Faculty & Staff Accomplishments

director of Kauffman Museum, was appointed to a two-year term on the Newton Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Council.

president, was selected by his peers as an at-large member of the Kansas Independent Colleges Association (KICA) Board of Directors, effective Jan. 1, 2024.

professor of communication arts, attended the OSCLG (Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender) Conference Oct. 4-8, 2023, where she presented two in-progress papers: (1) “Language Strategies in Repair: How Leaders Can Communicate Generatively in the Face of Failure,” and (2) “Using Slow Movement Principles to Reconceptualize Failure in the Classroom.” Christine is entering a second year of collaborating with teaching colleagues from the Institute of Leadership Studies (Leadership in Diversity and Inclusion) at the University of Kansas.

associate professor of social work, and Melanie Zuercher, communications and marketing writer/editor, both wrote successful grant proposals to the Bethel College Women’s Association’s Carolyn Schultz Lecture endowment. Jennifer’s grant will help bring Bethel graduate Caleb Stephens, Ph.D., to campus Sept. 10-11, 2023, to show his film Eat, Protest, Lift and speak in convocation. Melanie’s grant will support the Nov. 6-7, 2023, visit of poet Julia Spicher Kasdorf, who will speak in convo, meet with Dr. Siobhan Scarry’s poetry seminar, and present an evening program.

professor emeritus of biology, published “Bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) enrichment plantings enhance successional restoration of an old field” in the September 2023 issue of Ecological Restoration (Vol. 41, pp. 99-108). The paper summarizes a 16-year project that involved no fewer than 22 Bethel students over its duration. The journal’s editor and associate editor called the paper a “very nice long-term study” that will “contribute greatly to the science and practice of ecological restoration.”

adjunct professor of English, has a forthcoming article, “Counting Chaucer’s Pilgrim Interactions: A Practical Problem in Digital Humanities,” that will appear in the Proceedings of the Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature.

director of bands, played in the pit for Music Theatre Wichita’s 2023 season, including Ragtime, Aug. 16-20, and Cats, Sept. 6-10.

assistant professor of health and human performance, successfully defended his dissertation Aug. 15, 2023, in the Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. The title of his thesis is “Cardiovascular Autonomic Consequences of Spinal Cord Injury, Cardiovascular Disease Risk, and Exercise Adjuncts.” He is the latest faculty member to earn a doctoral degree.

head athletic trainer, was named KCAC Head Athletic Trainer of the Year for 2022-23. According to the conference release, the award “recognizes one individual for exceptional performance as a head athletic trainer (or equivalent title on their campus).”

controller and head men’s golf coach, was named 2022-23 KCAC Coach of Character. All KCAC Champions of Character awards are presented by IMA Financial Group and Dissinger Reed.

professor of visual arts and design, was accepted into the 2023-24 School for Art Leaders and spent a week of professional development with her cohort (25 other art educators from across the country) at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Ark., in July.

assistant professor of Bible and religion, presented three seminars at the Mennonite Church USA convention in Kansas City in early July 2023:
• “Just a Game”? Sports and/as Religion
• Anabaptist Approaches to Violence in Scripture
• Science and Faith

collections coordinator and museum technician at Kauffman Museum, continued to coordinate several traveling exhibit installations this summer both in and out of state. “Sorting Out Race” moved in June 2023 to Montana State University, Bozeman, hosted by the MSU library in collaboration with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. “Voices of Conscience: Peace Witness in the Great War” was installed in the Watzek Library at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Ore., in late July 2023 under the sponsorship of the Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference. For Humanities Kansas, a Smithsonian exhibit, “Voices and Votes: Democracy in Action,” was installed at three Kansas locations: Mid-America All-Indian Museum, Wichita; Nicodemus National Historic Site; and Old Depot Museum, Ottawa. Recently “Climate and Energy Central: Doing Science in Kansas” was reinstalled at Kauffman Museum where it will be on display through Oct. 29, 2023. David also hosted a booth for Kauffman Museum at the Mennonite Church USA convention in Kansas City in early July 2023.

and the faculty of the Department of Nursing are delighted to announce that, for the second year in a row, the nursing class (2023) had a 100% pass rate on the NCLEX.

professor of history, was briefly a Polish media sensation this summer during the “Mennonite Experience in Poland” tour that he led June 30-July 12, 2023. The group visited cemeteries in Przechówka and Miłoradz, where they identified the grave of Maria Fast Dyck, whose connection to Whitewater, Kan., was not previously known.

