The Bentley Buzz

Each March, Women’s History Month recognizes and celebrates the many achievements of women throughout history, while spotlighting the obstacles and gender barriers that they continue to face across the world. At Bentley, the month has provided a chance for our community to reflect on the contributions that women have made to academics and campus life and — as importantly — acknowledge areas where our community can better support them.

This year, the Center for Women and Business, in close collaboration with multiple offices across campus, has built a robust program of events spanning the entire month to provide students, faculty, staff, alumni and external partners with an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations about women’s experiences on campus. While programs like these are especially important during Women’s History Month, they also provide an important example of the ways that individual offices can do their part to support the Falcons Forward 2030 Strategic Plan. 

“With the launch of the strategic plan this year, the CWB thought it would be amazing if we could coordinate some of the efforts related to Women’s History Month to bring more attention to these causes on campus,” said Assistant Director of Programs in the Center for Women and Business Dominique Wilburn.

Expanding access and opportunity is one of the five focus areas of the strategic plan, with a goal of promoting inclusion and equity across campus to ensure all feel that they belong. For the CWB and their partners on campus, expanding the offerings related to Women’s History Month was a natural fit to help bring the plan to life.

“Thinking about the strategic planning process with the goal to break down silos on campus, we wanted to get more involved with the community to add structure to the month’s programs,” said Dominique. To expand their collaborative efforts, the CWB partnered with departments and groups across campus beginning last semester to ensure that all campus stakeholders were involved with developing the programming for the month. In particular, the Gender and Student Sexuality Programs Office (GSSP) played a pivotal role in ensuring that students could find value in the events and opportunities. 

“We love facilitation at the CWB,” explained Dominique. “Given the work that we do and the work of the Gender and Student Sexuality Programs Office, we wanted to really make an impact to help steward the female experience here at Bentley. We thought that collaborating around Women’s History Month would be a great way to start diving in and bring partners together around campus who are really committed to this work.”

Through months of collaborative planning, the CWB and the Women’s History Month Working Group developed an extensive collection of events, panels, workshops and engagement opportunities to bring the community together throughout the month of March. From panel discussions and keynote speeches to a visit to the Microsoft corporate office and workshops exploring wage gaps and human rights, programming for the weeks ahead is extensive and informative. Although the core focus is on women’s history, the programs offered to the community for Women’s History Month explore more than just gender rights. 

“At the CWB, we’re really thinking about intersectionality,” said Executive Director of the Center for Women and Business Yaro Fong-Olivares. “We’re thinking about the intersection of race, gender and gender diversity at large and are really trying to gather all the folks already working in this space to create a supportive and welcoming campus to different genders and different intersectionalities within those genders. And so it became a natural next step to expand Women’s History Month, and hopefully these impacts ripple throughout the year.”

Key to the Women’s History Month planning has been the goal to make sure Bentley’s central stakeholders — our students — have felt included and supported throughout the planning process. Thanks to the work of the Gender and Student Sexuality Programs Office and their role on the Women’s History Month Working Group, student engagement has been a core focus for the month’s programming.   

“In the past, we've collaborated with the CWB on equal payday tabling events and International Women's Day,” said Assistant Director of for Gender and Sexuality Student Programs Nana Adu. “The initiatives that the CWB have been taking this year with a more connected approach to Women's History Month allowed my office to continue to hold some of the events we have had in the past while extending our partnerships with folks across campus. I think that with this new direction, it sends a message that women's history and gender equity are topics that across campus we’re thinking about. That’s a really important message for our students.”

And while the Women’s History Month Working Group has met regularly since December to develop the programming for the month, students, too, have been engaged across campus to ensure their voices are heard. “Student organizations have been really instrumental in planning programming,” said Nana. “Students have always led and run these initiatives as well, so bringing them in has been an important focus for us this year.”

One important change to this year’s program that the Student Affairs team helped to bring to life was moving the annual Men as Allies Summit from February to March to show solidarity and support the initiatives around Women’s History Month. “The Men as Allies Summit is open to folks of all genders, though it does have a specific focus for male students with a panel of speakers from various industries talking about what allyship looks like in the workplace across genders,” said Nana. “We really want to bring attention to the fact that celebrating women and bringing awareness to the issues affecting women doesn't just start and end in March, but that there are opportunities to start that allyship journey now and bring that work forward all year.”

