15 minute read
Cultivating Slow Practices Amidst Busy Times
BETHANY POWLS Editor-in-Chief
In 1986, Carlo Petrini of Bra, Italy, began the Slow Food movement, an organization now devoted to the practice of time and care in traditional cooking. Like Petrini, many others have become bewitched by the idea of slower, more careful practice during a fast paced time, particularly in response to the demands of education, career goals, media and now a pandemic.
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Locally, slowness is being evaluated from an artistic perspective with one of the newest class additions to the Bethel College art department. Rachel Epp Buller, associate professor of visual arts and design, introduced “Slow Art for Fast Times” to the curriculum for Spring of 2021. The course views art and art history through a contemporary lens, as the literature and projects discussed explore slow practices.
“I have been asking the students to try out some of these ideas, and/or think about how they can incorporate some aspect of slow into their own lives. We did some brainstorming in class over what are areas of college life that they find stressful and how can ‘slow’ be incorporated into that to change it. Whether that has to do with changing times, or if it’s more about slow as an idea or as a methodology in changing your approach, you’re still changing the way you’re doing something,” Buller said.
While the course is still in the opening stages, students are currently working with theoretical approaches to slow practice, and have been studying aspects of art and art history alongside that.
“I’ll be asking them to try out some of these methods as we get a little farther into the class. Right now, we’re laying the groundwork for all of the ideas… and I guess I’m trying to establish some buy-in, so they can see how this could apply to them. We read an article last week about slow travel, which meant thinking about how you can make the journey part of the destination. Whether you’re taking a train trip or you’re intentionally setting aside a longer period of time, it was all about how you’re going to get there. Students have expressed some interest in this, or have had experience with this in the past,” Buller said.
Much of the content and study for this class began with Buller’s own experience in applying slow practice to her art.
“I’m coming from a sort of slowness in making, whether that means things like embroidery that take a long time or just the idea of duration. You might have a daily practice that you do every day for a long period of time,” Buller said.
However, the methods of slowness incorporated in the class can be practiced across all disciplines.
“I’ve been most interested in how artists are using that, but also I think it’s a great stepping stone to incorporating slowness into your life to be healthier. And the whole slow movement is so interdisciplinary… it started with food, but we’ve been reading about slow scholarship, things like meditation. There’s an effort in music called tempo giusto where musicians are thinking about what it means to play at a slower pace. So there are quite a few areas that are exploring this idea to sort of help people become healthier, but also begin to see things in a different way,” Buller said.
Students in the class have responded positively to the
content and have felt inspired to pursue slow practices in their own life, even as college students.
“There are a couple of people in class who are living off-campus together and they said they just tried out Hello Fresh for a couple of weeks… I think they were interested in trying out cooking rather than just going with prepackaged foods. There was another student who talked about deciding that his body felt really bad when he was eating fast food all the time, and he has basically quit fast food. Making an intentional choice to change the way you’re doing something can have a really big impact on the ways you feel,” Buller said.
While Buller initially planned on incorporating projects like embroidery in the class, during the month of February, students will be talking about slowness as an ethic of care. Their first hands-on project will involve intentionally performing acts of care for themselves and for another person each day as a sort of “social engagement.”
“The pandemic has given us an opportunity to radically rethink the way we do all sorts of things… it’s sort of been a new way to imagine being in the world,” Buller said.
As the semester fills spare hours with classes, practices and homework, slowness can be incorporated piece by piece.
“The more you can incorporate little breaks, sort of the healthier you can be. And the goal is not to be slow all the time, but if you can incorporate periods of slowness, then that actually makes like the fast times better, or more productive and slow helps you generate more ideas, be more creative, or just give you a period of rest,” Buller said.
Kelly Habeggar, senior from Hesston, is a member of Buller’s class. As part of the weekly assignment, she takes time out of her week to journal reflectively on texts read in class. Photo courtesy of Kelly Habegger
8 SPORTS
Thresher track and field continue to break records
Natalie Graber, junior from Divide, Colo. smashes the school record running a 2:30 leg in the 4x800. Trey Palmer, sophomore from Pearland, Texas runs the anchor leg in the 4x400. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Brewer Reid.
ARRAN KEARNEY Staff Writer
Coach Kelly Parsley has very good reason to be excited looking ahead to the KCAC Championship Indoor meet later this month. This indoor season has undoubtedly been Bethel’s best in recent history, with outstanding athletic performances across the board.
“With each passing week our performances seem to be only getting better and better - we now have more athletes ranked in the top twenty-five nationally than we’ve ever had” Parsley said. This puts the Threshers in good standing as conference fast approaches. If all goes well, Parsley believes that the team could rank as high as third, which would be an enormous improvement on last year’s seventh.
It is a bold prediction, but a very feasible one. The athletic program has hit new heights over the winter, breaking several prominent college records. New records in both the men and women’s distance medley and 4x800 relays points to the growing strength of the team, which only seems set to expand further next semester.
