Bethel Adapts and Ex­pands Tra­di­tions

MISHAWAKA—Every year dur­ing the days lead­ing up to fi­nals week, the Bethel com­mu­nity en­joys a num­ber of tra­di­tions to help them de­stress and un­wind. This year, most of those tra­di­tions have con­tin­ued, though COVID-19 has given them a new look. 

Stu­dent En­gage­ment Co­or­di­na­tor An­nelotte Letens said that the Stu­dent Life of­fice is be­ing proac­tive to stay up to date on cur­rent rules and reg­u­la­tions. 

“We have to keep CDC rules and World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion rules in con­sid­er­a­tion,” Letens said. “Our emer­gency man­age­ment team puts to­gether guide­lines for gath­er­ings on cam­pus, and that keeps all of the lo­cal and na­tional reg­u­la­tions in mind.” 

Letens added that Bethel is striv­ing to en­sure the uni­ver­sity main­tains a good pub­lic im­age dur­ing the pan­demic. 

“Be­yond just what the rules are, we look at what [pub­lic re­la­tions] would look like,” Letens said. “I heard a quote some­where once, ‘If you don’t want it to be on the front page of the news­pa­per to­mor­row, you should­n’t do it.’ That’s kind of, for my­self, how I’ve been think­ing.” 

How­ever, Letens said the root mo­ti­va­tor of all the ac­tions per­formed by Bethel’s ad­min­is­tra­tion is the care of the stu­dents. 

“My pri­mary con­cern is for the safety and health of the stu­dents,” Letens said. “Their phys­i­cal health and their men­tal health.” 

Letens is proud of the events Bethel has been able to pro­vide for stu­dents this se­mes­ter. Some of the events in­clude the out­door con­cert, the pop-up liv­ing rooms, the fi­nal chapel, the mid­night break­fast and the fi­nals study nights. 

This year, Emily Sher­wood, di­rec­tor of alumni re­la­tions, is ex­tend­ing the mid­night break­fast tra­di­tion to alumni who may wish to par­tic­i­pate. 

“The alumni board . . . came up with the idea of a re­union in a box,” Sher­wood said. “We thought, ‘Maybe this is the per­fect year to try and test that out.’” 

The board de­cided to theme the box around a tra­di­tion and chose mid­night break­fast, a tra­di­tion that has en­dured since 1987. 

“It’s prob­a­bly one of our longest stand­ing stu­dent tra­di­tions,” Sher­wood said. “Den­nis En­g­brecht brought the tra­di­tion to cam­pus, and it has al­ways in­volved fac­ulty serv­ing stu­dents break­fast.” 

Alumni will have the op­por­tu­nity to pick up their boxes dur­ing a drive-in event in De­cem­ber, when the tra­di­tion would typ­i­cally be cel­e­brated. The alumni could also in­stead re­quest to have their box mailed to them.  

They are be­ing asked to pay a $5 reser­va­tion fee for the boxes plus ship­ping and han­dling if they want it mailed. There are a to­tal of 150 boxes and Sher­wood be­lieves they will all be given out. As to the fu­ture, the re­union in a box idea could con­tinue. 

“De­pend­ing on what the re­sponse is to this idea, I think we would hope­fully roll it out in dif­fer­ent vari­a­tions,” Sher­wood said. 

In ad­di­tion to the mid­night break­fast, Bethel will be pro­vid­ing the fol­low­ing de­stress events to help stu­dents fin­ish out the se­mes­ter with fi­nals week: ac­tiv­ity pa­pers, memes, play­dough, jour­nal­ing and cook­ies in the lower level of the Aca­d­e­mic Cen­ter; a grat­i­tude wall and ac­tiv­ity pa­pers on the sec­ond floor of the Aca­d­e­mic Cen­ter; a prayer wall, cook­ies, doo­dle wall and other ac­tiv­i­ties in the lower level of Ever­est-Rohr; a prayer wall and ac­tiv­ity pa­pers in the Nurs­ing Wing; and cook­ies and jokes in the Sci­ence Wing.