Bethel Mod­i­fies An­nual Go2BU Event to Pro­tect Health of Par­tic­i­pants

MISHAWAKA—On Thurs­day and Fri­day, Oct. 22-23, Bethel will be host­ing its sec­ond an­nual Go2BU event. It won’t be quite as im­mer­sive as last year’s event since none of the vis­it­ing high school stu­dents will be al­lowed to spend the night due to con­cerns re­lat­ing to COVID-19, but the Ad­mis­sions Of­fice is do­ing every­thing it can to make it a spe­cial time for the guests. 

Kim­berly Miller, en­roll­ment re­port­ing spe­cial­ist, said the event will be­gin at 5:30 p.m. on Thurs­day with a wel­come time, din­ner and soc­cer scrim­mage. On Fri­day, the vis­i­tors will re­turn to cam­pus in the morn­ing and stay through around 4 p.m. par­tic­i­pat­ing in var­i­ous ses­sions and op­por­tu­ni­ties. 

“There will be ses­sions on schol­ar­ships, on fi­nan­cial re­sources, on var­i­ous cam­pus life ac­tiv­i­ties, safety, all sorts of things,” Miller said. “It will also in­clude a mock class sim­u­la­tion for the stu­dents.” 

Six pro­fes­sors have vol­un­teered to lead a to­tal of four dif­fer­ent class sim­u­la­tions for stu­dents to choose from. A class from Spe­cial Top­ics in Rhetoric will be pre­sented by Theo Williams, Ph.D. A class from En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence will be pre­sented by Katie Weak­land, Ph.D. A class from So­cial Psy­chol­ogy will be pre­sented by Am­ber Beamer-Ro­hde, MSW; Norm Spivey, Ph.D.; and Terry Chi, Ph.D. A class from Ex­plor­ing the Chris­t­ian Faith will be pre­sented by Chad Mesiter, Ph.D. 

“It will just be a way to give them a lit­tle bit of a snap­shot of the col­lege ex­pe­ri­ence, the Bethel ex­pe­ri­ence, and hope­fully be a lot of fun for them as well,” Miller said. 

Stephanie Hochstetler, di­rec­tor of ad­mis­sion, said they have put a lot of thought and ef­fort into en­sur­ing the event meets and ex­ceeds COVID-19 guide­lines for keep­ing guests and the Bethel com­mu­nity safe, in­clud­ing hav­ing some­one with them at all times so they are aware of all the spaces guests have been in. 

“A lot of it is dis­tance,” Hochstetler said. “We have our own space in chapel, we’re keep­ing them to­gether in fam­ily units... we’re be­ing re­ally cau­tious to keep peo­ple con­tained and safe.” 

To limit num­bers, the event was lim­ited to the first 25 reg­is­trants and their guests.  Ad­mis­sions has also re­served ho­tel rooms at a dis­counted rate for stu­dents com­ing in from out of town. 

Even though op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to be in­volved with the event may be more lim­ited this year, Hochstetler en­cour­aged them to keep an eye out for the vis­i­tors and to reach out and say hello. 

“I think that’s one thing that our cam­pus does re­ally well, is be friendly,” Hochstetler said. “We just want that to con­tinue.” 

If you are in­ter­ested in as­sist­ing with the Go2BU event, email the Ad­mis­sions Of­fice at ad­mis­sions@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu.