Mr. Bentley allowed me to begin teaching … after a year of observing classes. A well-groomed man with tailored suits, he placed a big emphasis on gentlemanliness. All of the professors took his cue and would leave our jackets on for the entire day. I can remember teaching in a jacket for up to three hours in a room that could accommodate 135 students, where any fresh air that arrived got there by sheer accident.

For a tuition payment of $10 per month, students received instruction in commercial law, business law, economics and corporate finance. We didn’t have very high admissions standards — but we did have high graduation requirements. Mr. Bentley’s philosophy was “Give them a chance! If the boy’s any good he’ll make good, and if he isn’t, down the drain he’ll go.”

Our rigorous demands on the students led to a high attrition rate at first, but then we started to see more committed students in the years after World War II. Teaching them was a joy. They were serious-minded, mature and so sharp! Many of them had spent at least four years in the war, so they wanted to make up for lost time. People — not just GIs — started to realize that there was no future in menial jobs. Our culture began to understand that an education could serve as a road to a successful future.

Rae Anderson was Professor of Accountancy, 1940–1983; Dean of Faculty, 1949–1969
Excerpted from an interview conducted in 1992.
Rae Anderson died in 1999.