After completing her fourth year at Bethel, Tricia Clark has been promoted to executive director of marketing and communications, effective July 1, 2023.

Tricia was selected as a judge for the Council for Advancement and Support for Education (CASE) Circle of Excellence Videos 2023 in two categories: Fundraising and Stewardship (Short), and Promotional (Short). The judges are marketing and advancement professionals from colleges and universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

The Wichita travel blog onedelightfullife.com recently highlighted Tricia’s outdoor yoga sessions, Yoga on the Bridge in Lindsborg, Kan. She is certified in 200-hour yoga teacher training through Siva Yoga and has been leading vinyasa yoga since 2013.

professor of visual arts and design, Christine Crouse-Dick, professor and chair of communication arts, and Sheryl Wilson, M.L.S., executive director of KIPCOR, co-presented the workshop “Slow Leadership: A New Model for Higher Education” June 9, 2023, at Restorative Kansas, a regional Restorative Justice conference at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. They first presented this workshop March 1, 2023, at a national conference, the Teaching and Learning Symposium for Social Justice in Higher Education, sponsored by the Center for Teaching, Learning and Innovation at Hudson County Community College in Jersey City, N.J., with most sessions taking place online.

associate professor of social work, received the Ralph P. Schrag Distinguished Teaching Award at commencement on May 14, 2023.

She had two peer-reviewed presentations accepted for the Council on Social Work Education national meeting, to be held in October in Atlanta: a paper, “Lessons Learned from the 2022 Cuban Families Code,” and an interactive teaching workshop, “Understanding the Art of Collaborative Assessment for Ungrading in the Social Work Classroom.” She was granted the Julius A. and Agatha Dyck Franz Teaching Development Award, which will support her attendance at the CSWE national meeting along with a comprehensive revision of the Skills for Human Services course, which offers critical understanding and skill development in deep listening, human engagement, empathy, facilitation and dialogue. This spring, Jennifer participated in a Kansas Leadership Center training, “Equip to Lead.”

professor of communication arts, received a spring 2023 Bethel Faculty Development Grant to develop resources on inclusive pedagogy, and is participating in monthly research/support sessions with University of Kansas colleagues on inclusive pedagogy and leadership.

professor of history, participated in the invitation-only symposium “Jews and Mennonites: Reading the Bible after the Holocaust” at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., May 8-10, 2023.

He has two recent publications: “A ‘Strategy of Supporting and Learning’: Lessons from Mennonite Central Committee’s Peacebuilding Work behind the Iron Curtain, 1966-1991,” in Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace: Global Mennonite Perspectives on Peacebuilding and Nonviolence, ed. Fernando Enns, Nina Schroeder-van ’t Schip and Andres Pacheco-Lozano, 298-306 (Wipf and Stock, 2023); and a review of Heavenly Fatherland: German Missionary Culture and Globalization in the Age of Empire by Jeremy Best, in Church History, 91, no. 4 (December 2022), 948-950 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640723000112).

