The Falcon Files

Admitted during WWI, the first women to graduate were Mary Gallagher ’23, Josephine Mahoney ’22 and Frances Sargent ’22 (pictured top left). The latter was a longtime Bentley administrator whose name appeared on the school’s diplomas in the 1930s and 1940s.

Delta Omega (1944) and Beta Sigma Alpha (1956) were the respective first sororities for day and evening female students. Members networked, performed community service, fundraised, and even went on beach vacations together.

The Women’s Alumnae Chapter took shape in the 1950s to support and develop female accounting professionals. Early leaders Eleanor Morgan ’52 and Helen Queenan ’52 were two of the first three women hired in 1969 as Massachusetts state auditors.

The English Department was home base for Bentley’s first female faculty members. Eva Anderson taught part time starting in 1960. Marion Graham Willis arrived in 1962 to teach full time and became the first woman to receive tenure.

Title IX helped introduce women’s sports like basketball, softball and field hockey in the early 1970s. Standouts were basketball player Nanci Roundtree (pictured top middle), the school’s first female athlete of color; and Theresa Angell ’77, whose nine varsity letters made her the first woman inducted to Bentley’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

Established in 1973, the Bentley Women’s Caucus (pictured top right) raised awareness of emerging social issues such as wage discrimination and sexual harassment. Its “Feminist Calendar,” published in the school newspaper, promoted career workshops, readings by female poets and more.

The Women at Bentley Projects and its successor, the Gender Issues Council, expanded gender-focused programming, studied the campus climate for women’s issues and spearheaded academic initiatives — one being the Gender Studies minor, launched in 1991.

Learn more at bentley.edu/women