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around the green – campus
– Student dies after skateboarding accident– Varied interests, individualized major direct student toward rural health
– General education curriculum now stands on "Common Ground"
– Summer vacation takes students from coast to coast
– Enrollment rises again, up almost 10 percent
– New fittings spruce up symbolic stone
Student dies after skateboarding accident
Bethel College's Krehbiel Auditorium is the venue for convocation, instrumental concerts of all kinds, opera, lectures and theater - seldom a service of eulogy.
However, it became "sacred space" Friday evening, Aug. 5, as Bethel students, staff and faculty gathered to mourn and celebrate the life of Seth Dunn, who would have been a senior and who died in an accident Monday, Aug. 1.
Dunn, 20, was from Fresno, Calif., and was vacationing with his family in the beach resort town of Cayucos, Calif. He and one of his brothers were skateboarding to meet their parents for dinner and went by way of a hill on Bakersfield Avenue in Cayucos that is popular with skateboarders.
Residents of the area where the hill is located say it is "a magnet for skateboarders" who can reach speeds of close to 30 miles per hour when skating down it. Dunn, a longtime skateboarder, apparently lost his balance, probably while trying to slow down or stop.
According to the San Luis Obispo County coroner's report, Dunn died of blunt force head trauma. He was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.
Among those remembering Dunn Aug. 5 was Megan Upton-Tyner, Bethel instructor of theater, who directed Dunn in Bethel's production of Wit last May as well as in the improv troupe.
"It's appropriate that we're gathered in this sacred space," where Dunn spent so much time, she said - if he wasn't rehearsing a play or building sets, he was in the Krehbiel Auditorium audiovisual booth as a student employee of the AV department. He regularly worked convocations.
"I can't make sense of the fact that he's gone," she said. "I won't even try. I can only try to make sense of his effect on my life. He was a person of humor, dedication and a fierce hold on life.
"I'll miss him when he's not on this stage, which he filled so well - or when we're building sets at 1:30 a.m. and he's not here to rebuild one over and over until we get it right. We'll miss him the most when we live in a moment Seth would have been part of but now isn't."
As freshmen at Bethel, Dunn and Lisa Penner, also from Fresno, started a coffee shop on campus at a time when there was nothing like it closer than downtown Newton. They used their own money to buy urns, cups and fair-trade coffee.
Though-short lived, the venture illustrated Dunn and Penner's contention that students wanted a place to gather, socialize and drink good coffee. It made having a coffee shop on campus a top priority for Bethel's Student Senate and Student Life office, which led to the opening of Mojo's Coffee at Bethel a year ago.
Dunn was majoring in communication arts. Last school year, in addition to his role in Wit, he played Albert Einstein in Steve Martin's comedy Picasso at the Lapin Agile, directed by 2011 graduate Clint Harris.
Dunn and Creigh Bartel, junior from Newton, hosted "Creigh and Seth in the Morning" on Bethel's KBCU-FM, every Monday night during the school year - "Bethel's most popular morning show after 10 p.m." In addition to playing music, they conducted in-studio interviews with local leaders such as Bethel President Perry White and North Newton Mayor Ron Braun.
John McCabe-Juhnke '78, professor of communication arts, directed Dunn in his debut on the Krehbiel Auditorium stage when, as a sophomore, he played Mr. Webb in Our Town. McCabe-Juhnke also acted opposite Dunn in Wit as Dr. Harvey Kelekian to Dunn's medical resident, Jason Posner.
"[In my experience], stage personalities are often driven by what makes them shine [individually]," said McCabe-Juhnke, remembering the experience of Wit. "Seth was most interested in what helped us best work together to express the message of the play."
The campus community gathered again Sept. 4, once fall classes had started, to remember Dunn in another spot he frequented - the Green.
At that service, Dale Schrag, campus pastor, told about discovering that he had a Facebook account although he had never opened one."A little birdie told me it was Seth Dunn," Schrag said. Later, he added that he was worried at first about what would happen with a fake Facebook account in his name. However, he said, he relaxed when he learned Seth was the perpetrator. "I never knew him to have a mean bone in his body," Schrag said.
