THE BENTLEY STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Welcome to The Bentley Student Experience, the third and final Centennial year exhibit detailing the history of Bentley University.

Bentley was founded in response to a demand for more highly educated business professionals –especially accountants – in the first decades of the twentieth century. At this same point in the development of American higher education, what we now know as Student Affairs (a set of co-curricular offerings created and managed by educational specialists) began to emerge.  Student Affairs at Bentley evolved as they did at colleges and universities across the country, though perhaps a bit more slowly as a result of Bentley’s status as an urban, “street-car school” that offered the basics to students. Once Bentley relocated to its spacious Waltham campus, the student experience steadily began to resemble that of a traditional residential college.

The student experience at Bentley also reflects the distinctive philosophy that characterizes this institution in so many ways – a philosophy that embraces founder Harry Bentley’s belief in a real-world education. In the 21^st century we talk about engagement, and Bentley prepares students to have full lives and careers by engaging them in innovative ways now, in the life of the campus and beyond.

The Bentley Student Experience exhibit is not limited to student life narrowly defined as activities and clubs; but is intended to showcase all aspects of what has contributed to being a student at Bentley for the past century – in the classroom, in the residence halls, commuting by streetcar or on Route 128, playing a sport, serving the community, meeting someone with a drastically different background, and more.  Today, fostering an engaged student experience is a key element of the university’s strategic direction, one that recognizes the educational value of comprehensive growth in and out of the classroom. Please enjoy this look at the way students have experienced Bentley for 100 years.

Life has changed greatly for Bentley students over the last 100 years. From when their school was founded in 1917 until Bentley moved to Waltham in 1968, the institution was known as “a poor boys’ school” because most of its students were working-class young white men from Massachusetts who commuted and studied in the evening to master a skill (namely accounting) that would enable them to move upward in the world. Bentley students still strive to succeed, but their school is much more diverse than it used to be. After moving to Waltham, Bentley began to appeal vigorously to female and minority students, as well as to national and international students. Like Bentley men of old, many of the school’s modern-day students aspire to become accountants. But most students at the university pursue non-accounting majors, and they study in the daytime because their school is now mainly a residential day institution.

Students walk outside 921 Boylston Street in 1964. Before the move to Waltham, Bentley was primarily a commuter school. Though many students now live on campus, there are still large numbers of commuters whose needs are represented by the Commuter Association.

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In its early years, Bentley had no dorms at all and most of its students lived at home or in rooming houses. Out-of-state students were able to live in a couple of dorms that Bentley rented, but the school did not acquire its own dorm until 1960 when it bought 373 Commonwealth Avenue from Emerson College in Boston. 373 Comm Ave. was a men’s dorm with a strict dress code, and no women—not even mothers—were allowed above the first floor.

After enrolling at Bentley, women students wanted their own dorm, and they got one when the college moved from Boston to Waltham in 1968. Female freshmen were assigned in that year to Stratton House, while male freshmen were assigned to the Tree Dorms. Upperclass students had to find their own accommodations until the Adamian years (1970-1991), when Bentley embarked on a dorm-building spree that enabled nearly all of its undergraduate day students to live on campus.

During its first 40 years, Bentley did not have any centralized dining services. Students who lived in fraternity or boarding houses were often served meals by a house matron. Commuter students, and anyone in need of midday grub, found regular lunch spots in Boston’s Back Bay. Some early favorites were the Honey Donut Shop and the Hayes-Bickford Restaurant. As the school prepared for accreditation, it became clear that dining services would need to expand. So, in 1959, the first cafeteria opened in the renovated 867 Boylston Street building.

On the Waltham campus, dining options have changed with the times. In the 1970s, places like the Falcon’s Nest Coffeehouse and the Rathskeller Pub (both located in what is now LaCava) became popular thanks to their specialty menus and live entertainment. However, a glut of carb-based options for dinner eventually led to a “Pasta Protest” in 1971! Today, students have a number of dining options (pasta included) all across campus.

Today, the Bentley student experience involves high-tech classrooms, personal computers, cloud storage, and more. In 1918, and through many of the early decades at Bentley, the experience was much different. On Boylston Street, classroom technology included chalkboards, mechanical calculators, and overhead projectors. A “Machine Room” was established to train students to use adding machines, then an essential piece of accounting equipment. In class, students kept track of important figures and calculations with large ledger books.

Throughout the years, Bentley administrators kept a close eye on developing technologies. The school installed its first mainframe computer in 1969, although Computing Science courses had been offered since the 1950s. By the 1980s, our now famous laptop distribution program got its start. Today, the classroom experience includes laptops, smart boards, high-tech labs, and more.