Other notable performances include the new indoor 3k records set by Mauro Arancibia and Natalie Graber, and the long and triple jump records claimed by Stephany Meyer.
“The team has had an incredible struggle over the past few months. The coronavirus has forced event organizers to impose really heavy restrictions on their events capacities and schedules, which has meant some extremely long weekends, some of them stretching over three days,” Parsley said.
Yet the team has been undeterred. One recent meet at Wichita State saw almost every athlete PR. It is unsurprising that Bethel currently has athletes ranked in the top 25 nationally across 13 different events. The men’s team has also received a good ranking recently at number 14 in the nation. These incredible achievements are a testament to the hard work and dedication that the men and women have shown in their training throughout the season.
With their recent performances, some of these athletes have proven themselves to be amongst the best in NAIA. Braylen Brewer for example is ranked seventh and sixth in the 200 and 400 meters respectively. Austin Cheatham has gone one better – ranking fifth nationally in shot put.
Looking at these rankings and others Parsley and the rest of the coaching staff are feeling fairly hopeful about the conference meet coming up.
“We have an excellent chance of getting multiple athletes to National’s this year,” Parsley said.
Especially promising in this regard are the record-breaking relay squads which, should they qualify, could mean that Bethel would be sending a fairly large group of athletes up to the event in Yankton, South Dakota in March.
Coach Parsley is also determined to improve the reach and stature of the athletics program within the conference.
On March 6, Bethel hosted their first ever indoor athletics meet at Wichita State University. This provided the athletes one more chance to showcase their impressive talents before the conference Meet, taking place at WSU. Hopefully the program can finish the season on a high.
“(I am) extremely proud of everything that my athletes have been able to do this Winter – and I am confident that we can improve even more over the coming year,” said Parsley.
TRACK AND FIELD
MAR. 18, 19, 20 AWAY
KCAC CHAMPIONSHIPS
HESKETT CENTER - WICHITA CHEER AND DANCE
MAR. 19 AWAY
UPCOMING EVENTS
BASKETBALL
MAR. 17 6:00 PM HOME
vs. BETHANY COLLEGE
MAR. 20 5:00 & 7:00 PM AWAY
at UNIVERSITY OF ST. MARY
TENNIS
MAR. 20 1:00 PM AWAY
at EVANGEL UNIVERSITY
MAR. 28 1:00 PM HOME
vs. COLLEGE OF ST. MARY
SOFTBALL
MAR. 20 1:00 & 3:00 PM HOME
vs. HASTINGS COLLEGE
MAR. 21 1:00 & 3:00 PM HOME
vs. BRIAR CLIFF UNIVERSITY
MAR. 27 1:00 & 3:00 PM HOME
Bethel fall sports look to finish seasons
Thresher volleyball faces against Friends University in the new spring semester games. Photo by Jessica LaRocque
JESSICA LAROCQUE Sports Editor
COVID-19 is the cause of much adjustment this year. This includes games that have been canceled or postponed for almost every sports team on campus. It has been up to Athletic Director Tony Hoops and Assistant Athletic Director and Sports Information Director Josh Booth to make the tough decisions regarding game play.
“Postponing has been the solution probably 95% of the time this year, meaning that the intent is to put off the game but reschedule it for later in the year. Conference games directly impact postseason seeding and opportunities for teams to go to their respective national championships, so we try to make these up as much as possible,” Booth said.
With the improvement of athletic programs at Bethel College, this job is ever more important. Despite the athletic directors’ constant attention towards the subject, time is running out as the second semester dwindles down.
“We will definitely see a few scenarios where postponing just isn’t feasible anymore. In the fall, we tried to avoid postponing games to the spring as much as possible but knew it would be inevitable. For our winter sports, the deadline is more distinct. We only have a few remaining days to either fit it in, or make the difficult decision to cancel it and move forward with the remaining schedules,” Booth said.
Due to postponement, Bethel College is looking toward an eventful semester filled with sports.
“There is the potential for all of our sports to be in action in early March. The winter sports will be wrapping up their final postseason dates, the spring sports will begin and our fall sports will get back in gear as well,” Booth said.
Not only are athletic directors working overtime in the next few months, support staff and athletic trainers are also having to work overtime to keep up with the increase.
“We likely will see staff members having to deal with scheduling conflicts. It won’t be easy, but our athletic trainers and event support staff care about doing their jobs effectively. That is one of the reasons why I’m confident this semester will see success and a lot of great moments for our student-athletes and teams,” Booth said.
COVID return-to-play protocol revised
JAYDE BLAIN Staff Writer
COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the world since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020. Sports are no exception to the pandemic.
New protocols and procedures have been put in place, included is a COVID-19 return-to-play protocol.
The original protocol required all athletes that tested positive for COVID-19 to see the college’s partnering doctor, Dr. Jenny Koontz. During their appointment, athletes would be given a general physical, a troponin blood test, an echocardiogram (EKG).
As the scientific and medical communities’ understanding of COVID-19 changes, so do the procedures and protocols enforced to protect athletes.