He presented on “Mennonite Farms in the Vistula Delta and Jewish Slave Labor from Stutthof Concentration Camp” at the Kansas Association of Historians annual conference at Johnson County Community College, March 31-April 1, 2023.

director of Kauffman Museum, was recognized for 30 years of service to Bethel College at the annual end-of-semester Last Lunch & Service Awards, May 8, 2023. In November 2022, she completed 10 years of service on the Kansas Museums Association Board of Directors, including serving as president for two years.

campus pastor, celebrated his ordination May 7, 2023, in the Ad Building chapel. He was granted an ordination credential in the Western District Conference of Mennonite Church USA, following a successful interview with the WDC Ministerial Leadership Commission in March.

director of sports medicine, and Brooke Powers, associate athletic trainer, were joint recipients of the Gerry Sieber Service Awards given at the Threshpy athletic awards celebration on May 6, 2023

was invited as a featured artist to the SpokenWeb Symposium and Institute, “ReVerb: Echolocations of Sound and Space,” held at the University of Alberta, May 1-5, 2023. Two of her pieces were on exhibit all month in the Sound Art Gallery of the Sound Studies Institute at the University of Alberta, where she gave an artist talk, “Reverberations of Winter Walking.” Rachel had two solo shows during the 2022-23 school year, first “In/Visible Care” at Outlook Gallery, Minneapolis, Minn., October-January, and currently “Invitations to Listen” at the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University, Topeka, Jan. 17-June 5, 2023.

professor of English, had two poems published in the anthology Level Land: Poems For and About the I-35 Corridor (Lamar University Press, 2022) and read at Watermark Books in Wichita April 29, 2023, with fellow poets published in the anthology. She published a review of a volume of experimental poetry/memoir, NOS (disorder, not otherwise specified) by Matthew Cooperman and Abby Kaupang, in American Book Review Vol. 43, No. 3. Her poem “The Last Photographs of Dora Maar” was included in the show “LAST” at La Mob Gallery, Ménerbes, France, through March 2023.

The Wichita State University Symphonic Band gave the world premiere of “Soundscapes for Trombone” by Joel Boettger, director of bands, on April 24, 2023. The work was a commission from Tim Shade, former director of instrumental music at Bethel who is now director of the WSU School of Music. You can watch the performance, which features Dr. Shade on trombone, at the following link (starts at minute 36): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKiVtVMX67E Other recent composing successes include a performance in the fall 2023 semester by the Eastman Jazz Ensemble (Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N.Y.) of Joel’s composition “Rest, I Give You,” in the fall 2023 semester, and the WSU Jazz Arts 1 group’s premier in spring 2023 of “Begin Again.”

The Thresher Leadership Awards given on April 21, 2023, included Student Supporter of the Year, which went to Allen Jantz, Ph.D., professor of education, and Adviser of the Year, Sam Bond, coordinator of student activities and engagement.

controller, directed a 25-voice choir at First Mennonite Church, Halstead, in a 45-minute cantata titled Jesus, comprising songs and readings, on Easter Sunday morning, April 9, 2023, at the church. The choir was made up of First Mennonite members and a few community singers.

athletic director, led a session at the BOSCA (Business of Small College Athletics) Regional Conference, held in Kansas City in February 2023 at Rockhurst University, titled “Budget Planning in Small College Athletics.” In March 2023, he presented at the Kansas Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (KIAAA, the association of Kansas high school athletic directors) annual conference in Mulvane, with “Developing Culture as an AD.” Tony served on a panel at the NAIA National Convention in New Orleans in April 2023 along with the president of St. Francis University. Their workshop session was titled “Return on Athletics: Informing decisions through association trends and peer stories.”

dean of employment experiences, and President Jon Gering attended the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego in April 2023. The acronym stands for Arizona State University and Global Silicon Valley (venture capitalists), and the summit is described as a place that “connects leading minds focused on transforming society and business around learning and work.” There were more than 7,000 people attending. Megan says, “We were able to attend through our membership with [the Council of Independent Colleges, CIC]. We made some excellent connections and quickly learned that Bethel is on the right track with our push toward vocational exploration (purpose)/human flourishing initiatives and the Employment Experiences program. In particular, I was able to meet the executive director of the Charles Koch Foundation, who took special interest in the Pathway to Purpose course I developed, and requested a copy of the syllabus. He had just facilitated a panel discussion titled ‘More than Skills: How to Put Purpose Back into Work and Learning.’ I believe the connections President Gering and I made at this summit will help open doors to more funding opportunities and additional resources our campus could benefit from.”