<>Dunn was the oldest son of Larry and Susan Dunn, who attended the Sept. 4 service along with Dunn's brothers, Eli and Isaac. Larry Dunn spoke, reading some passages from Nicholas Wolterstorff's Lament for a Son to express the relationship between love and suffering."Some do not suffer much, for they do not love much," Dunn said. "If we hadn't loved Seth, there wouldn't be this agony. It's going to take a long time for this wound to heal."
At the close of the service, Naomi Graber, senior from Elkhart, Ind., and a student chaplain, invited people to pick up a small stone. "My only hope," she said, "is that together we can discover that the mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death."
The mourners then walked a short distance down Sand Creek Trail and placed the stones on a cairn.
At the time of Dunn's death, Upton-Tyner e-mailed Margaret Edson, author of Wit, who came to campus last spring to see the Bethel production and met the cast at that time.
On learning of Dunn's death, Edson wrote: "I suppose we are all breath-based events. Here we come; there we go. What doesn't crumble? Our love. Where do we keep it? Safe inside. How long does it last? Forever."
Melanie Zuercher
Varied interests, individualized major direct student toward rural health
If Bethel College student Natalie Stucky is an example, Kansas medical schools are looking for potential health-care practitioners with interests that range far beyond medicine.
Stucky, a junior from Moundridge, learned this summer that she had been accepted into the University of Kansas' prestigious Scholars in Rural Health program, which only takes 10-15 students at a time.
According to the program website, Scholars in Rural Health is "designed to attract and retain young rural Kansans with a high probability of successful careers in rural communities."
The site goes on to say that medical students who eventually practice as physicians in rural communities often point to "an identifiable mentor and/or early premedical primary care experience" as deeply influencing their choice, and that rural physicians are more likely to have grown up in a rural community.
Among the criteria for selection: the student must be at least a sophomore at a Kansas college or university, with two years of study remaining; must have had "significant experience living in a rural Kansas community"; and must demonstrate a commitment to service.
Students who satisfactorily complete the program earn automatic admission to the KU School of Medicine. The anticipated outcome is an increase in the number of students from Kansas rural communities who choose health-care practice in rural Kansas.
During her two years at Bethel, Stucky has been a two-time qualifier for the American Forensic Association-National Individual Events Tournament; has served on Bethel's Student Senate (she is student body president in 2011-12); and has played the role of Hermione Granger in last spring's Bubbert Award first-place film Harry Potter and the Threshers of Bethel.
During the summer, in addition to working for her father (Glenn Stucky, a farmer), Stucky spent a day a week shadowing local physician Jon Jantz '79 at Cottonwood Pediatrics in Newton.
Stucky says she came to Bethel interested in pursuing a career in medicine, did some reevaluating and has now circled back - though with a broader perspective, thanks to the addition, during the 2010-11 school year, of Bethel's Individualized Major option.
Stucky credits her mother, Pat Stucky, a lab supervisor, and her grandmother, Susan Clark, a nurse, with sparking her interest early.
"When my brother [2011 Bethel graduate Alex Stucky] and I were little, my mom worked at the Halstead Hospital in the lab, and we would be in daycare there," Stucky remembers. "Sometimes she wasn't ready to leave [when the child care center closed] and we would hang out with her.
"One day, she sat me down and had me look at slides under a microscope. I was about five. I've been fascinated ever since."
Her time with Jantz this summer, she says, has taught her that "I really like primary care - I like interacting with patients." Jantz has allowed her, with permission of patients and their parents, to do some minimal examination of minor complaints like sore throats and earaches.
Stucky remembers Dwight Krehbiel '69, professor of psychology, mentioning the Scholars in Rural Health program sometime in her freshman year, highlighting the participation of Braeden Johnson, a 2009 Bethel graduate who is now a student at the KU School of Medicine.
