Return to Campus Newsletter

Dear Faculty and Staff,

I hope that your summers find you healthy and safe as we continue to prepare for the return of students this fall. For those who I have not yet had the pleasure of (virtually) meeting these past few weeks, my name is Geoff Bartlett. I’ve been working with many of your colleagues at Bentley since 2019 as the chair of the Emergency Management Group and joined the university as director of emergency management this past spring. I look forward to getting to know the people who make Bentley special, even if from the confines of our home offices for now.

As announced on June 30, a great deal of planning is underway to ready the campus for the start of the fall trimester. The Return-to-Campus Task Force and its six workgroups have been working diligently to ensure that the Bentley community remains safe when on campus and that those learning and working remotely are fully integrated with campus. Each week, we’ll be sharing developments from the workgroups so that all faculty, staff and students remain informed and supported. Some updates will come from me, while others will come directly from the workgroup chairs depending on the subject matter.

In this week’s Return-to-Campus updates:

• A faculty forum will be hosted by the Classrooms, Centers and Labs Workgroup to provide updates, answer questions and seek input on Bentley's preparations for teaching on campus this fall on Wednesday, July 15 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 
• Chairs have been removed from Jennison Hall to allow for appropriate physical distancing in the classrooms. Labs are currently being evaluated to see what is needed to promote a safe learning environment. Work has begun in Smith Hall to promote similar physical distancing measures. 
• Prototype classrooms have been finalized with adjusted seating, new technology and installed sanitization wipes to provide a glimpse at how the classroom space will look this fall. Photos of those spaces are to come.
• Plexiglass installation is underway in offices in LaCava.
• For dining on campus, work is underway to refine locations for deliveries, and the Grubhub app is being integrated with IT systems.

The Communications Workgroup is developing new measures to make sure that faculty and staff can easily ask questions and get answers related to the return to campus, whether through the Back to Bentley webpage and associated FAQs or through direct and personal responses to your questions. These pages are being updated frequently, so please continue to check them for new information. For now, if you cannot find the answers to your questions on these pages, please reach out to Kevin Wong, chair of the Communications Workgroup, at kwong@bentley.edu and he will make sure that your question goes to the right people. We value your feedback and will do our best to ensure you remain informed.

I recognize that this is a stressful time for many and hope that these frequent updates reassure the community that a great deal is being done to maintain safety precautions across campus. Stay tuned for more updates in the weeks ahead!

Geoffrey C. Bartlett, CEM
Director of Emergency Management