The graduating class of 2023 has chosen Mark Jantzen, Ph.D., professor of history, as the speaker for the 130th commencement, Sunday, May 14, at 4 p.m. in Memorial Hall, which will also be livestreamed.

Ninety-eight seniors are scheduled to take part.

The Baccalaureate worship service, May 14 at 10 a.m., will also take place in Memorial Hall.

Both events will be available to view via livestream on the Bethel College YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/live/ROT9oDGC6DY?feature=share

Jantzen has titled his address “This is a Historical Event.”

He is a native of Beatrice, Neb., and graduated from Bethel College in 1985 with a B.A. and majors in German and math with an emphasis in computer science.

Jantzen began teaching European and Mennonite history at Bethel in 2001 and was promoted to full professor in 2012.

While working on his doctorate at the University of Notre Dame, Jantzen was a graduate instructor in 20th-century German history at Notre Dame, as well as an adjunct instructor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College.

Jantzen earned his Ph.D. in history from Notre Dame in 2002. He has a master’s degree in church history from Associated (now Anabaptist) Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind.

Following graduation from Bethel in 1985, Jantzen worked for three years as a computer programmer before taking a volunteer assignment with Mennonite Central Committee in what was then East Germany.

His primary responsibility was to study Protestant theology at Humboldt University in (then) East Berlin while also being involved in the youth and visitation ministries of the Mennonite Church in East Germany.

Jantzen lived in Germany from 1988-91, meaning he was there when the Berlin Wall came down on Nov. 9, 1989.

From 1993-96, Jantzen and his wife Alice (Hartman) Jantzen, who also graduated from Bethel in 1985, served with MCC in the former Yugoslavia. Mark Jantzen was MCC regional coordinator and a relief and development consultant and public relations officer for Bread of Life, a local relief agency.

Jantzen is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, and among his book-length publications are: European Mennonites and the Holocaust, co-edited with John D. Thiesen and published by the University of Toronto Press in association with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2020; Mennonite German Soldiers: Nation, Religion and Family in the Prussian East, 1772-1880 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010); and The Wrong Side of the Wall: An American in East Berlin during the Peaceful Revolution, 1993.

Mark and Alice Jantzen live in Newton, where they are active members of Faith Mennonite Church. They are the parents of three young adult children.

The Baccalaureate theme is “Hope in the Unknown.”  

Music will be by members of Woven Road (a combination of the two small a cappella ensembles Woven and Open Road), the Bethel College Concert Choir and the Bethel Worship Band.

Graduating seniors Troi Lucas, Allen, Texas, Rachel Geyer, Oxford, Iowa, Seth Rudeen, Osage City, Kan., and Taylor Dashney, Edmond, Okla., will offer reflections.

The commencement program will begin and end with music by the Thresher Brass Quintet, an alumni group.

President Jon C. Gering, Ph.D., will introduce the ceremony and later confer the degrees after the graduates are presented by Robert Milliman, Ph.D., vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty.

Milliman will also give the Ralph P. Schrag Distinguished Teaching Award to a faculty member.

Two graduating seniors will also participate in commencement by offering prayers at the beginning and end of the ceremony – student chaplains Rachel Duer, Chapman, Kan., and Sydney Brown, Keller, Texas.

Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Known for academic excellence, Bethel ranks at #14 in the Washington Monthly list of “Best Bachelor’s Colleges,” and #24 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of “Best Regional Colleges Midwest,” both for 2022-23. Bethel is the only Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center. For more information, see www.bethelks.edu