"I recommended Natalie as a candidate, though the idea of doing this was more her initiative," Krehbiel says. "We talked about it at some length, and I gave her advice on things she might do to enhance her chances of acceptance," including the physician-shadowing, which Krehbiel helped arrange.
Using the IM option, Stucky has declared a major she is tentatively calling "history; social justice." "It's mainly social work with a [particular] focus on social justice," she says. She is interested in study abroad as well as getting "background in conflict resolution," she says.
One area in which she sees these interests connecting to medicine is a possible future assignment with an organization like Doctors Without Borders.
Over the next two years, Stucky will spend at least 40 hours a semester plus one summer, for a total of 200 hours, on the Scholars in Rural Health program. She will devote that time to working with her mentor (who, as it turns out, is Jantz), being exposed to a variety of health-care services, including office and hospital practice, and to completing a manuscript reviewing a topic related to rural health service or clinical care.
And after that - the options are wide open.
Melanie Zuercher
General education curriculum now stands on "Common Ground"
The view out the window on the ride from the airport to downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, changed Danica Cox's life. Carrie Schulz realized the value of collaboration when she and another student helped each other find what they needed for individual research projects. Austin Smith and Caleb Regehr discovered that respectful dialogue might not change minds but it certainly opens them.
Last January, Cox chose to take "Seminar in Cross-Cultural Learning: Haiti" because, she says, she had never been outside the United States and thought this would be a good chance to go. After visiting several Kansas-based aid organizations, the class traveled to the Dominican Republic and Haiti to see where the aid actually went.
The course was timed for a year after an earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince in January 2010 and almost a year after Bethel students and the community spent a day with Numana, Inc. (based in El Dorado) packaging meals to send to Haiti.
Cox, now a senior in Bethel's nursing program, also needed to fulfill the cross-cultural learning (CCL) requirement in the general education curriculum. What turned the experience into more than checking an item off a list, though, was "stepping outside the airport and seeing the reality," she says.
"There were tent cities everywhere, and piles of trash. I realized: 'I'm not just on vacation here.' The course wasn't nursing-based, but I started to pay attention. I started thinking about what a nursing-based trip to Haiti might look like."
Cox didn't forget the idea once she was back at Bethel. She made a presentation to her fellow students in the junior nursing class last spring and, when she asked how many would be interested in going on a nursing service trip to Haiti, every hand in the room went up.
Cox returned to Haiti this past summer. With her were Jennifer Scott Koontz '98, a Newton physician who did medical work in Haiti soon after the earthquake; Payton Walker, a Bethel student from Cox's hometown of Weskan who is also in the nursing program; and Koontz's sister Regan Scott, a pre-medical student at the University of Kansas.
They went to do on-the-ground planning for more medical trips to Haiti, including one Cox is organizing that is set to happen during Bethel's spring break next March.
"Students, by choosing to come to Bethel, have chosen to get a college education at a place that sees community as integral to learning," says Brad Born '84, vice president for academic affairs. "At Bethel, students will surely get excellent training in their majors and preparation for a career - and that will happen in a nurturing community that supports individual growth.
"One place that commitment to personal and community growth finds expression is our core academic program, what we call Common Ground, our one-of-a-kind shared educational experience. The challenge for us as teachers and administrators is to ensure that students, when they leave Bethel, will feel like they have had a college experience, not just been trained."
Nathan Bartel '02, assistant professor of literary studies, has been part of the Common Ground planning committee over the past year. He notes that the six areas - College Issues Colloquy (CIC) for freshmen and Basic Issues of Faith and Life (BIFL) for seniors; convocation; the CCL and the peace, justice and conflict studies (PJC) requirements that can be fulfilled through a variety of courses both on and off campus; and the research project or internship usually done sometime in the senior year - have not changed radically from the past few years.
"The program is in place," he says, "and that foundation is what makes a Bethel education different from one a student would get anywhere else."
Cox, Regehr, Schulz and Smith, along with junior Ariane Bergen and sophomore Wes Goodrich, told brief stories in this year's opening convocation to illustrate their personal experience in the six areas - CCL, BIFL, research, PJC, convocation and CIC, respectively.
