The Clarion spread out across Bethel’s campus Monday, May 1 armed with cameras, notebooks and tripods. Here’s a multimedia peek of 24 hours at Bethel.

By Clarion Staff

12:14 a.m.

Selina Pineschi sits in the dining center kitchen waiting to clock out. She wears dark lipstick and her eyelids are covered in black eye shadow. Although she has worked five nights per week since she was a freshman, and she spends the majority of her day listening to the wailing of a coffee grinder, and she goes home each night to do homework until 4 a.m., her soft giggles in response to a co-worker’s joke don’t show it. While most college students are wrapping up their homework around midnight, Pineschi is just starting it. The junior graphic design major only averages about five hours of sleep a night. “And that’s on a good night,” says Pineschi.

1:02 a.m.

Sam McKeown’s bare foot bounces up and down beneath the table as he mouths study terms to himself. It’s 1:02 a.m. and he’s been studying since 6 p.m. in the stuffy basement of Edgren for an anatomy and nutrition quiz. McKeown’s up about an hour past his usual bedtime, but first semester he stayed up until around 2:00 a.m. doing “freshman” things. Now he’s learned that he needs sleep. Tonight, though, the nursing major won’t get much of it.

2:57 a.m.

Sophomore biokinetics major Andy Johnson opens the side entrance of Lissner Hall. The ring and the vibration of his phone woke him from his sleep. Looking disoriented yet calm, a shirtless and shoeless Johnson opens the Lissner side door for stranded roommates.

Ready to return to his sleep cycle, Johnson is kept up by conversations of injustice. Soon enough he is wide awake and remembers he left his 1 a.m. laundry in the first floor dryer. Johnson’s actions express his concern of injustice, as he flails his arms and his tone of voice starts to change, echoing a much higher pitched tone.  Deep theological conversations on topics such as injustice, and YouTube’s most important videos playlist are some of the variety of affairs that keep Johnson up late at night.

“Injustice is something that I feel like is present in different areas of our society and it’s something that everyone can work on,” said Johnson.

3:11 a.m.

Sophomore biokinetics major Nathan Cox quietly swings the door open of Lissner 101. Organic Chemistry has controlled Cox’s entire day. His studying has been almost non-stop since 2:30 p.m. with only a brief study break to attend Vespers. The fact that he spent his weekend at a leadership retreat for “Project” isn’t helping him face the cold reality of an anatomy quiz at 7:30 in the morning.

Chemistry isn’t the only thing responsible for why he is only getting four hours of sleep tonight. Despite the importance and dedication Cox gives to his studies, he is unsure of the future. As he continues his involvement in ministry, Cox finds more enjoyment and reward in this work than in his current career path. He wrestles more and more with the decision to major in biokinetics, and if that is what God is truly calling him too.  

“I don’t know why compromising my joy and what the world says should go hand in hand. I feel like I should perceive joy. If God provides for the birds in the sky, how much more is he going to provide for me?” said Cox.

4:10 a.m.

The sun may not have risen but Jake Meyen has.

“I woke up at ten o’clock tonight,” Meyen explains. “And I’ve been up ever since.” Meyen works the entrance checkpoint at Bethel’s security gatehouse. His shut-eye schedule is not the most appealing, but he says the pay is worth it.

A car rolls by the gatehouse window. The process is second nature to Meyen. He validates the ID card flashed to him and lifts the arm blocking the car’s path. Back to his seat now, waiting for the next automobile to request access; Jake Meyen knows the drill.

5:22 a.m.

Sounds of Arden Village West L3: shower running, blowdryer screaming, music playing. For Grace Holst, it’s just another weekday morning before the big yellow ball in the sky comes up. “I think sunrises are prettier than sunsets,” she says.

Holst is an English education major, so field experience is potentially the most important part of her college workload. She observes a high school class at the bright and early call time of 7:30. Although most of the residence hall is still asleep, Holst is way ahead of the curve.

6:04 a.m.

DeJay Henderson shuffles frozen sausage patties onto a tray like a card dealer at a casino. Somewhere outside the sun is peaking up over the horizon, straining to glow down through a blanket of gray clouds. But that feels far away from the dim, windowless kitchen in the depths of Bethel’s dining center. Here, Henderson and a handful co-workers thaw, sizzle, slice and yawn away the morning. Breakfast begins at 7:15.

