Support for Campus Initiatives: During our Inaugural year, the Center for Women and Business directed some of its funding towards innovative research and programming developed throughout out campus community.

Faculty and PhD candidates that received grants:

Traci Abbott, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English and Media Studies: Study in conjunction with the Diversity and Student Affairs offices to understand more about sexual peer harassment on Bentley campus.

Donna Blancero, Associate Professor of Management: Study examines work/family policies of organizations employing Latina women in STEM fields of work.

Elise Perrault Crawford, PhD Candidate: Study explores the reasons that activists use the shareholder resolution mechanism to communicate with managers on the issue of board diversity.

Linda Edelman, Associate Professor of Management, and Tatiana Manolova, Associate Professor of Management: Study examines the signals that woman entrepreneurs send to angel investors that communicate the suitability of their new ventures for early seed funding.

Maureen Goldman, Professor of English and Media Studies, and Gesa Kirsch, Professor of English and Media Studies: Study of how sustainable cities may present opportunities for women who are building careers.

Jeff Gulati, Associate Professor of Global Studies: Study tests the hypothesis that women are more likely than men to sponsor and co-sponsor anti-human trafficking bills in the U.S House of Representatives.

Diane Kellogg, Associate Professor of Management: Support for travel to a leadership conference with four undergraduate students associated with the Mmofra Trom Bead Project.

Luisa Melo, PhD Candidate: Study examines the status of women on corporate boards in emerging market countries.

Edward Zlotkowski, Professor of English and Media Studies; Director of Service–Learning: Support for launching the Prism Project. This new service–learning program will help young women achieve a higher level of self-esteem and aid their discovery of three core values: ambition, inner beauty and full potential.

Administrative departments that received grants:

Athletics Department: Funding will provide an internship experience for a female student interested in pursuing a career in athletic administration or sports marketing.

Multicultural Center: Bridging the Gap Between Women Leaders. The Multicultural Center is sponsoring a program to help address the experiential divide between Caucasian women and women of color on Bentley’s campus.

Graduate Career Services: Emerging Leaders Program for International Graduate Women. This program aims to bolster leadership skills among a select group of international graduate women leaders. Through workshops, discussion forums, and personal assessment exercises, students explore and develop their leadership identity.

Office of Residence Life: The Women’s Leadership Floor. To help in preparing young women for the business world, this grant supports collaborative programming, a speaker series, and numerous networking opportunities for residents of the Women’s Leadership Floor and their mentors.

Center for International Students and Scholars: Gender Roles and Gender Equality in Global Business. A CISS-sponsored event brought together students, faculty and staff to analyze the dynamics, complexities and rewards of a diverse and inclusive business environment.

Student Initiatives that received grants:

Mmofra Trom Bead Project. This student-run entrepreneurial initiative is Bentley’s first social enterprise. Working in collaboration with the vulnerable children who live year round at the Mmofra Trom Center in Ghana, Bentley students run a profitable business that has generated a $22,000 bank account to pay school fees and educational costs for high school and beyond. Grant funds will provide leadership training and professional development opportunities for the student leaders managing this initiative. During the Spring 2012 semester, the Bentley Mmofra Trom group won first place in the 2012 Youth4Youth contest, sponsored by the Challenge: Future Summit 2012.

The First 85 Broads Intercollegiate Conference: “Divine Secrets of the Corporate Sisterhood.” Grant funds sponsored a conference for student leaders from many Boston-area colleges and universities; the conference theme was: women working together for a better tomorrow.

First Bentley Microfinance Leadership Conference. The grant provided seed funding for the Bentley Microfinance Group to share its pioneering work. The Bentley group is one of the first principally student-run microfinance organizations in the country. The conference was an opportunity to highlight the group’s past, present and future in providing modest loans to aid small businesses, many operated by women.

Out on the Job: Bentley Alumni on LGBTQ Workplace Issues. Funding from this grant supported research and programming to inform and educate Bentley students about the pro-LGBTQ workplace policies in many corporations; the advantages of these policies for all employees; and how LGBTQ Bentley alumni have negotiated and benefited from these policies.

National Conference for College Women Student Leaders. Funds from this grant supported incoming presidents of various student organizations to attend the annual National Conference for College Women’s Leaders during the spring 2012 semester.