Regehr and Smith both recalled the "debates and discussions" that were an important part of their BIFL and PJC classes. These centered on "current, large issues in this country," said Smith. "It didn't change what I believed, but it gave me a chance to hear other students' views and to leave the class with a more open mind."
What stood out to him, said Regehr, was "respectful and meaningful conversations among people who didn't believe the same thing at all" - on a spectrum from committed Christians to avowed atheists.
Schulz told of working on her research over the summer in Bethel labs and being unable to find a piece of equipment she needed. She and another student doing research, senior Louise Zurkee, worked together testing the equipment until they found something that functioned for each of them.
"It was a reminder of the importance of collaboration," she said. "Remember that even in individual research, you have the support and help of other students and faculty."
"My trip to Haiti was life-changing," said Cox. "I began to think seriously about medical mission. It gave me a glimpse into what I want to do with my future."
Last April when Common Ground was formally introduced to the student body in convocation, Bartel asked Robert Kreider '39, Bethel professor emeritus of peace studies, to reflect on what he envisioned in the idea of such a curriculum.
"In a world of cell phones, laptops, BlackBerrys, iPods, Facebook, video games - a world of virtual reality - I sense Common Ground reflects a yearning for a groundedness," Kreider said, "a reality we can touch, feel, smell, hear, an earthy place with texture, fabric, real people and three dimensions."Liberal arts at its best [means] respectful listening, probing, disagreeing, affirming - a community of learners," he continued. "In this, you embody the art and grace of asking thoughtful, penetrating questions, which is perhaps more important than attempting answers."
Following the student stories in this year's first convocation, Born said, "Today we launch a new academic year, and in very real, tangible ways, we will all share this space called Bethel as our common ground. Make it yours. Make it good. Make it a nurturing, challenging, life-giving place."
Melanie Zuercher
Summer vacation takes students from coast to coast
Although it's fall, Bethel College students are still looking back on some great summer memories.
Like those from any college, Bethel students spent their summers mowing lawns and making pizzas, waiting tables and counseling at camps - in short, earning some money to help them through the next school year. Some, however, had more unusual experiences.
Three music majors who are also aspiring conductors got to learn by watching an experienced orchestra conductor for a week this summer.
Daniel Hege '87, Jamesville, N.Y., this fall begins his second year as music director and conductor of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. He has been music director of the Syracuse (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra since 1999. He conducted the Newton Mid-Kansas Symphony Orchestra from 1999-2004.
Bethel seniors Anna Cook, Lawrence, Rachel Voran, Newton, and Andrew Voth, Topeka, shadowed Hege July 17-24 at the Music Academy of the West annual summer music festival in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Music Academy of the West is a prestigious preparatory institute in which young musicians spend eight weeks during the summer learning from faculty and guest artists. The latter include guest conductors such as Hege who come for a week each to work with the string players. Past conductors have included Otto Klemperer and Leonard Slatkin.
William Eash, Bethel director of choral studies, had the idea for the students to shadow Hege. Eash set up the group's experience, gave guidance and helped find funding for the trip.
The students observed Hege's conducting and met with him to discuss aspects of the profession.
"Our conversations were incredible," said Voth. "Topics ranged from things as broad as the role of a conductor to the specifics of score study."
In addition to their conversations with Hege, the three also attended master classes and concerts and talked with individuals from the academy.
"I gained incredible insight from the master classes," said Voran. "The performers were so advanced that the clinicians didn't need to focus on notes and rhythms, but instead focused on the nuances of tone and musicality."
The week included more than just music. The students spent time on the beach, visited the Santa Barbara pier and learned to know other young people at the hostel where they stayed.
"Despite all of the other amazing experiences, the highlight of the trip was interacting with and learning from Dan," said Cook. "He was so helpful and encouraging. We were blessed to have the opportunity to learn from such a successful Bethel graduate."
