Barb Belle­feuille: “That’s My Pres­i­dent!” 

MISHAWAKA – Barb Belle­feuille, Ed.D., be­gan serv­ing as in­terim pres­i­dent of Bethel Uni­ver­sity on June 1, 2021, and she was of­fi­cially named Pres­i­dent on March 10, 2022. Her in­au­gu­ra­tion took place on Sept. 10 of this se­mes­ter, al­low­ing stu­dents, fac­ulty, staff and mem­bers of the com­mu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in the land­mark event. 

Ac­cord­ing to Pres­i­dent Belle­feuille, her de­ci­sion to act as in­terim pres­i­dent hap­pened quickly, much more quickly than her choice to ac­cept the of­fi­cial role of pres­i­dent. Dur­ing her time as the in­terim pres­i­dent, Belle­feuille ful­filled pres­i­den­tial oblig­a­tions with a more short-term fo­cus.  Af­ter al­most a year of meet­ings and in­ter­views, Belle­feuille was of­fi­cially named the Pres­i­dent of Bethel Uni­ver­sity.  

Belle­feuille said that be­cause the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment came so close to the end of the school year, the uni­ver­sity made the de­ci­sion to wait un­til the fall se­mes­ter to host the in­au­gu­ra­tion.  The in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mony was a cel­e­bra­tion of Belle­feuille’s role as pres­i­dent of the uni­ver­sity. To Belle­feuille, the most mean­ing­ful part of the cel­e­bra­tion was the sup­port from so many mem­bers of both the Bethel com­mu­nity and the Michi­ana com­mu­nity. 

Belle­feuille said her vi­sion for the uni­ver­sity has only in­creased since step­ping into the role of pres­i­dent. She plans to con­tinue her fo­cus on Bethel’s pur­pose and its peo­ple. Her biggest goal for the 2022-23 school year is to reen­gage with the school’s pur­pose of strong aca­d­e­mics and spir­i­tual foun­da­tion.                     

Ac­cord­ing to Belle­feuille, she has been over­whelmed by the kind­ness she has re­ceived dur­ing this process. She said she feels as though she is still in the “hon­ey­moon phase” of this po­si­tion.   

“I get en­er­gized by the stu­dents,” Belle­feuille said. “I just love be­ing with them.”