Campus News

BABE Week and Dude Week Of­fer Time for Stu­dents to Recharge

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MISHAWAKA—Bethel's an­nual BABE Week hap­pened Feb. 7 to 14, with Dude Week im­me­di­ately fol­low­ing Feb. 15 to 20. BABE Week en­cour­aged stu­dents to give up some dis­trac­tions such as so­cial me­dia and fo­cus on con­nect­ing with their fel­low stu­dents. Group ac­tiv­i­ties in­cluded sev­eral small, dorm-spe­cific events through­out the week, a Zumba night on Thurs­day and a larger fo­cus on the week­end re­treat than pre­vi­ous years. 

“The theme of the week­end was ‘Rhythms of Re­newal,’” An­nie Ben­nett, res­i­den­tial di­rec­tor for Tuckey, said. “We fo­cused on four spe­cific things, which was rest, re­store, con­nect and cre­ate.” 

The re­treat took place at The Oaks and about 75 girls par­tic­i­pated. Stu­dents could choose to spend the night on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day or just come for Sat­ur­day. The group made bracelets, played games, took time to con­nect with each other and par­tic­i­pated in other ac­tiv­i­ties. 

“The whole point of it was to kind of get away for a lit­tle bit, con­nect with peo­ple that you al­ready know but also with those you don’t know, and to just have a time of re­newal af­ter such a crazy-busy last se­mes­ter and even just a busy time com­ing back from Christ­mas break,” An­nie Ben­nett said. 

Dude Week kicked off Mon­day with the Mid­night Meat­fest, a tra­di­tion that was moved from Shiloh to the Acorn this year due to the weather. Johnny Ben­nett, res­i­den­tial di­rec­tor of Manges, pre­pared 150 pounds of chicken for the event.  

“We al­most knocked out all 150 pounds that night,” Johnny Ben­nett said. “There was barely any left over. It was great.” 

Other events through­out the week were dorm-spe­cific un­til the Thurs­day night tour­na­ment that pit­ted the dorms against each other for in­di­vid­ual prizes, brag­ging rights and the of­fi­cial Dude Week flag for the dorm that did the best over­all. There was also a week­end re­treat on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day. In the past, this re­treat has been specif­i­cally for Manges res­i­dents, but this year the in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tended to all Bethel male stu­dents. 

“The whole idea of Dude Week is pred­i­cated on a tech­nol­ogy fast,” Johnny Ben­nett said. “Our goal is to get guys to un­plug from tech­nol­ogy, so­cial me­dia, their phones as much as they can . . . at the re­treat, we kind of break the fast to­gether.” 

Pre­cau­tions were taken to fol­low COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions; masks were worn ex­cept when stu­dents were eat­ing, all the food was in­di­vid­u­ally pack­aged or served by se­lect vol­un­teers and reg­is­tra­tion for the week­end re­treats was lim­ited to keep the group size ap­pro­pri­ate for the size of the space. 

The Ben­netts both be­lieve BABE Week and Dude Week are im­por­tant for giv­ing stu­dents space to breathe dur­ing a rough time of the se­mes­ter. 

“I feel like it’s im­por­tant to just kind of re­mind stu­dents of why it’s im­por­tant to con­nect with other peo­ple and how im­por­tant com­mu­nity is,” An­nie Ben­nett said. “That way when we do get into those times when we’re not feel­ing so great, we have peo­ple we can lean on.” 

Like­wise, Johnny Ben­nett hopes that stu­dents use this time to set down their phones, take a step away from the dis­trac­tions of so­cial me­dia and fo­cus on the peo­ple around them. 

“Anx­i­ety and stress is at a level that has re­ally never been reached, and I think there are sev­eral dif­fer­ent lay­ers to that, but I think a huge com­po­nent is tech­nol­ogy,” Johnny Ben­nett said. “Smart phones specif­i­cally did away . . . with the lines of when work hap­pens and when you’re done. It re­ally blurs a lot of things to­gether and cre­ates a lot of stress, and so­cial me­dia in ad­di­tion cre­ates a lot of com­par­i­son and iso­la­tion.” 

The Ben­netts are grate­ful for the many tes­ti­monies of stu­dents who felt ben­e­fited by the ex­pe­ri­ence and they hope many more stu­dents will con­tinue to get in­volved in fu­ture years.