Bethel Uni­ver­sity Ex­ten­sion Pro­gram Pro­vides Af­ford­able Ed­u­ca­tion

Kristi Mon­e­smith wants to give her chil­dren the best ed­u­ca­tional op­por­tu­ni­ties pos­si­ble. She res­onates with moth­ers of low-in­come house­holds who strug­gle to find qual­ity ed­u­ca­tional op­por­tu­ni­ties for their chil­dren.This is one of the rea­sons she is help­ing lead the new Bethel Uni­ver­sity ex­ten­sion stud­ies (BU-X) pro­gram as aca­d­e­mic di­rec­tor. 

“Per­son­ally, I re­ally feel strongly about…the af­ford­abil­ity of this ed­u­ca­tion and the qual­ity,” Mon­e­smith said. “I want them to have a high-qual­ity ed­u­ca­tion in their back­yard.” 

BU-X is de­signed to bring Chris­t­ian higher ed­u­ca­tion and min­istry train­ing to lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties across the United States. The BU-X staff is part­ner­ing with lo­cal churches in these com­mu­ni­ties to host a Bethel Uni­ver­sity ed­u­ca­tion that is more af­ford­able and prac­ti­cal for stu­dents. 

Ac­cord­ing to pro­mo­tional fly­ers, the av­er­age cost for BU-X stu­dents is around $10,000 per year.  This is be­fore fac­tor­ing in fed­eral and state aid and church grants stu­dents can re­ceive. At this es­ti­mate, BU-X stu­dents are pay­ing $25,400 less an­nu­ally than the av­er­age four-year stu­dent liv­ing on cam­pus. 

Mon­e­smith said she has en­coun­tered in­com­ing col­lege stu­dents who would not have ap­plied to Bethel if not for the BU-X pro­gram. 

“The goal is not to steal stu­dents from the Bethel Uni­ver­sity tra­di­tional pro­gram,” Mon­e­smith said. “It is for the stu­dents who – and I think the ma­jor­ity [of stu­dents] in the pro­gram right now – would not have gone to Bethel tra­di­tion­ally be­cause they could­n’t have af­forded it.” 

The BU-X pro­gram is tar­get­ing 18 to 25-year-old stu­dents. Three of the stu­dents cur­rently en­rolled in the pro­gram are a lit­tle older than the av­er­age in­com­ing col­lege fresh­man. One of the BU-X stu­dents went to col­lege when they were younger but did not have suc­cess. 

The classes are taught by full-time or ad­junct fac­ulty on­line. As the pro­gram grows, the goal is to pro­vide on-site classes in the fu­ture. All classes will be over­seen by the lo­cal church-hired site di­rec­tors.  

The churches part­nered with the BU-X pro­gram so far are Nap­pa­nee Mis­sion­ary Church (NMC), St. Mark Mis­sion­ary Church, Grace Church in Camby, IN and Colo­nial Woods Mis­sion­ary Church. The five-year plan tar­get for BU-X is to be part­nered with 80 sites and 800 stu­dents. 

“As long as [churches] align with Bethel’s com­mit­ments and ethos, the de­nom­i­na­tion is less im­por­tant,” BU-X Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Terry Lin­hart said. “We won’t just part­ner with any­body, so they have to kind of align with Bethel, but they don’t have to be a part of the Mis­sion­ary Church [USA].” 

Down the road, Lin­hart said they are ex­plor­ing ways to part­ner with in­ter­na­tional churches and sites. For now, the fo­cus is to nur­ture and grow the pro­gram at home. Jor­dan Dil­lon, di­rec­tor of church part­ner­ships for BU-X, serves as the li­ai­son be­tween the lo­cal church sites and Bethel. 

The pro­gram al­ways planned on uti­liz­ing Zoom to com­mu­ni­cate with stu­dents even be­fore the COVID-19 pan­demic. Mon­e­smith said she’s teach­ing a live Col­lege Suc­cess class for this se­mes­ter. 

Nine­teen stu­dents are cur­rently en­rolled in this year’s in­au­gural BU-X pro­gram. The stu­dents can earn a two-year as­so­ci­ate de­gree or four-year bach­e­lor’s de­gree. The ma­jors be­ing of­fered in­clude min­istry lead­er­ship, busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion, cy­ber­se­cu­rity, be­hav­ioral & so­cial sci­ence, or­ga­ni­za­tional man­age­ment and busi­ness mar­ket­ing. 

While earn­ing their de­gree, BU-X stu­dents are re­quired to com­plete a practicum in the ca­reer they want to pur­sue. 

“That is where [stu­dents] are get­ting…eight to 10 hours a week of prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in min­istry,” Mon­e­smith said. “For ex­am­ple, if a stu­dent wants to go into kid min­istry, they’re ac­tu­ally get­ting kid min. ex­pe­ri­ence through­out the week.” 

The goal of the practicum is to help stu­dents gain ex­pe­ri­ence and build a work­ing re­la­tion­ship with pro­fes­sion­als in the field. 

But the unique ap­peal to the BU-X pro­gram is not just the af­ford­abil­ity. 

“This is not just a thing that ap­peals be­cause of cost,” Lin­hart said. “It ap­peals be­cause of the com­mu­nity, when done well and that’s some­thing…a cam­pus does­n’t pro­vide all of the time. You can co­hort in very sig­nif­i­cant, in­ti­mate ways as a group as you go through this ex­pe­ri­ence.” 

Mon­e­smith said they are see­ing adult men­tors and stu­dents de­velop re­la­tion­ships with one an­other as well. It is an ed­u­ca­tional ex­pe­ri­ence the BU-X staff hopes to nur­ture as the pro­gram pro­gresses. 

Bethel Uni­ver­sity an­nounced the pro­gram through press re­leases and fliers, but much of the mar­ket­ing will come from the church sites. Lin­hart said the BU-X site at NMC is pro­mot­ing the pro­gram through their web­site and mer­chan­dise. One of the prod­ucts NMC cre­ated is cof­fee cups with the cap­tion, “BU@NMC” on them. 

“The churches ac­tu­ally get ex­cited about this,” Lin­hart said. “They cre­ate their own brand. They have their own iden­tity. Every­one’s a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from each other. They all work with Kristi on how to do it.” 

If churches are in­ter­ested in part­ner­ing with Bethel Uni­ver­sity to be­come a BU-X site, they should fill out this form or con­tact Jor­dan Dil­lon at jor­dan.dil­lon@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu. If stu­dents are in­ter­ested in ap­ply­ing for the pro­gram, they should fill out this in­quiry form.