Bentley University Mission Statement
Bentley University is distinctive among U.S. and international universities in having two faculties, in business and in the arts and sciences, which are unified in their educational mission. Bentley may therefore be understood as a university within a business school — a university because of the character and scope of its education and research agendas, and a business school because of its orientation.
Bentley graduates excel in complex and dynamic environments through their capacity to initiate, lead, and affect value-creating change. As responsible and ethical individuals, they recognize and take into account the broader social, political, and environmental context within which all organizations operate.
As a business university, Bentley University distinctively integrates business and the liberal arts and is internationally known for the quality and impact of its educational programs and research. Bentley is a leader in promoting ethical and socially responsible enterprise and the critical role of information and communication technology in achieving sustainable high performance.
Bentley University has a long-standing commitment to ethics, social responsibility, service and sustainability that grew out of the intersection of business and the arts and sciences. The emphasis on business ethics emanated from the Philosophy Department, which launched the Center for Business Ethics more than 30 years ago. Our nationally ranked Service-Learning program was started out of the English and Sociology Departments in the early 1990s and now cuts across the entire institution. As a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), Bentley is committed to innovative pedagogy and research, embedding these areas throughout the curriculum and our research agenda. Faculty publish in many of the leading journals in this area, including Academy of Management Learning & Education, Behavioral Research in Accounting, Business Ethics Quarterly, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Research in Accounting Regulation, and theWomen in Management Review. The Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility facilitates the collaboration of these institution-wide initiatives. The alliance works to inform what we research and teach, and also how we operate as an organization.
The integration of business and information technology is a strategic focus at Bentley. The institution is consistently ranked in the U.S. News and World Report information systems top 20 for both undergraduate and graduate programs. Bentley researchers continue to publish in many of the leading information systems journals including the MIS Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Communications of the ACM, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, and ACM Transactions on Information Systems. Professor M. Lynne Markus was the recipient of the 2008 AIS Leo Award for Exceptional Lifetime Achievement in Information Systems having previously received the 2006 MIS Quarterly Paper of the Year award as well as having this article selected as one of the five best papers to be published that year. Bentley was the only institution having two articles receiving this recognition.
Bentley supports the continued growth of an inspiring, compassionate, and diverse community that cultivates the lifelong growth and development of all our students. The Bentley community embraces diversity and appreciates its value in stimulating creativity, innovation, and profound learning. Bentley's connections beyond business to government and the not-for-profit sectors exemplify its commitment to the development of community. Bentley's distinctive mission for the future reflects its vision and its unique capacity to serve its stakeholder communities.
As a business university, Bentley University's mission is to create new knowledge within and across business and the arts and sciences and to educate creative, ethical, and socially responsible organizational leaders.
