BETHANY COLLEGE
Lindsborg, Kansas
The College
The mission of Bethany College is to nurture and challenge individuals in their search for truth and meaning as they lead lives of faith, learning, and service. Bethany, located on 62 landscaped acres, is a four-year, fully accredited college owned by the Central States and Arkansas-Oklahoma Synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Graduates have excelled in graduate and professional schools and in diverse career fields such as the arts, education, engineering, economics/business, law, and medicine. Sixty-three percent of Bethany's 600 students are from Kansas. The College has students from twenty-three other states and twelve countries.
Sixty-six percent of the students live on campus in five residence halls and five special-interest houses. About 17 percent of the students belong to one of Bethany's three sororities or three fraternities. The average age is 19.
Students' involvement in their education is encouraged through extensive use of experience-based education such as internships. Small classes, personalized education, and caring faculty and staff members are Bethany College hallmarks.
Athletic facilities in the Stroble-Gibson Complex and Hahn Gymnasium include a sports medicine and training room, basketball and volleyball courts, the offices of the Athletic Director, classrooms and locker rooms, a weight room, a large multipurpose gymnasium, two handball/racquetball courts, offices for the Physical Education Department, and the Special Events Office. Anderson Field features an outstanding playing field, a press box, and composite-surfaced track and field facilities. Two softball fields, a baseball field, a soccer field, and the Anderson Tennis Courts round out the major athletic facilities.
The Pihlblad Student Union features a bookstore, a snack bar, an Internet caf, a recreation room, meeting rooms, the main dining room, and the offices for the Dean for Student Life, the Residence Life Director, the Student Activities Director, and Director of Security. The Counseling, Career Services, and Health Offices are in Warner Hall.
Each resident student's room has telephone and cable television outlets. Students with computers that have Ethernet capabilities may access the campus computer network and Internet from their rooms. Each student has an individual, password-protected campus network and e-mail account. All services are free and represent no additional charge to the room fee.
Bethany College has a rich tradition of educating future teachers, having been accredited by the National Council of Association of Teacher Education for fifty years.
Location
Bethany is located in central Kansas in the Swedish-American town of Lindsborg, population 3,500, 3 miles west of Interstate 135. Lindsborg is 70 miles north of Wichita (the state's largest city, with a population of 350,000) and 20 miles south of Salina (population 45,000). The close college-community relationship provides a safe, friendly environment and easy access to both medium-size and large cities. Lindsborg has active art and music communities, numerous gift shops, art galleries, and several restaurants. Community ethnic and cultural events occur frequently.
The Bethany College Oratorio Society (composed of students and faculty and staff members as well as area residents) presents the annual Messiah Festival at Bethany College each Holy Week. The festival features Handel's Messiah on Palm and Easter Sundays and Bach's St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday. The Oratorio Society, a 275-voice choir and fifty-piece orchestra, has presented the Messiah annually since 1882. It is the longest-running annual presentation of the Messiah in the United States. The society performed the Messiah at New York City's Carnegie Hall in the spring of 1997.
The Midwest Art Exhibition, also a part of the festival, has been held annually since 1899 and is the oldest annual art exhibition in Kansas.
Majors and Degrees
Bethany College grants Bachelor of Arts degrees in fifteen academic areas and twelve teaching areas. Majors include administration of justice, art, athletic training, biology, chemistry, Christian ministries, communication, economics/business, education, English, history/political science, mathematics, music, psychology, and social work. Economics/business degree specializations are accounting, business management, economics, finance, international management, and marketing. Bethany College offers an accelerated, three-year program in any of the economics/business specializations.
Bethany offers programs for preparation for health sciences careers, including dentistry, medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, and veterinary medicine. Through intensive mentoring and active work with health science students, Bethany College has achieved great success in placing students in professional health science schools. For example, 14 of the 16 Bethany graduates who have applied for medical school since 1994 have been accepted. For the 200304 academic year, the top two students at the University of Kansas School of Medicine were Bethany alumni.
