New Wel­come Cen­ter Sched­uled for Sum­mer Open­ing

MISHAWAKA – Be­cause of the coro­n­avirus, the new wel­come cen­ter’s ded­i­ca­tion has been post­poned un­til sum­mer­time. How­ever, there are plenty of rea­sons to look for­ward to the com­mence­ment cer­e­mony and plenty of de­tails con­cern­ing the pro­ject. 

The new wel­come cen­ter is go­ing to be roughly twice the size of the orig­i­nal; it pre­vi­ously func­tioned as the of­fice build­ing for 15 peo­ple, but it will soon be able to ac­com­mo­date 30. The new build­ing is also a more hos­pitable place, of­fer­ing re­fresh­ments, cook­ies and even a Mi­crosoft Sur­face to look at the sto­ries and videos of Bethel grad­u­ates. 

The fund­ing for the new build­ing, like most cam­pus con­struc­tion pro­jects, comes from do­na­tions, not tu­ition or other stu­dent fees. The $850,000 pro­ject is com­ing from the roughly $8,000,000 Bethel has re­ceived in the past few years as in­vest­ments for in­fra­struc­ture on cam­pus. Other pro­jects funded by this in­clude the Kelly Au­di­to­rium, the School of Nurs­ing ad­di­tion, the Prayer Gar­den, and the up­com­ing Lehman Fam­ily Train­ing Cen­ter, which is ex­pected to be com­pleted by Jan­u­ary of 2021. 

The build­ing it­self will be named the Van & Jean Gates Wel­come Cen­ter, in honor of a cou­ple in the com­mu­nity who owns three sep­a­rate Gates au­to­mo­tive deal­er­ships, one of which is quite close to the cam­pus on McK­inely Ave. The two have made no­table con­tri­bu­tions to vol­un­teer or­ga­ni­za­tions in the com­mu­nity, and their son, William Gates, has been on Bethel’s Board of Trustees for al­most 20 years. He and his wife, Su­san, have con­tributed to the new Wel­come Cen­ter in his par­ents’ honor. 

The Krake Court­yard out­side of the Wel­come Cen­ter, named af­ter Bethel’s first and eighth grad­u­ates, Mar­cus and Vir­ginia Krake, will also be re­ceiv­ing some new ad­di­tions. Two eight-foot-tall gates are to be built, rest­ing on brick pil­lars: the Wel­come Gate and the Com­mence­ment Gate. The for­mer will be aligned with the en­trance to the Wel­come Cen­ter, while the lat­ter will be po­si­tioned in the north­east cor­ner of the court­yard, with a side­walk lead­ing di­rectly to the west en­trance to the Good­man gym. This stretch of side­walk un­der the gate is go­ing to be part of the Grad­u­a­tion March. 

Last, but not least, the new build­ing’s con­fer­ence room will be named for the Dean of the School of Nurs­ing, Dr. Deb Gillum. The do­na­tion that funded the room was made in her honor due to her im­pact on Bethel and the School of Nurs­ing, which dur­ing her time has achieved na­tional rank­ing and been the largest en­roll­ment de­part­ment. 

Though stu­dents won’t be on cam­pus dur­ing the time of the ded­i­ca­tion cer­e­mony, they’ll be able to see the new build­ing and court­yard in all their splen­dor when they re­turn to cam­pus this fall.