coordinated several traveling exhibit installations in spring 2023. “Sorting Out Race” moved in early April 2023 from the Wenatchee Valley Museum in Wenatchee, Wash., to the Mansfield Library at the University of Montana, through June 4, 2023. “Climate and Energy Central: Doing Science in Kansas” was on display at Stauth Memorial Museum in Montezuma, Kan., though mid-April 2023. And “Better Choose Me: Collecting and Creating with Tobacco Fabric Novelties” is at the McPherson Museum through mid-June 2023.

gave a talk, “Listening as a Guest through Artistic Inquiries: Toward More Just Futures,” at the Listening Pasts, Listening Futures conference of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, held in Smyrna Beach Fla., and online, March 19-26, 2023. Her paper, “Caring for our Futures: Epistolary Praxis and the Promise of Slow,” was published in Performing Ethos: International Journal of Ethics in Theater and Performance, Vol. 12 (Winter 2022): 9-20.

director of admissions, was part of “Ye Olde Threshers,” a team that ran a relay marathon in Wichita on March 12, 2023, sponsored by Wichita Brewing Company as a fundraiser for the Kansas Food Bank. Temperatures were in the 30s as the 6-person team passed the baton from one runner to the next to collectively run 26.2 miles from Wichita Brewing Company’s west location to its east location. The team was ⅚ Bethel alumni: Eric, Kiley (Varney) Preheim, Drew Trollope, Abby (Schrag) Koch and Laird Goertzen, with one stand-in, Jake Smucker of Newton. Ye Olde Threshers finished 11th overall (up from 22nd place in 2022) and 9th in the mixed relay category, with a time of 3:33:19.

attended the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Seattle, March 9-11, 2023.

library assistant for interlibrary loan and serials and adjunct instructor of music, directed the Newton Chorale in a concert March 5, 2023, at Bethel College Mennonite Church. The concert featured The Chariot Jubilee by R. Nathaniel Dett, with soloist Dr. Matthew Schloneger and a chamber orchestra. Renae has directed the Newton Chorale since 2015. The community choir was founded in 1976.

director of choral music, conducted the USD 259 Wichita 2023 High School Honors Choir in a concert at Century II on Feb. 21, 2023.

won his 100th game as Thresher head men’s basketball coach Feb. 4, 2023, against Sterling.

assistant professor of Bible and religion, received the Ralph P. Schrag Distinguished Teaching Award at commencement on May 15, 2022, and on Jan. 30, 2023, he presented the honors convocation, “Just a Game: Sports and/as Religion.”

He preaches regularly in area churches. His schedule this school year included:

·“Written on Your Heart” (Tabor Mennonite Church, rural Newton, Aug. 14, 2022)

·“Seeing in the Dark” (Hope Mennonite Church, Wichita, Sept. 18, 2022)

·“You Are What You Worship: Guns and Other Idols of Our Age” (Salina Mennonite Church, Sept. 25, 2022, adaptation of a workshop presented earlier at the 2022 Western District Conference annual assembly)

·“Sacred Spaces: Lands of the Bible” (Peace Mennonite Church, Lawrence, March 12, 2023)

·“Light of the World” (Hoffnungsau Mennonite Church, rural Inman, March 19, 2023)

·“The Wisdom of Foolishness” (Moundridge Mennonite Education Sunday, April 23, 2023; also delivered at Hope Mennonite Church, Feb. 5, 2023)

In fall 2022 and spring 2023, Allison J. McFarland, Ph.D., chair of the business department, was invited to speak at the following events on the recruiting, mentoring and retention of Generation Z workers:

Texas A&M TEEX Leadership Symposium, San Marcos

Institute of Management Accountants, Tacoma, Wash.

Meeting of executive directors, NonProfit Connect, Kansas City, Mo.

Women’s Employment Network, Kansas City, Mo.