Bethany offers specializations in art (K12), biology teaching (612), business (612), chemistry (612), elementary education (K6), elementary education nonteaching, English (612), health and physical education (pre-K12), instrumental music (pre-K-12), mathematics (612), social science (612), special education (K12), and vocal music (pre-K-12).
The College has a 3+2 cooperative engineering program with Wichita State University (WSU) in Wichita, Kansas. Students can earn Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degrees in engineering within five years by taking three years of course work at Bethany followed by two full years of study at WSU. After the first year at WSU, the student receives a B.A. in mathematics from Bethany; after completion of the program at WSU, the student receives a Master of Science degree in aerospace, chemical, electrical, industrial, or mechanical engineering.
Academic minors include Christian ministry, computer applications, court services and corrections, criminal justice, economics-business, English, foreign language, forensic science, global studies, multicultural studies, music, philosophy, physics, religion, sacred music, and theater.
Academic Programs
Bethany's course of study prepares men and women for life, with emphasis on the development of the student's social, intellectual, and spiritual potential. Bethany students gain knowledge and develop skills that enrich their minds and expand their vision while they develop a personal philosophy that recognizes the opportunities for self-fulfillment through service to God, society, and self. The College believes a liberally educated person is curious, sensitive to form, appreciative of beauty, imaginative, creative, and engages in rational inquiry. Liberally educated people work well alone or with others and can lead as well as follow. They take responsibility for their actions. A wide range of cocurricular and extracurricular activities augment classroom work and allow students to put what they learn in class into practice.
Students may be granted credit or advanced course placement for successful scores on either the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) or the Advanced Placement examinations administered by the College Board. To earn the B.A. degree, students must complete between 38 and 54 hours of general education requirements as part of the minimum 128 required semester hours, with a grade of C or better. Transfer students must successfully complete a minimum of 64 semester hours at Bethany.
The College operates a 414 schedule, with a fall semester that runs from late August to December, a one-month Interterm in January, and a February-to-May spring semester.
Bethany College created the honors program to enhance the educational opportunities available to gifted students so they can meet their academic potential and serve as role models for other students. Honors students are challenged in the classroom, provided with extracurricular opportunities to grow intellectually, and exposed to a community that embraces the importance of academic pursuits. Honors students take two specially designed seminars, one in their freshman year and one in their senior year, to increase thinking skills and expose students to a variety of ways of looking at the world. Over their Bethany career, honors students take additional honors classes and experiences, ranging from one-on-one research opportunities with individual professors to designated honors sections of catalog courses or additional experiences built into ordinary courses. Membership in the honors program is open to all qualifying students, regardless of major. Whatever the course or experience, all honors experiences allow exceptional students to pursue their own ideas and interests in an atmosphere that encourages the rigorous search for truth and vibrant debate.
In addition to regularly scheduled classes, students and the public are invited to take advantage of special events and speakers designed to enhance the Interterm learning experience. Recent events have included a presentation by filmmaker Ken Burns and professional journalists and politicians debating the health of public political discourse.
Off-Campus Programs
Bethany shares a cooperative cross-registration program with the other five members of the Associated Colleges of Central Kansas. Foreign language courses, special education, and foreign study are popular cooperative program choices.
The College's Experience Based Education (EBE) program provides a way for students to learn and earn credit from out-of-the-classroom experiences in a career-related environment. Students complete EBE projects to explore career options, gain experience in a chosen career field, develop transferable skills, learn by doing, and establish future career networks. Assistance is given in finding organizational settings, writing resumes, and preparing for interviews. For each EBE project, a student must have a faculty sponsor. Students may select from on-campus course work or from off-campus experiences that enhance classroom objectives. Included are opportunities to learn on the job or travel to places of interest, such as the Urban Life Center in Chicago; the Washington Center in Washington, D.C.; or to Europe for study-abroad opportunities. Once an EBE project is completed, the Director of Career Services helps the student evaluate the project and plan future career-development activities. EBE is taken on a pass/fail basis. To receive college credit for an EBE project, a student must have a satisfactory record of experience performed at the EBE site and make an adequate evaluation in a written journal and oral review meeting of what has been learned during the EBE experience. For more information, students should consult with the Office of Career Services.
