Bentley’s Newest Great Benefactors Support Endowed Professorship of Free Speech and Free Enterprise

Longtime donors Bruce ’73 and Patricia Bartlett have partnered with Bentley to introduce a new professorship examining how free speech promotes society’s ability to thrive and innovate for the good of all. In addition to exploring the history and importance of free speech principles in market-based economies, the new offering will encourage students to practice the critical skills of openly expressing and debating differing viewpoints in an environment of respectful exchange. 

The Bartletts’ $2 million gift builds on the couple’s decades-long support for Bentley, inspired by Mr. Bartlett’s own career-changing experience. As a young professional, Bartlett earned his accounting certification at night — starting out at a Bentley classroom in downtown Boston and then moving to the modern Waltham campus — while teaching junior high by day. Later, he would use his business acumen to start a company that ensured worker safety at nearly all of the nation’s nuclear power plants. Spurred by a desire to find new ways to protect workers, Mr. Bartlett expanded his business into manufacturing and construction. Mrs. Bartlett, who also started out as a teacher, joined her husband to support his growing companies.  

The new professorship affirms Bentley’s commitment to providing students with an educational experience that both nurtures the free expression and constructive exchange of diverse viewpoints and encourages them to study differing schools of thought.  

“The Bartletts’ generous gift promises to enrich our curriculum and campus dialogue and fosters an environment where the free exchange of ideas and creative dialogue can flourish,” says Bentley President E. LaBrent Chrite. “These guiding principles are essential in upholding business as a transformative and positive force, and they affirm the highest aspirations and principles of a university.”

With this recent commitment, the Bartletts become Great Benefactors of Bentley, joining a special group of alumni, families and friends whose gift commitments total $1 million or more.

“We are deeply grateful to the Bartletts for their remarkable generosity and pivotal role in our school’s journey,” says Chris Grugan, vice president for University Advancement. “The endowed professorship, the first in this area of study at Bentley, adds an exciting new dimension to the university’s tradition of academic leadership.”