention in Columbus, Ohio, this past July surprised college staff with a resolution from the MiraCit Development Corporation’s board of directors, along with a letter from MiraCit director Sharon Francis, thanking the college for the gift of playground equipment to FCI Academy Kindergarten Village in Columbus. “Even more valuable than the equipment was the sacrifice of time and energy of the student volunteers who labored during the installation,” Francis noted in her letter. “Please accept the attached resolution as an expression of our thanks for your willingness to show forth the love of God through the giving of yourselves to others.”


• Mark Ediger ’79 was the keynote speaker at the 3rd annual Science, Technology, pre-Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Symposium Friday, Oct. 2, during Bethel College’s Fall Festival. His address focused on a new methodology for synthesizing glass developed in his lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Ediger is a chemistry professor.


• “Fragile Bonds and Global Brotherhood: The Ninth Mennonite World Conference in Curitiba, Brazil” by Meredith Lehman, Bethel College senior from Bluffton, Ohio, tied for first in the college and university category in the 2009 John Horsch Mennonite History Essay Contest, sponsored by the Mennonite Church USA Historical Committee.


• For the second straight year, Thresher defensive lineman James McCartney, senior from Hesston, was named Defensive Player of the Year in the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC).


• For the 18th year in a row, the Bethel College Library successfully applied for funds from the State of Kansas Interlibrary Loan Development Program to expand and improve its holdings. The library received $2,500 for purchasing graphic novels, along with criticism and pedagogical materials on the format.


• Bethel College’s Kauffman Museum is the first winner of a newly established award from the Mountain-Plains Museums Association, the Technology Award, given for a multimedia project done by a museum with an institutional budget under $250,000 annually. Kauffman Museum received the award for its StoryTablet, a system designed by the museum’s exhibit team to deliver audio interpretation of the permanent exhibit “Of Land and People” through development of a low-cost system based on the Apple iPod®.


• Bethel College had the top programming team, and finished second overall, at the Kansas “satellite site” for the North Central North America Region of the International Collegiate Programming Contest. Bethel’s team of Kyle Claassen, Matthew Hershberger and Lucas Stertz, the “Threshers,” was first in competition with two other Bethel teams as well as teams from Baker, Emporia State and Kansas State Universities. The Threshers finished 42nd in a field of 203 teams from colleges and universities in eight states and two Canadian provinces.

Pictured above, from left, admissions counselor Garrett Whorton ’07; members of the praise band Lost in Lights: Max Wedel ’09, Michael Unruh ’09, Jesse Goertzen (plus admissions counselor Clark Oswald ’03), Graham Unruh and Andy Findley ’09; and Phil Hart of Columbus, Ohio, after putting together playground equipment for a kindergarten in Columbus.