printer-friendly

take note

• The Bethel College Concert Choir earned a prime performance spot during the Kansas Music Educators Association (KMEA) annual meeting in Wichita in February. In addition, an honors jazz band based at Bethel and including several Newton and McPherson High School students, the Bethel College Jazz Combo and the men’s a cappella vocal group Open Road performed at various times Feb. 25 and 26.


• Caleb Stephens, Lawrence, a 5-10, 245-pound senior defensive lineman, was selected by Victory Sports Network, the internet sports news provider for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, to play in a national all-star game April 30 in Salina.


• “Fragile Bonds and Global Fellowship: The Ninth Mennonite World Conference in Curitiba, Brazil, 1972,” a paper by Meredith Lehman, senior from Bluffton, Ohio, became the 23rd by a Bethel student to win a statewide contest sponsored by the Kansas Association of Historians.


• Bethel College has signed its fourth articulation agreement … the third this academic year … with a two-year college. May 11, Bethel President Perry D. White and Vice President for Academic Affairs Brad Born ’84 traveled to El Dorado to sign the agreement with Butler Community College President Jackie Vietti. The agreement will help facilitate transfer for BCC students who want to obtain a four-year degree.


• The 2011 winner of the J.O. and Esther Schrag Helping Hand Award was Jane Schmidt ’76, admissions activities coordinator, nominated by senior Rachel Gaeddert. The nomination stemmed from an incident when a pecan pie Gaeddert had baked to take to the Mennonite Central Committee Relief Sale disappeared the night before the sale. Schmidt made another pie on her lunch hour the next day to give to Gaeddert.


• Lonnie Isaac ’93, head coach, was named KCAC Coach of the Year in tennis. The Bethel College women’s tennis team made its third straight appearance in the NAIA National Tennis Championships in Mobile, Ala., and recorded the first singles win at the national tournament of Isaac’s coaching tenure.


• Bethel was one of five Kansas private colleges, seven Kansas institutions overall, named to the 2010 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, which recognizes educational institutions nationwide that support effective community service and service-learning programs.


• Lisa Janzen Scott ’84, assistant professor of education and mathematics, received the Ralph P. Schrag Distinguished Teaching Award at this year’s Bethel College commencement May 22. The vice president for academic affairs presents the faculty award, recognizing an outstanding contribution to teaching, based on recommendations and evaluations from both peers and students.


• The April 2011 issue of Postsecondary Education Opportunity, a research letter that serves U.S. public policy makers in the field of education, ranks Bethel in the top 12 nationally of liberal arts colleges whose actual graduation rates surpass predictions.


• Bethel is expanding options in cross-cultural learning beginning in fall 2011 with the addition of Chinese language courses. The China initiative, with major sponsorship from an individual donor, will include an interterm travel course to the People’s Republic of China.

Pictured above: Each spring, faculty present Thresher Awards to seniors who have made an outstanding contribution in their chosen academic discipline. This year’s Threshers went to seven students. Pictured are six of them (Sonia Barrera was finishing a semester studying in Spain and was unable to be present) and the awarding faculty. Front row, from left: students Kyle Unruh (music), Clint Harris (theater), Benjamin Harder (music) and Alison Schmidt-Tieszen (social work); middle row: Karen Bauman Schlabaugh, John McCabe-Juhnke ’78, student Sierra Pryce (psychology), Ada Schmidt-Tieszen ’74 and student Rhonda Butler (natural sciences); back row: Timothy Shade, Paul Lewis, Larry Friesen ’67 and Dwight Krehbiel ’69.