New Pro­jects on Cam­pus

MISHAWAKA—Sum­mer is rapidly ap­proach­ing and with it some build­ing pro­jects on Bethel’s cam­pus. As re­ported ear­lier in De­cem­ber, 2018, the fol­low­ing pro­jects are un­der­way: 

Con­struc­tion will be­gin on the new ad­mis­sions build­ing over sum­mer break and is ex­pected to be com­pleted by the end of the fall se­mes­ter. Ac­cord­ing to Rich Cum­mins, vice pres­i­dent of In­sti­tu­tional Ad­vance­ment, “Fund­ing has been se­cured for that pro­ject and we looked at some of the fi­nal ren­der­ings and we have the ar­chi­tect and con­trac­tors work­ing on the pro­ject right now.” 

The com­puter sci­ence lab, a cru­cial part of the new com­puter sci­ence de­gree, is be­ing in­stalled in the base­ment of the Mid­dle­ton Hall of Sci­ence build­ing. Cum­mins stated that all the fund­ing has been raised for the re­model. Mul­ti­ple gen­er­ous donors have come along­side Bethel in or­der to launch the Com­puter Sci­ence pro­gram.  

Ac­cord­ing to Barb Belle­feuille, vice pres­i­dent for Aca­d­e­mic Ser­vices, “We want the labs and the other re­mod­el­ing for the Com­puter Sci­ence
area to be fin­ished by Au­gust 1.”  

Cum­mins said, “We are in the GROW era. G-R-O-W. So, we are rais­ing funds to help with pro­jects, pro­grams, and fa­cil­i­ties that help at­tract new stu­dents. We are cur­rently fundrais­ing for an ath­letic train­ing fa­cil­ity on cam­pus that will house the track pro­gram as well as the ki­ne­si­ol­ogy pro­gram -- we are in the silent phase of rais­ing funds for that par­tic­u­lar pro­ject.”

Cum­mins also brought to at­ten­tion the new Field Scholar pro­gram. The Field Scholar pro­gram is a debt-free path through col­lege. Cum­mins ex­plained it as a joint part­ner­ship be­tween em­ploy­ers/​donors and the stu­dents them­selves.  

The pro­gram is geared to­wards com­muter stu­dents and is now in its beta-phase of test­ing. How­ever, it seems to be go­ing well.  

Cum­mins said, “We are work­ing to­wards 20 stu­dents in that pro­gram and we al­ready have 50 ap­pli­cants for the fall.” 

The Stu­dent Me­dia Cen­ter is also get­ting a facelift. Pro­fes­sor Theo Williams is mov­ing his of­fice out of the base­ment and will be re­lo­cated to the main floor of the Stu­dent Me­dia Cen­ter. If you have any ideas for the space, there is a sug­ges­tion board in the Stu­dent Me­dia Cen­ter.