Bethel Wel­comes New Stu­dent Life Em­ploy­ees

MISHAWAKA--Stu­dent Life wel­comed three new em­ploy­ees for the 2022-23 school year: Al­li­son Nicholas, An­drea Arm­strong and Thomas Car­pen­ter. 

Nicholas grew up in In­di­ana and grad­u­ated from Bethel in the spring of 2022. She cur­rently serves as the stu­dent ac­tiv­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ca­tion co­or­di­na­tor. 

“I ac­tu­ally just grad­u­ated from Bethel in the spring, so it’s some­where that was fa­mil­iar and close to my heart,” Nicholas said. “I was ac­tu­ally a stu­dent in­tern in this same de­part meant for three years as a stu­dent, so I was well pre­pared for this tran­si­tion.”  

Nicholas’s role in the Stu­dent Life De­part­ment is to help with the plan­ning of stu­dent events and to over­see the Bethel Now In­sta­gram page. 

An­drea Arm­strong is the de­part­men­t’s new of­fice as­sis­tant. Arm­strong grew up in Elkhart, and she is cur­rently mar­ried and the mother of two daugh­ters. Like Nicholas, her roots to Bethel are deep. 

“I at­tended Bethel, grad­u­ated from Bethel, my hus­band grad­u­ated from Bethel,” Arm­strong said. “I had taken some time off af­ter I had my kids. I had said that if I were to get an­other job, I would love to work at Bethel. My dad went here, my fa­ther-in-law went here, my sis­ter-in-law--so, it just feels like there’s some ties.” 

Most of Arm­strong’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ties re­volve around Bethel’s weekly chapel ser­vices. 

“I am sort of like chapel po­lice, but then also track­ing at­ten­dance for the stu­dents,” Arm­strong said. “Some be­hind-the-scenes stuff as far as chapel speak­ers. Once the speak­ers are on the sched­ule, I do the leg­work of mak­ing sure they know when they need to be here and if they’re stay­ing on cam­pus, we have a guest house for them, so re­serv­ing that for them and get­ting it ready for them, things like that.”  

The third em­ployee who joined Stu­dent Life is Tom Car­pen­ter, fill­ing the role of as­so­ci­ate di­rec­tor of com­mu­nity life. In this po­si­tion, Car­pen­ter over­sees the com­muter com­mu­nity and spir­i­tual life events, along with as­sist­ing with stu­dent dis­ci­pline. 

Car­pen­ter was born and raised in Goshen, but for the past seven years he and his wife have been liv­ing in West Lafayette with their three kids. He, too, has pre­vi­ous Bethel con­nec­tions. 

“This is my third time at Bethel,” Car­pen­ter said. “I was a stu­dent here, and then I was a staff mem­ber for six years in the ad­mis­sion of­fice. Now, this is my third time back at Bethel and now staff here in stu­dent de­vel­op­ment. The role came open and it felt like the Lord led that this was the right role and the right time for me to come back.”  

Stu­dents who want to con­nect with the Stu­dent Life staff should visit the Stu­dent Life of­fice on the first floor of the Miller-Moore Aca­d­e­mic Cen­ter or send them an email at stu­dentlife@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu.