RIP Dottie Haugen

Peace be to the memory of Dorothy “Dottie” Haugen, who died last week at the age of 87. After graduating from Wheaton College and teaching at Twin Cities high schools, Haugen joined the Bethel faculty part-time in 1985 (full-time as of 1995), extending a line of women teaching Physical Education that included Marilyn Starr, Carol Morgan, Tricia Brownlee, and Shirley Dawson. “She takes pride in inspiring her students to make physical fitness fun,” reported The Clarion in 1993. “It’s not about telling people how to live but inspiring them to be their best using the gift God gave them.”

“Students at Bethel fed off Dottie’s energy, they met her high expectations, and she was beloved for those things,” recalled volleyball head coach Gretchen Hunt in this 2016 blog post; she also remembered Haugen’s excellence as department chair of Health and Physical Education in her oral history interview last summer. For more about the life and legacy of Dottie Haugen, who retired from Bethel in 2010, here’s some of what Coach Hunt shared last week by email.

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For everyone who walked by the tennis courts and heard the students repeating enthusiastically, “It’s a forehand!” or “It’s a backhand!”, or who were encouraged to “Lift up the Lord!” during aerobics… here on Earth, everything is a little darker today. But as others who loved Dottie have commented in our various text chains, what a reception she is receiving from her Lord and Savior, and what a reunion with her husband Huck. From monthly birthday cakes (from Lunds and Byerly’s, of course!) and singing — not only to those present who were celebrating a birthday that month, but also to those “in absentia” — to a big celebration of the “Major of the Year” in her department (some NOTABLE students on that list), Dottie did it all with excellence and unmatched energy. She was a true believer that physical health and spiritual and mental health were all so intricately interconnected. And as we watched her in her 60s and 70s teaching tennis and aerobics to college students, we should all be believers. 

When I was first hired to coach, two-thirds of my time was allocated to teaching. Having Dottie Haugen as my supervisor was the greatest gift in that initial allocation of my time. Wanting us all to be “professionals in our field,” she observed us teach at least once a semester and made pages of notes. We always filled out her “Out and About” form at department meetings, so what Health and Physical Education professionals were doing out in the community or in academia in our field was well-represented in any Bethel publication about faculty activities. Dottie wrote personal notes to every prospective student accepted to Bethel who indicated HPE was their intended major, encouraging them to enroll and introducing herself as department chair. She oversaw a department that was responsible for the Physical Wellness for Life and Q courses required for all students and hired Seth Paradis to bring what we now know as Biokinetics to Bethel.

Dottie Haugen was a force of nature, one-in-a-million, and Bethel is so privileged to have been a part of her remarkable story. 

– Gretchen Hunt

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For information about the visitation and celebration of life service this Friday morning or to add a tribute to Dottie Haugen, click through to the full obituary.

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One goal of this blog is to help involve members of the Bethel community in doing the history of Bethel, so comments are always welcome! Today I’d especially appreciate memories of Dottie Haugen. Just know that if you leave a comment at the project blog, I’ll take that as expressing your permission to quote it in the project.