Dr. E. LaBrent Chrite will become Bentley University’s ninth president on June 1 2021. After a nationwide search and with input from Bentley’s students, staff, and faculty, Bentley’s board of directors voted to confirm Chrite as the next president. This decision comes after a year in which Bentley has had to radically rethink how to organize education in order to adapt to COVID-19, a vicious pandemic. Even now, there are many changes that Bentley will need to adapt to in years to come, which makes Chrite’s presence and vision significant for all students, faculty, and staff going forward. Thus, to give the Bentley Community an idea about Christe’s vision for the university, we at The Vanguard interviewed him about what he hopes to achieve, how his experience affects his goals, and how his response to COVID-19 has changed his perspective.
1. What is one positive change at Bentley you hope to achieve during your time as president?
My intention is to build upon the considerable legacy and history of Bentley University and to work collaboratively with the trustees, faculty, staff, students and the alumni community to take the university to the next tier of excellence. Achieving this goal will require us to focus on at least four important areas that are highly integrated. These include:
1) Providing our students with an educational experience that is both distinct and distinguished; one that is truly transformational.
2) Creating a university community that reflects diversity, inclusivity and creativity in a way that is aligned with the world in which our students will ultimately live, work and compete.
3) Developing a curriculum and programs that meet the needs of an economy that is increasingly defined by the convergence of digital and physical technologies and that prepares our students for jobs and markets that do not yet exist. We must reimagine our academic programs so that we can maintain – and even strengthen – our long-term viability in an extremely competitive higher education marketplace.
4) Become the partner of choice for regional, national and global private and public enterprises. Mutually beneficial partnerships are a vital factor in the creation of a rigorous and contextualized education experience for our students. Such partnerships will also strengthen individual and institutional capacities at Bentley.
2. How has your experience in post-secondary education reform and business education around the world affected your vision for Bentley's future?
Business schools have the obligation – the opportunity, really – to engage at the intersection of academic rigor and market relevance. While I have always considered this a comparative advantage, it does require business school leaders and faculty members to foresee the needs of the marketplace and be in tune with the volatility and disruptions of a crowded management education environment. Management education institutions must create an institutional design structure that is agile enough to pivot at a speed and pace consistent with the markets in which they seek to serve.
Bentley is uniquely positioned for the 21st century as a comprehensive knowledge producing enterprise that happens to focus on management education. The university is greatly strengthened by its liberal arts programs and it has the capacity to redefine management education.
My vision for Bentley, in part anyway, is shaped by my belief that the overwhelming majority of the world’s most pressing economic, and non-economic, challenges are market-based. From global poverty and income inequality to maternal and child health disparities, to education inequities to skills development and access to technologies, the solutions to these, and similar issues, will ultimately be driven by the dynamism and creativity of private sector capitalism.
This is not to suggest that the policy environment isn’t important. It clearly is. Nor does this suggest that unfettered capitalism is a solution. The shocks of the World Bank’s structural adjustment programs across much of the developing world that we witnessed in the 90s, for example, resulted in lasting damage to many economies. However, if one looks at the long-term impact of private sector development, one can easily imagine the opportunities that Bentley University and its students can have in shaping and strengthening enterprises and communities around the world. This is a tremendously exciting time for Bentley and I am thrilled to be a part of it.
3. How do you hope Bentley students can contribute to and lead business as a force for good?
The first priority for any business enterprise is to operate competitively and profitably. In this sense, the priority for our students is to ensure that they are value creators when they graduate. This is a natural outcome for ambitious Bentley students, proven by years of impressive post-grad placement rates, and made possible by the strength of the faculty and curriculum. However, I believe this value will also manifest via the recognition that the world today demands a bolder and more innovative type of leadership. We’ve all been reminded in the US that, even with all of this country’s amazing progress, there is still work to be done to ensure that America’s highest promises are fulfilled for the benefit of all its citizens.
My hope is that Bentley University will develop students whose technical prowess and analytical fluencies are matched by a strong ethical foundation and a commitment to leadership and who will be comfortable in engaging and leading at the edge of uncertainty. My expectation is that Bentley students will be a force for causes that ultimately impact the human condition. In addition, I hope our students will realize that doing well and doing good are quite intuitively aligned.
4. Has COVID-19 changed your vision for the future in any way?
Without a doubt. I suspect the pandemic has impacted the lens through which all of us now view the world. I realize that at my stage in life I have the benefit of experience and, I hope, some wisdom that’s been picked up along the way. There are, however, a few universal truths that I believe are self-evident regarding our future. Whether we like it or not, we are part of a connected and global society and we cannot erect barriers (physical or political) to insulate us from many of the world’s challenges. COVID-19 has required all of us to reimagine what it means to be a member of a global and connected human community.
I’ve also been reminded of the prevailing inequities in our society. Poor people and people of color have been severely and disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, as they are with virtually every other systemic shock. We cannot, in good faith, rebuild our society after this pandemic without addressing these disparities. We must do better. Finally, my vision is shaped by what I consider to be a need for compassion, empathy and openness – especially from those of us in positions of leadership and privilege; and our ability to model such behavior seems to me to be especially critical at this time.