Junior Natasha Orpin, Moundridge, also went west but to the mountains rather than the coast. She spent 10 weeks in Kalispell, Mont., as a Ministry Inquiry Program pastoral intern at Mountain View Mennonite Church.
MIP helps college-age young adults consider pastoral ministry as a vocation, by placing them in Mennonite congregations (students do not have to be Mennonite to participate) where they can experience ministry firsthand under the supervision of an experienced pastor. They also receive scholarship funds to be applied to tuition, and the host congregation supplies housing and pays other living expenses during the term.
"I could have made twice as much working during the summer," Orpin said. "But two different people tapped me about doing it MIP, so I thought maybe I should."
During her time at Mountain View, working with Pastor Jeryl Hollinger, Orpin participated in Sunday worship services - leading worship, reading Scripture and occasionally preaching. She went to "almost any church-related meeting" and participated in the congregation's regular community activities such as cooking a meal for Feed the Flathead, the homeless assistance program of the Flathead Valley, and singing at a local retirement community.
"Since Mountain View is so small, averaging 50 or so in church on a Sunday, I figured it would be relationship-based, and it was," Orpin said, "but not as I expected. I connected with people my parents' and grandparents' age. I was pleasantly surprised [by that]."
With Kalispell only 30-40 minutes from Glacier National Park, she did spend some time there, including having her family come for a visit near the end of the summer. She also went biking and hiking with people from the congregation and generally enjoyed the outdoors for the short summer season of high country Montana.
Orpin, a business major with a communication arts minor, is also serving as a student chaplain at Bethel this year. After her summer with MIP, she said, "I feel more grounded as a person, and better able to be there for other people. I would love for people to feel comfortable talking to me right away - my experience this summer affirmed my belief in relationships, and that they take a long time to build."
Danica Cox, a senior nursing major from Weskan, spent most of her time at home helping out on her family's farm with painting and other work. However, she also took 10 days to return to Haiti, which she had first visited during her January interterm class earlier this year.
That class was not "nursing-based," so Cox paid special attention to any kind of medical situations or issues she encountered - and decided she wanted to organize a trip with fellow nursing students, which she hopes to carry out next March during Bethel's spring break.
After the interterm class, Cox kept talking with Cliff Dick '81, North Newton, who had led the class, and with Wildy Mulatre '94, a native of Haiti who lives in the central Haiti town of Hinche and works in health-care administration.
"We talked about what to do to make [the spring break trip] happen," Cox said. "We decided it would be best if I made a visit, to look at what the needs would be and how we could best plug in." She visited Hôpital Ste. Therese in Hinche and a rural clinic.
She came home with a better idea what the needs are, how the organizations are run and what supplies they need most.
"It was better than just sitting at home trying to [figure it out]," she said. "I saw that we really need a doctor or two to go with us - as nurses, we can see patients and make diagnoses, but we can't prescribe medication. I also realized we would need interpreters. I can't communicate the skills I have, or understand what's wrong with the patient." Most Haitians speak Haitian Kréyol and not many speak English.
Cox was encouraged by the connections that seem to be helping next spring's trip come to fruition. Not only did her church, Risen King Community Church in Weskan, give her the funds to cover this summer's trip - she also discovered that "someone I'm related to is best friends with the head of Heart to Heart International," a nonprofit medical charity based in Kansas City that will likely be the source of supplies the group will take with them to give away.
Melanie Zuercher
Enrollment rises again, up almost 10 percent
For the second year in a row, Bethel College enrollment has jumped by more than nine percent. In fact, it is up nearly 10 percent from fall 2010 to fall 2011.
Bethel's overall enrollment for fall 2011 is 523, compared to 476 last year, for an increase of 9.9 percent. One hundred twenty-six new students on campus this fall are first-time freshmen and 77 are transfers.
The fall 2010 to fall 2011 retention rate for first-time freshmen is 77.2 percent, two points higher than last year and well above the national average of 66.6 percent for peer colleges.