Over the winter break, new information was discovered that changed the COVID-19 return to play protocol for Bethel College athletics.
“There’s been more research that’s come out that has shown that there is significantly lower concern for certain conditions related to the heart than we thought prior. For those asymptomatic and mild symptomatic individuals, simply doing a provider eval, looking at those vitals, checking heart and lung. . .there’s no concern there, [as well] as the exercise progression goes well, there’s not a lot of concern to do the EKG,” Chris Ibach, head athletic trainer, said.
Because of the new knowledge regarding COVID-19, new protocols were put in place for this semester.
“If there are no red flags [after the provider eval], they are cleared to begin their exercise progression, which hasn’t changed from last semester. For moderate and severe cases, we still go through the process of getting the bloodwork, getting an EKG,” said Ibach.
In order to understand which tests need to be run, athletes are assessed by symptoms. Each category, has different progressions.
“We use guidance from the AMSSM, as well as from the NCAA. For mild symptoms, generally speaking, we’re looking at cold type symptoms, a sore throat [and] congestion. For moderate, we’re looking for more flu-like symptoms... fever [and] total body aches. Severe cases are cases where we’re seeing people that have been hospitalized because they’re having trouble breathing,” said Ibach.
These new changes have decreased the amount of time between finishing quarantine and fully returning to the athlete’s sport, as well as lifted the financial burden many students had to bear in the first semester.
The school’s athletic insurance does not cover the cost of COVID-19 related tests, and several student’s personal insurance also rejected the cost. This left many students with expensive medical bills, and no way to pay the bills that kept piling up.
“Based on the information that we had at the time, the information from the medical community was saying that these tests were needed. There isn’t any sort of reimbursement mechanism for somebody that had mild symptoms in the fall,” said Ibach.
The Sideline
LAUREN MCCREARY Staff Writer
MICHAEL CECH TENNIS
How is Kansas different from the Czech Republic?
“The people here are really kind, and they are not complaining (about) everything like in the Czech Republic. You don’t have mountains here, but the sunsets are the most amazing thing in Kansas.”
How has tennis impacted your life?
“The position provided me with the opportunity to study in the Untied States. I am really looking forward to the spring season, and I am excited to travel to some new places with my tennis team.”
What were you most excited about when coming to the U.S.?
“I was the most excited to see Bethel’s campus, meet new people and make some new friends. I was also excited to experience American football. Go Chiefs!”
10 ENTERTAINMENT
Bethel College fine arts hopeful for public performances in spring
JULIANNA SCHRAG Staff Writer
In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, fine arts at Bethel College are finding ways to thrive. Thanks to the combined efforts of dedicated professors and students, music and theater departments on campus hope to share the fruits of their labors with the wider Bethel community this semester.
“The time frame we meet in is part of the safety protocol for each group,” Director of Bands/ Assistant Professor of Music Joel Boettger, said.
Boettger rehearses his ensembles twice a week (at most).
“Rehearsals [are] 45 minutes because of the concentration of potential aerosols. All musicians are required to be at least seven feet apart but farther apart is preferable, especially for potential super spreader instruments like trumpet and trombone. Bell covers and face masks are mandatory,” Boettger the Steel Drum Band and Pep Band [have] been doing more in-person practices… following COVID-19 protocols such as wearing masks and using bell covers,” Director of Pep Band and Steel Band/Director of Summer Programs Brad Shores said.
The Bethel College Concert Choir, directed by Professor and Chair of Music/Director of Choral Activities William Eash, meets five days a week and rehearses for a maximum of thirty minutes. The full ensemble splits into smaller practice groups at least twice per week. Speciallymade singing masks are used to enhance the experience for the singers.
Though contingent on county and campus COVID-19 cases, Boettger has some plans to perform outside with all groups when spring arrives.
Concert Choir is also hopeful for an outdoor concert in May.
The Bethel College theater department is planning to produce a play entitled “I and You,” written by Lauren Gunderson this semester. The plot centralizes around two youths, one, fittingly, “homebound due to illness.”
“Auditions will be held in [Krehbiel] auditorium Monday, March 22 at 6:00 p.m. Callbacks, if needed, will be held Tuesday, March 23 at 6:00 p.m.,” Assistant Professor of Communication Arts/Director of Theater Karen Robu said.
“We have purchased the live-stream license so audience members can watch safely from home. Whether or not we allow audience members in the auditorium will depend on COVID numbers at the time,” Robu said.
The show will premiere on April 30, running each evening through May 1, with an additional matinee performance on Saturday. Whether through vocalizing, playing an instrument or acting, Threshers are adapting to ensure they can exercise their artistic talents safely this semester.
Amos
Jessie Thomas is a junior from Halstead. Her aspiring major is English Education. She has a passion for art, with a love of digital media, and creating characters like Amos. This comic, featuring Amos, was inspired by professors’ procedure with open air classrooms in freezing weather. We don’t blame you, professors, just the cursed Kansas wind. If you would like to contribute a piece of artwork to a future issue of the Collegian, email us at collegian@bethelks.edu!