In addition to the series of programs planned for the month, posters will be displayed across campus showing visual representations of the impacts that women have had on Bentley’s history. “Women have always had a role here at Bentley,” said Dominique. “We wanted to really acknowledge that so much has been done by women to contribute to where Bentley is now. Part of Women’s History Month is to make sure that people see themselves here and to recognize the rich contributions that women have made and hopefully will continue to make in their time here.” 

While Bentley will officially celebrate the accomplishments of women and bring attention to the challenges they face in March, the CWB and Women’s History Month Working Group are ensuring that this important work carries on throughout the entire year. By talking about the opportunities that Bentley has created to support gender-equity and inclusion work, Yaro wants the community to know that the chance to spread awareness throughout Bentley and beyond won’t end at the close of the month.

“By talking about and recommending the diversity, equity and inclusion major or the gender studies minor, faculty and staff can help raise awareness within the community all year,” explained Yaro. “I don't know how widely known these programs are, but some people ask me all the time what classes are available to support this work. Even if students aren’t majoring in these programs, they might be able to take some courses of interest within these disciplines.”

While the CWB and Women’s History Month Working Group encourages all to get involved throughout the month of March, they also want to be sure that the community knows that there are many resources available on campus to support this important work year-round. From requesting class visits from the CWB or ambassador training for staff to attending a GSSP/PRIDE open forum with students, there are a number of ways that faculty, staff and students can get involved and learn more through a hands-on approach.

To learn more about allyship and gender-equity initiatives at Bentley, you can contact Yaro, Dominique or Nana directly by email, or send a message to CWB@bentley.edu. Be sure to check out the programs and events running throughout Women’s History Month below!

For the second straight year, the Falcons took home the Northeast-10 women’s basketball championship after a 61-49 win at Southern New Hampshire University. The win marks the 22nd championship in program history. Maggie Whitmore started the game off with a three-point shot seconds into the competition, giving the Falcons a lead that they would never relinquish. Her performance earned Maggie the championship's Most Outstanding Player Award, as she finished with 17 points, 10 rebounds, one assist, one steal and a block.

The team now takes their seven-game winning streak to the NCAA Division II Championships to face Le Moyne today at 7:30 p.m.

Congratulations to the student-athletes and coaches on their successful season, and best of luck in the NCAA tournament!  

Read More 

The RSM Gallery is pleased to present “From Silk to Cement,” a mixed media installation by Ariel Basson Frieberg. Cement paintings, drawings on paper and fabric all come together in the gallery space to guide the viewer through the artist’s family refugee stories. Basson Freiberg has been researching her family’s Iraqi-Jewish history by looking over old photos and ephemera, talking with relatives, studying Judean Arabic and visiting museums.

The artist’s maternal grandfather had a celebrated fabric shop in Baghdad’s central market, but due to religious persecution, he was forced to flee to Israel with his family in the 1950s. Like many refugees, relocation required reinvention and he eventually established an apartment building construction business. The fabric elements of the installation allude to the beauty and comfort of the fabric shop while painting on and with concrete was a way for the artist to make a tactile connection to her grandfather and the materials he used as a contractor. Basson-Freiberg’s concrete paintings resemble chunks of walls, with irregular shapes and a stucco surface texture that allude to the beauty of piecing together one’s stories while understanding of the unknowability of other pieces beyond the edges.

The exhibit will be on display through April 28. 

Men and Women's Basketball Teams in the NCAA Tournament
Following competitive seasons and the women’s team’s NE-10 championship, both Bentley basketball teams will compete in the NCAA Division II Tournament this weekend. 

Liam Sears Named NE-10 Baseball Player of the Week
After an impressive performance in Bentley’s doubleheader against St. Michael's College, Liam Sears was named the Baseball Player of the Week in the NE-10 Conference.

Two Compete in NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships
Junior Emma Hapkiewicz and sophomore Hilla Almog represented Bentley in the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships in Indianapolis.