“I’m here at 5:30 every morning,” Henderson said with a smile. He’s been working as a chef in the dining center since August 2016 and no longer relies on an alarm clock to wake up for work on time. “I’m programmed to wake up early now.”

When Henderson isn’t serving up meals in the dining center, he’s often outside. “I’m a diehard outdoorsman,” Henderson said, as he loads another tray of sausage patties into the oven. Some of his favorite activities include fishing, hunting, basketball, and football.

Before joining Bethel’s staff, Henderson worked at Vanderbilt University. He moved to Minnesota, and ultimately to Bethel, because he wanted a change in life.

“It’s wonderful working with the students and getting to know some of them better,” Henderson said. “I love laughing with them and making sure their day is bright. I try to make sure there’s a smile on their face.”

7:02 a.m.

Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” blares over the speakers of Bethel’s Wellness Center, echoing around the empty lines of metallic machines. Meanwhile, student worker Madeline Salisbury, sits quietly on her computer at the check-in desk, waiting for students to swipe their ID’s for entrance.

“I’m a morning person anyway,” Salisbury explains when asked why she is here so early. “This is a very hard shift to fill.”

Salisbury is a junior studying athletic training. She’s been working in the Wellness Center for 15-20 hours every week for the past two years.

When she isn’t working or studying, Salisbury tries to visit the Wellness Center each day to workout. Her favorite exercise is squats.

“Health is something I’m very passionate about,” Salisbury says. “In high school I really struggled with anorexia. I realized if you want to live a long life, it’s about taking care of the body that God gave you.”

8:35 a.m.

Junior nursing major Leule Yonas saunters over to the long wooden table in the middle of the room. A stuffed monkey sits on top of a wooden desk, its arms wrapped around an Aveeno bottle. Yonas gingerly picks up a backpack on the chair and places it on the floor. She volunteers to be the first student to reflect on the case file about enemas, a procedure where liquid or gas is injected into the rectum.

“You want to pay attention to electrolyte imbalances,” Yonas said.

Prior to entering the lab, the class watched a video documenting the life of someone living with a colostomy pouch. A colostomy is a surgical procedure where a person’s intestine is rerouted to an incision in their abdomen to a pouch that collects what their intestine produces. They wear the pouch on the outside of their stomach.

Yonas observes closely as nursing professor Bethany Gerdin demonstrates how to perform a colostomy on one of the nursing dummies.

9:44 a.m.

Freshman business and finance major Cale Ferrin swivels in his chair to greet a student standing nearby with a slip of paper in their hand.

“What’s your box number?” asks Ferrin.

“2812,” the student says.

“Sign the back please,” Ferrin says as he begins looking through the shelves for a box. He finds it after shuffling through a few crates of smaller packages.

“Have a nice day,” he smiles, handing the package across the counter. He takes the slip of paper and sets it in a small box full of other slips. He walks to the back of the package pickup room, sits down at a folding table, picks up a pen and begins logging the mail that has just arrived. A large cart filled with boxes of all shapes and sizes sits behind him, waiting to be sorted. Ferrin settles in with a sigh, knowing that it is going to be a long time before he’s able to leave.

10:18 a.m.

Bethel University freshmen Taylor Wolf gets out of her 9 a.m. morning class and heads straight to chapel in her purple fleece, chapel started 3 minutes ago. Already running a little late, she opens the wooden door and walks through as quietly as she can. She then proceeds to find a seat.

“I try to go to chapel every Monday, Wednesday [and] Friday,” Wolf said. “It really makes you stop and think about your faith and different ways you can grow.”

11:08 a.m.

Bethel junior Rell Sturdevant sits in a booth at the 3900 Grill to work on psychology homework. The room was filled with noise as students flood to the counter to order their lunch. He planned to work in the athletic training room during his three hour break from classes, but his favorite study spot on campus was occupied due to a meeting.

