Holt­gren Over­sees On­line Tran­si­tion

Like many ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions, Bethel Uni­ver­sity moved all classes on­line for the rest of the spring se­mes­ter. The March 20 an­nounce­ment came nine days af­ter the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) an­nounced that COVID-19 is a pan­demic.  

“This coro­n­avirus re­ally has thrown our na­tion for a loop,” Bethel Pres­i­dent Gregg Chenoweth an­nounced in a video posted on March 20. “When have you ever seen things shut down so rapidly and of course for Bethel, we can only fore­cast what this means for us, some­times daily or weekly, but now, of course, think­ing ahead for a cou­ple of months.” 

Bethel’s de­ci­sion to can­cel face-to-face classes came from a cul­mi­na­tion of two to three weeks of mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion. Vice Pres­i­dent of Stu­dent De­vel­op­ment Shawn Holt­gren said he was in­vited to a meet­ing with other lo­cal uni­ver­si­ties and health in­sti­tu­tions. The health of­fi­cials in­cluded Bea­con Health Sys­tem, St. Joseph Health Sys­tem and the South Bend Clinic. 

Holt­gren said the meet­ing took place about a week and a half be­fore March 22. Health of­fi­cials ad­vised the ed­u­ca­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives on how to pre­pare for the COVID-19 virus. 

“At that point, we be­gan to re­ally con­sider the op­tions that were in front of us and one of those was ob­vi­ously mov­ing things on­line,” Holt­gren said. 

Af­ter lis­ten­ing to up­dates given by the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) and lo­cal of­fi­cials, Bethel took ac­tion. The in­sti­tu­tion es­tab­lished the Emer­gency Man­age­ment Team (EMT) and Chenoweth ap­pointed Holt­gren as the com­man­der. The role of the EMT is to over­see the im­me­di­ate changes tak­ing place on cam­pus and to en­sure their suc­cess. 

In ad­di­tion, Holt­gren will con­tinue in his lead­er­ship role in stu­dent life, over­see ath­let­ics and su­per­vise in­ter­na­tional stu­dents and the cam­pus ac­tiv­i­ties events hap­pen­ing in the next few weeks. 

“Be­lieve it or not – I know we use the word cam­pus ac­tiv­i­ties – but we’re go­ing to con­tinue that,” Holt­gren said. “And be look­ing at your email and dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­cause we hope to con­tinue to cre­ate ways for stu­dents to con­nect.” 

Stu­dent En­gage­ment Co­or­di­na­tor An­nelotte Letens will be plan­ning the so­cial gath­er­ings hap­pen­ing on­line. De­tails re­gard­ing up­com­ing events can be found on the Bethel Cam­pus Ac­tiv­i­ties In­sta­gram and Face­book ac­counts. 

In a March 22 in­ter­view, Holt­gren said stu­dents would have to move out of their dorms by March 28. But the day af­ter the in­ter­view, Stu­dent Life sent out an email en­cour­ag­ing stu­dents to leave by March 24. Bethel made the sud­den change af­ter In­di­ana Gov. Eric Hol­comb is­sued a state-wide Stay-At-Home Or­der. 

In­ter­na­tional stu­dents who are un­able to re­turn home due to air­port shut­downs are cur­rently stay­ing in Sailor Hall. Sailor Res­i­dent Di­rec­tors An­nie and Johnny Ben­nett are re­main­ing in their posts. Bethel is still pro­vid­ing three meals a day for the stu­dents re­main­ing. 

All stu­dents from Se­mes­ter Abroad trips over­seas re­turned to the United States. The U.S. gov­ern­ment rec­om­mends that any­one re­turn­ing from an over­seas trip be quar­an­tined for 14 days.  

Holt­gren said Bethel is leav­ing it up to the stu­dents to de­cide where they want to self-quar­an­tine. Most stu­dents chose to self-quar­an­tine at home. Some stu­dents who lived with high-risk res­i­dents were placed in a quar­an­tined area off-cam­pus. 

For stu­dents back at home or liv­ing off-cam­pus some­where, Holt­gren said RDs and RAs are still meet­ing weekly with their hall­mates vir­tu­ally. Stu­dent Life drew up a two-page doc­u­ment of ex­pec­ta­tions for RAs and RDs to stay con­nected. 

“What we don’t want to do is al­low this virus and the sep­a­ra­tion from cam­pus to break up com­mu­nity,” Holt­gren said. “Our goal is to try to con­tinue that as best as we can in the next month.” 

While stu­dent life re­leases chapel videos via email, there are other ways stu­dents can re­main spir­i­tu­ally con­nected. Holt­gren said stu­dents should get con­nected with their lo­cal church and stay con­nected with friends and fam­ily.