During the same time period, Dr. McFarland also collaborated with the pastoral team at Grace Community Church in Newton on the topic of reaching Gen Z, and served as a speaker on the church and Gen Z at the following:

National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces (military chaplains), Arlington, Va.

Pastors and Church Leaders Conference, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Ind.

director of business services, has been elected chair of the board for the Newton Convention and Visitors Bureau. She has served on the CVB Board since 2013.

adjunct instructor of social work (criminal justice), was elected president of the Kansas State Historical Society for 2023.

has been serving on the board of the Newton Area Chamber of Commerce since August 2020. She is currently president-elect of the Chamber and will start her one-year term as president in September 2023, after which she’ll serve one year as past president.

vice president for enrollment management, currently serves as the Region 4 West representative to the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Small Colleges and Universities Division. She has held this role for two years and was recently appointed for another 2-year term. She will also serve on the NASPA Region 4 West Conference planning team as co-coordinator for registration activities. That conference will take place in November 2023 in Oklahoma City.

multimedia coordinator in marketing and communication, was named the inaugural Thresher of the Year by The Bethel Collegian.

head cheer coach, was named 2021-22 KCAC Coach of the Year in cheer.

graphic design coordinator in marketing and communication, is finishing his first semester in a two-year MFA in interdisciplinary media arts (area of study: graphic design) through Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Mo. He anticipates completing the online program in December 2024 and walking in May 2025.

During her sabbatical in 2022, Jennifer Chappell Deckert was awarded the Kilian McDonnell Fellowship in Faith and Culture from the Collegeville Institute in Collegeville, Minn. She was a resident scholar during November and December 2022, focused on faith communities, migrant inclusion and social activism. In October 2022, she was a delegate to the Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective in Havana, “Healing our Land, Healing Ourselves.” Along with other social workers, educators and community activists, she visited community organizations and learned about social issues facing Cuban people related to education, health care, nutrition, social justice and historic trauma, and spirituality.

archivist and co-director of libraries, had an article posted Oct. 20, 2022, on the Anabaptist Historians blog about a recent archival document discovery, “A Letter from Maggie Leonard” https://anabaptisthistorians.org/2022/10/20/a-letter-from=maggie-leonard/, and published an article, “A Deeper Perspective on the Berlin Exodus,” in the April 2022 Mennonite Quarterly Review. https://www.goshen.edu/mqr/

professor emeritus of biology, published “Vegetation change in a sand prairie over ten years following a gas pipeline installation” in the Spring 2022 issue of Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, Vol. 125:31-40 https://bioone.org/journals/transactions-of-the-kansas-academy-of-science/volume-125/issue-1-2/062.125.0103/Vegetation-Change-in-a-Sand-Prairie-over-Ten-Years-Following/10.1660/062.125.0103.short

published “Mennonite Nectar: Alcohol Production in the Vistula Delta” in Preservings, issue #43 (https://www.plettfoundation.org/preservings/past-issues/); “John Kroeker and the Backstory to the Berlin Exodus” in Intersections: MCC Theory & Practice Quarterly in the fall 2021 special issue on Mennonite Central Committee and National Socialism (https://mcc.org/sites/mcc.org/files/media/common/documents/intersectionsfall2021.pdf); and an article in the Journal of Mennonite Studies, “The Contested Legacy of the First Mennonite Anthropologist, H.R. Voth,” 08/01/2021 (https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms).

co-director of libraries, received E-RYT 200 yoga teaching credentials from Yoga Alliance. E-RYT stands for Experienced-Registered Yoga Teacher and requires a minimum of 1,000 hours of teaching since completing yoga teacher training.