Sturdevant found out about Bethel from a Google search while looking for a four-year university during the time he spent playing soccer for a junior college in Seattle. He was interested in Bethel’s athletic training program, as well as playing for the soccer team. He sent tapes of himself playing to the soccer coaches and was recruited to play for Bethel.

12:51 p.m.

Senior Sarah Hatch is inside an empty ceramics room, pursing a smile as she polishes a coffee mug.The reconciliation studies and English as a foreign language double-major hasn’t gotten many breaks in the time she’s been at Bethel. Her ceramics class requires a lot of time, but Hatch likes it. It lets her breathe. It’s therapeutic. Now that graduation is around the corner, she’s able to let loose a little more, but the stress of finding a job replaces the heaviness of class loads. Hatch is still on the search.

1:02 p.m.

Callie Sinclair is tucked away inside the mailroom with a buzzing air vent while she scrolls through cute clothes on Pinterest. The junior nursing major is on duty three times a week to retrieve packages. Otherwise, she’s free to do what she wants, like open up Pinterest. But don’t let the app on her computer screen fool you: Sinclair has a packed schedule. Nursing diplomas don’t come easy. She wakes up at 4:30 a.m. every week for clinicals.

“I’m ready for school to be done,” says Sinclair.

2:35 p.m.

Sophomore business analytics and marketing major and 21-year-old Darragh King  has just finished disinfecting the Bethel bathrooms. Aggravated and annoyed from a sub-par grill lunch of shrimp alfredo pasta, King refocuses his agenda on the task of completing his magazine for consumer behavior class.

“I was extremely disappointed because there were like three pieces of shrimp in the entire dish of shrimp alfredo pasta. I purchased the item because of the shrimp alone,” said King.

King’s displeasing lunch before work makes it difficult to complete the tasks at hand for facilities management.  King finds himself tired and lethargic from a lack of energy, which was not provided by the 3900 Grill.

“Here’s the thing, I am not a picky person, but I am someone who believes in the fundamentals of a hearty meal. Due to my negative experiences I felt I was not fully equipped to handle my day,”  King said.

3:07 p.m.

Sophomore nursing student Emily Tastad makes her way into the nursing lab at Bethel University. Although it is Monday, the week has already proved to be as stressful as any other. She spent the weekend preparing for the pathophysiology exam she just finished. She’s tired. She’s spent. If a weekend of relentless studying isn’t enough to drain her energy, practicing for a nursing performance skills exam and writing papers due in the next two days will do just that.

Caring for others is something Tastad has always been passionate about. Her dedication to her studies showcases her desire to make a difference in the life of others. Her passion for missions is replicated in her schooling. Establishing meaningful relationships is one way she shows her kind and caring personality.

“I want to do rehab or something like that because it is long term and I can build relationships instead of an in-and-out kind of thing,” Tastad said.

4:07 p.m.

Daniel Harrison smiles. “Thanks!” He smiles again. “Thanks!”

The routine of a Bethel University Wellness Center attendant.

“It’s not very demanding, so it’s a nice getaway from school and work,” Harrison explains. Greeting and thanking people for swiping their identification card as entry to the weight room looks like a simple side gig, and Harrison fully embraces that. “It pays the bills!”

He runs into familiar faces along the way too. As a member of Bethel’s football team, he sees his teammates come in for a workout almost every day. “It’s fun to watch them work hard. To see them getting after it each day is my favorite part.”

5:04 p.m.

The Bethel radio booth is about six feet by six feet. Linnea Auspos fits in just fine.

She’s getting the hang of it. “It’s for my Media Communication class requirements. It’s fun to be in here, learning how it all works,” she says. “We play contemporary Christian music a lot.”

“I’m a transfer student from Winona State here at Bethel, and I have no idea what I want to do with my life!”

The school switch has been a welcoming one. “[I left Winona] for a couple reasons, but I like Bethel a lot better,” Auspos admits.

Maybe working several hours a week in the booth with praise jams running in the background smooths out the transition.

6:11 p.m.

With a casual twist of her wrist Elise Ditzler initiates a flurry of wipers to cut down the fat rain drops accumulating on the windshield of the Bethel shuttle. It’s time to start the trek from North Village to the CLC circle. The junior biology major has worked this route many Mondays and weekdays since October. Like clockwork, she shifts the shuttle from park into drive.

