Dear Bentley community,
For more than a century, Bentley has prided itself on reinventing business education for a changing world. Now is our time to articulate that vision once more, defining the future of business education and scholarship for the next generation of leaders. You’ve heard me ask, “What does the next tier of excellence look like at Bentley?” Over the past several months, faculty, staff, students and trustees have been collaborating in a variety of settings, working to answer this important question. We have closely examined how we’re using space on campus—a tangible expression of our institutional priorities— and it’s clear that some important initiatives and opportunities deserve investment. Our aspirations have coalesced around two core themes: “Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship” and “Student Wellbeing,” which align with our Falcons Forward 2030 strategic plan and will serve to define and clarify much of our trajectory over the next decade.
Faculty and staff ideation sessions, inspiration visits to other campuses and a series of design workshops have helped members of our community begin to define the academic programs, opportunities, technologies and resources needed to elevate our innovation, technology and entrepreneurship offerings to students and create more comprehensive student wellbeing programming and space.
Last week, Provost Paul Tesluk, Vice President for Student Affairs Andrew Shepardson and I shared a first update on our progress from this past semester at our General Faculty Meeting. I’m looking forward to sharing more with our full community at the next Faculty and Staff Town Hall on February 6. In the meantime, I want to provide a brief summary of what we’ve learned so far and where we hope to go.
Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
We are at an historic moment of change in technology, innovation and the demand for entrepreneurial thinking in approaches to all kinds of business problems. It’s imperative that at Bentley we position ourselves to ensure that we can offer students state-of-the-art education and facilities in these areas.
We see a significant opportunity to reimagine Adamian as an important component of activating our upper campus through what we are currently referring to as an “Innovation Quad” (iQuad) concept. We envision updating and remodeling the building to become an anchor of our innovation ecosystem, a physical academic center that will be a magnet for people, programs and partnerships and amplify technology, innovation and entrepreneurship at Bentley. Once realized, the new iQuad will house some of our academic centers and labs, foster connectivity with innovations happening elsewhere in our community both on- and off-campus and create flexible learning environments that will allow us to more fully realize the innovative scholarship, learning, and engagement that we envision in Falcons Forward 2030.
Student Wellbeing
Student wellbeing is the foundation of a successful university. For our talented and high-achieving students to reach their potential, we need to offer holistic services and tools to help them become balanced and healthy leaders.
Currently, our Student Health Center and Counseling Center are in different buildings, and we lack space for recreational activities that are important to wellbeing. We have explored concepts around a new Wellbeing Center next to the Student Center that would house Health Services, the Counseling Center, Health Promotion and other services in one place. Our vision also includes investments in the Dana Center to enhance the fitness center and improve our sports medicine capabilities.
To jump-start this effort, in early 2024, the Copley North lounge will be transformed into a new student wellbeing space. This space experiment will help the university and our community better understand what types of spaces meet the needs of our students. I look forward to sharing more about this newly updated space when it opens in the spring semester.
Moving Forward
This vision for Bentley’s future, in alignment with our Falcons Forward 2030 strategic plan, is still a work in progress. I want to be clear that these initiatives are in an early exploration phase to help us imagine what’s possible at Bentley. While we are fortunate to have some of our own resources to deploy, with a more accurate understanding of the costs of various project elements, we will be able to develop a phased approach and a funding model comprised of available internal and external resources.
One thing I can say with certainty is that to get the next steps right for our students and our entire community, we’ll need everyone’s involvement. Please hold space on your calendar for our February 6 Faculty and Staff Town Hall where I can share more details on the exciting next phase of this exploration.
Most sincerely,
Brent
