Student Life

Bethel Hosts 2nd An­nual Well­ness Week

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The sun shines over the Academic Center and gazebo during late fall, 2019 (SUMER SCHINDLER).

MISHAWAKA- Bethel Uni­ver­sity hosted its an­nual Well­ness Week dur­ing Oct. 17-21. This gave stu­dents a chance to re­new their minds. Men­tal, phys­i­cal, emo­tional and spir­i­tual health were the fo­cuses of Well­ness Week. Many ac­tiv­i­ties and themed chapels/​mid­week op­por­tu­ni­ties were of­fered for stu­dents and staff.  

Court­ney Chap­man, the as­so­ci­ate di­rec­tor of stu­dent well­ness and en­gage­ment, over­saw sev­eral of the plan­ning as­pects for Well­ness Week. 

“The fo­cus of the ini­tia­tive is on of­fer­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to grow in aware­ness and par­tic­i­pate in ac­tiv­i­ties re­lated to whole-per­son—men­tal, emo­tional, phys­i­cal and spir­i­tual—health.  

Last year was Bethel’s first Well­ness Week, and it is a tra­di­tion Stu­dent Life is ex­cited to con­tinue. 

“Bethel was given a grant to fo­cus on stu­dent well­ness,” Chap­man said, “The ‘BU Be Well Ini­tia­tive’ be­gan last year as a ma­jor part of this.” 

Jess Lyons kicked off the week speak­ing in Mon­day chapel about how to re­new one’s mind and how the voice of the Good Shep­ard can help one do so. 

To end the week, pro­fes­sors Robby Prenkert, D.Litt.; Keith Koteskey, D.Min.; and Rachel Miller, Ph.D., spoke about how hav­ing a re­la­tion­ship with God can play into re­new­ing one’s mind. 

“It’s al­ways great to hear from Bethel fac­ulty and staff mem­bers in our com­mu­nity,” Chap­man said.  

The evening ac­tiv­i­ties of­fered this year in­cluded med­i­ta­tion and stretch­ing, splat­ter paint, a spe­cial Ves­pers, smoothie bowls, games and en­cour­age­ment. 

Med­i­ta­tion and stretch­ing gave stu­dents a chance to de-stress and re­lax dur­ing med­i­ta­tion on Scrip­ture. Splat­ter paint gave stu­dents some time to be cre­ative through art. Ves­pers and Lec­tio Div­ina was led by the Spir­i­tual Life Team and gave stu­dents a chance to fo­cus on the spir­i­tual dis­ci­pline of Lec­tio Div­ina. The theme for that evening fo­cused on Psalm 42. Smoothie bowls, games and en­cour­age­ment al­lowed stu­dents to get a healthy snack and hang out with friends.  

“Com­mu­nity and re­la­tion­ships are big com­po­nents of com­mu­nity,” Chap­man said, “Know­ing that you have sup­port­ive re­la­tion­ships can be re­ally help­ful when we think about men­tal health.” 

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