Bethel's class of 2015 includes 11 valedictorians, with 20 percent of freshmen coming from the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class and 45 percent from the top quarter.
Other characteristics of Bethel's fall 2011 student body include: first-time freshmen come from 16 states (California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Texas, plus Kansas) with one new student from Taiwan; first-time freshmen represent 41 different Kansas high schools; and 39 first-time freshmen are legacy students, meaning a parent, grandparent or sibling has previously attended Bethel.
There is also one student from the Bergische Universität-Wuppertal in Germany, part of the exchange program that has been in place since 1951.
"Our success in increasing enrollment can be attributed to faculty following up with students, coaches filling athletic rosters and the entire campus understanding that growing enrollment is critical to the life-blood of the institution," said Todd Moore, vice president for enrollment.
Melanie Zuercher
New fittings spruce up symbolic stone
With the recent aesthetic improvements to the plaza in front of Bethel College's Administration Building, it wouldn't do to have a "naked" threshing stone sitting there.
Used briefly for threshing wheat in the Great Plains (mostly Kansas) in the late 1870s and early 1880s, the stone has become Bethel's primary visual symbol and the mascot for the athletic teams, which are called Threshers.
In the past year, the Ad Building plaza has been resurfaced and had new landscaping. Nathan Bartel '02, assistant professor of literary studies, who has an office on the building's second floor, noticed that "the stone looked naked, not as good as it could, especially with the increased and renewed vision for campus presentation."
He made that observation to his grandfather, John Gaeddert '50 of North Newton - and not idly, since Gaeddert is known for his wood sculptures, especially those that emerge from "found" pieces such as fenceposts and old scrap wood.
The threshing stone - made of limestone and "toothed," meant to be hitched to a horse and pulled over cut wheat stalks to knock the grain loose - has long been in front of the Ad Building, but removal of the old crabapple trees made it obvious the yoke attached to the stone was rotted beyond repair and would have to go. The stone sat for months without one.
"After Nathan and I talked about it, I called Glen Ediger '75, who has made a study of threshing stones," Gaeddert says. "I asked him where we could find a yoke most like the original."
That may be an unanswerable question, however. The stones were used for a very short time, since the coming of the German/Russian Mennonites to Kansas, bringing with them the seed for the hard red winter wheat they had grown in Europe, nearly coincided with the introduction of mechanical reapers. By now, most if not all the original wooden yokes on any remaining stones are long gone to other uses or the elements.
Since Gaeddert loves to use hedgewood (Osage orange) in his sculpture, he decided on that for the new yoke.
"When John asked me if hedgewood was appropriate, I said it was probably not available in Kansas when the stones were used," Ediger says, "but it is still a good wood, and it looks great [for the new yoke]."
Gaeddert and Bartel went to Goessel to take the dimensions of the yoke (likely not original) of the threshing stone in front of the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church building. Gaeddert then went to Wade Brubacher's '70 farm on the Walton Road north of Newton, where he found some fenceposts "that were weathered and had been in the ground a while."
"It took about three weeks [to fashion the yoke]," he says. "I scraped the posts with a hand-scraper - there was a lot of weathered, 'dead' wood."Gaeddert's son-in-law, Bartel's father Allan Bartel '73 of North Newton, helped make the metal fittings that attached the crosspiece to the yoke's side-pieces. The badly rusted pipe going through the center of the stone was replaced with a piece of solid, one-inch iron. Bethel maintenance worker Fred Unruh helped bolt the yoke to the new "axle."
And finally, once the yoke was installed, Gaeddert consulted with Les Goerzen '76, director of Bethel's physical plant. "We turned it 180 degrees, because we decided the other side looked better."
The finishing touch to the Ad Building stone is a plaque now in production. It will bear these words: "A STUDENT IS A SEED - Just as this threshing stone helped the Mennonite pioneers free life-giving kernels of wheat from their dry outer husks, so Bethel College commits itself to help students discover their own goodness, that they might grow in intellect, character and spirit, becoming their best selves."
Melanie Zuercher