published “Anabaptists in Prussia” in T&T Clark’s Handbook of Anabaptism, edited by Brian C. Brewer, 169-183 (London: T&T Clark, 2022). https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/tt-clark-handbook-of-anabaptism-9780567689481/

was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant for 2021-22. In spring 2022, she was the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Arts and Humanities at the University of Alberta. https://www.bethelks.edu/article/professor-receives-fulbright-award

raduated with a Master of Divinity degree from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 05/01/2021

was nominated and selected as a “Woman Who Leads in Education” by the Wichita Business Journal, 04/21, https://www.bethelks.edu/article/kershner-tagged-among-women-leaders-education

was a featured conference participant (speaker, presenter, panelist, moderator) at the Research-Creation + Social Justice CoLaboratory at the University of Alberta, 03/21. She spoke on “Slow Art for Fast Times” and presented a workshop, “Listening Across Time through Epistolary Praxis” in the “Art, Activism, and Global Crisis” series

was appointed book review editor for the Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work, 01/21

professor of chemistry and physics, received a Pittsburgh Conference Memorial National College Grant of $10,000 for 2020-21 from PittCon, the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh and the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh.

received a Curriculum Development Grant from the National Art Education Foundation for 2020-21.

was published in Mennonitisches Lexikon Band V, 3 vols., edited by Han-Jürgen Goertz with Jelle Bosma, Fernando Enns, Josef Enzenberger, Helmut Foth, Daniel W. Geiser-Oppliger, Mark Jantzen, Diether Götz Lichdi, Pieter Post and Christoph Wiebe (Bolanden-Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 12/20).

are co-editors of European Mennonites and the Holocaust (Toronto: University of Toronto Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, November 2020), and co-authors, with Doris L. Bergen, of the “Introduction” to the volume.

was a presenter for the University of Minnesota School of Social Work Center for Practice Transformation webinar “Walking the Talk: Practicing Restorative Justice and Anti-Racism” in August 2020, and for the Catholic Mobilizing Network webinar “Five Lessons Learned from Restorative Justice: In the Time of COVID-19” in April 2020. She attended the International Association for Conflict Management (IACM) 33rd Annual Conference (virtual) and was a panelist for “Pursuing Racial Justice and Inclusivity through Engagement,” 07/20.

Sheryl published a chapter, “Calling Out Whiteness,” in Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing Our Realities (Living Justice Press, June 2020), and wrote an article, “Disrupting the School to Prison Pipeline in America’s Schools,” for The Mennonite in January 2020.

received a Visiting Regional Humanities Faculty Fellowship from the Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas in the summer of 2020. She was part of the exhibition “May You Live in Interesting Times” at the Northern Arizona University Art Museum in Flagstaff, Feb. 4-April 18, 2020.

She presented “Editorial perspectives on Inappropriate Bodies: Art, Design, and Maternity” at a Women’s Caucus for Art conference session at the College Art Association meeting in Chicago, Feb. 13, 2020.

assistant professor and chair of history and philosophy, was invited to be part of the livecast/podcast Lawful but awful: Fails in the court of public opinion; How the public thinks about police use of force from the National Police Foundation, Washington, D.C., 2020.

presented “A Tale of Two Experiences: A Professorial Couple Navigates the COVID-19 Transition” at the Summer Institute on Distance Learning and Instructional Technology in Emporia, Kan., 2020.

was invited to present “Just When You Finally Decoded Millennials, iGens Are Here!” at Non-Profit Connect, Kansas City, Mo., and at the Wichita Chamber of Commerce Manufacturer’s CEO Roundtable, both in 2020.

wrote on “immigration and spirituality” for the Oxford Bibliographies in Social Work, 2020, and is the author of “Extending the story: Weaving the strengths perspective into study abroad initiatives” in Mendenhall, A. & Carney, M.M. (eds.), Rooted in strengths: Celebrating the strengths perspective in social work, 61-76. 2020.

wrote the “Vorwort” in Bernhard Thiessen, Mennoniten in Der DDR. Leben in Grenzen. Die Mennoniten in der SBZ und der DDR von 1945 bis 1990 (Bolanden-Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtesverein, 2020; https://mennoniten-ddr.de), and is the author of “‘Eine offene Beleidigung,’ A Newly Discovered Review of Quitt by C.H. Wedel, Instructor at Ruth Hornbostel’s Mennonite School in Halstead” in Fontane Blätter, 110 (2020): 71-88.