When she isn’t driving the shuttle at this time, Ditzler can be found eating food, doing homework or attending a night class designed for teaching Spanish to health professionals.

“I hopefully want to do something related to optometry,” Ditzler says. She recently accepted a job offer working as an eye technician in Maple Grove.

“I have bad eyesight myself. When I was little I was used to going in all the time to have my eyes checked,”  Ditzler says as she slowly turns the steering wheel, guiding the shuttle through puddles into the CLC circle. “It’s something that’s been familiar to me.”

7:07 p.m.

Nestled between tall rows of forgotten books and students leaned over laptops, Dallas Marvin types away at page 3 of 16 of his exegesis paper. The draft is due Saturday. On the second floor of the library everything is silent tonight, the way Marvin likes it. The collective quiet helps him get things done.

“A lot of my friends study here,” Marvin said in a hushed voice. “We have little get-togethers.”

Marvin’s paper for his Biblical Theology of Reconciliation Studies class focuses on Luke 4:16-30, the story of Jesus’s sermon at Nazareth.

“The entire book of Luke leads up to it,” Marvin said. “But, it was not what the disciples thought it was going to be.”

Marvin has prepared outlines and ideas for his paper all semester. The class, a general education course he’s taking to cover his J-tag requirement, focuses largely on who Jesus identifies with and the inclusive, social justice mission of reconciliation that permeates his life and messages. Much discussion in the course relates Jesus’s teachings to modern day issues such as racial equality and reconciliation.

“As a white male who has been privileged, to look at someone who has been a product of what the U.S. creates for a black male and to see that different perspective has been really interesting,” Marvin said.

8:22 p.m.

Ben Speiker fiddles with the spiral blue gauge in his left ear, looking down at the semicolon tattoo on his right wrist. He runs his fingers over his copper beard, stroking his moustache with his thumb and index finger.

“We steal from the poor and give to ourselves,” Speiker said. “Welcome to the American Healthcare system.”

Laughter erupts in the audience of the Irrelephant Intelephants performance, a Bethel improv group.

Speiker gently clasps his hands and places them on his lap, crossing his left leg over his right when he takes a seat and lets someone else take center stage. He peers through his glasses, his spiked ginger hair reflecting off the stage lights.

9:32 p.m.

Peter Klemme rests his Caribou coffee cup on the snare drum. He fumbles to lift the black music stand out of the tangled cords. Pounding the drumstick with a soft tip on his knee, he pretends to hit the drums with his hands. The rest of the Vespers team laughs. Klemme places his Caribou cup on the ground, then takes out his phone adorned with a red case and places it next to his cup.

Kylie Probert pushes the button to start the click track, a consistent rhythm used to help bands create a more polished performance. They begin practice with “Let it be Jesus”, a worship song by Passion. Next they play funky adaptation of “Heaven” by Michael Gungor and John Arndt.

It was in “Heaven” that Klemme really began to show off his skills. By the time the song was over, he has the whole room laughing again at his riffs and rhythms.

10:24 p.m.

Bethel University junior Morgan McGarry sits at the Wellness Center receptionist desk biting her nails. She doesn’t usually work Mondays, but ended up taking the 7 to 11 p.m. shift. As a double major in health and physical education, McGarry loves her job in the Wellness Center.

Her favorite part of the job is being able to pick the music. McGarry shared that sometimes she works on “Disney Fridays”, when students jam and workout to Disney music.

“I’m responsible for cleaning up people’s vomit, blood and other bodily fluids, which doesn’t actually bother me that much,” McGarry said. “The only thing I don’t like about this job is when people are rude to me.”

11:34 p.m.

Bethel freshman Gillian Manske settles in for the night in her dorm room in Edgren. Manske leans back in her bed, which sits against a wall covered in pictures from her first year at Bethel. She finished her homework early, allowing her to go to bed before midnight instead of staying up late to study before bed. “I’m starting to like the library,” Manske said.

She lays in bed with her knees up, MacBook propped in her lap. Manske laughs as she timidly admits to watching the movie “Titanic” before bed. The lights go out and she continues to stare at her laptop screen before she drifts off to sleep.

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