Academic Facilities
The Wallerstedt Learning Center contains 121,180 volumes and more than 350 titles on microfilm and is a member of the Kansas-wide interlibrary loan cooperative. A media center, a 24-hour study room, a study-skills resource center, and the College archives are located in the center. The library has nine computer stations for researching a full host of Web-based databases and journals, with data ports for students with laptops to access the campus network and Internet.
The Nelson Science Center houses the mathematics and science departments and has an auditorium, classrooms, laboratories, and a climate-controlled greenhouse. The music department has eight networked Macintosh computers optimized for musical composition. The Burnett Center for the Performing Arts and Religion includes a chapel and a 300-seat theater. Mingenback Art Center houses the premier center for art instruction in the region and a gallery devoted to the work of regional artists and Bethany College students and alumni. Mingenback has studios for ceramics, painting, sculpture, and photography as well as classrooms and faculty offices. Presser Hall, the main administrative building, houses the Offices of Admissions and Financial Aid, the Registrar, other administrative offices, and the music department. Presser Hall Auditorium seats 1,900 and features exceptional acoustics and one of the largest organs in Kansas.
Two computer labs also are available for student use in Nelson Science Center. Open from 6 a.m. until midnight seven days a week, forty networked computers are available for use in the labs.
Costs
For 200405, tuition was $14,800, and room and board cost $5150. Books, supplies, and personal expenses were estimated at $2500. There are no other fees except for private music lessons and materials in some laboratory science and art classes.
Financial Aid
Consideration for financial aid is made outside of the admissions process, and more than 95 percent of Bethany students receive some type of aid. Need-based aid is available to students who demonstrate financial need, by submitting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA application deadline is March15 for Kansas residents and April1 for all other students. Academic scholarships and performance awards are given to students meeting certain academic criteria. Both Federal Work-Study and Bethany work-study positions are available on campus, and part-time employment opportunities in the surrounding community are excellent. Bethany provides more than $3.3 million annually in scholarships, grants, and performance awards to eligible students.
Faculty
Twenty-four of Bethany's 41 full-time faculty members and 7 part-time members have doctoral degrees, the equivalent, or the highest degree offered in their specialty. Bethany faculty members challenge students to reach their potential, and faculty and staff members frequently mentor students. The strong relationships students form with faculty and staff members are fostered by small classes and personalized attention. The student-faculty ratio is 12:1, and most classes have fewer than 20 students.
Student Government
Elected representatives from the four classes, residential units, and special groups along with the student body officers constitute the Student Congress (StuCo), the governing body concerned with matters affecting student life and welfare. StuCo sponsors a wide variety of recreational and extracurricular activities throughout the year and funds more than thirty clubs and organizations. The College Board of Directors includes a StuCo representative as a voting member.
Admission Requirements
Admissions criteria include meeting two of the following three at the required level: grade point average, class rank, and standardized test scores on the ACT or SAT. Students denied admission can appeal before the Admissions Committee by submitting two letters of recommendation and an essay. Personal interviews can be required if the Admissions Committee deems them necessary. Each application receives individual attention and is considered on the basis of the student's probable success at Bethany. It is highly recommended that students have completed 4 years of English, 3 years of science (including 2 years of laboratory science), 3 years of mathematics and 3 years of social science in preparation for college. Bethany also evaluates extracurricular activities and work experience, seeking individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities and have participated in activities that have carry-over potential for college success. Bethany admits students on the basis of individual merit without regard to sex, abilities, race, age, religion, veteran's status, or national or ethnic origin.
Application and Information
The deadline for application for new and transfer students for the fall semester is June15; applicants are notified of a decision on a rolling basis. The deadline for application for admission to the spring semester is December15. Campus visits and interviews with admissions staff members are highly recommended. For further information or application forms contact:
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