Francesca Bentley, C'2021, was born and raised in Barrington Hills, Illinois and spent her later years living in several areas of the Northeast. The driving factor behind Bentley's decision to attend Spelman was its tight-knit, nurturing community, in and outside of the classroom, and its unmatched liberal arts education.
During her matriculation, Bentley majored in political science and minored in psychology, and served as a Peer Recitation Facilitator for the Department of African Diaspora Studies. She also worked as a research assistant in the Department of Institutional Research, was nominated by the Department of Political Science to be an Undergraduate Research Fellow at the University of California San Diego, and was selected as Spelman College’s Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium Reporting Fellow for 2020.
Committed to changing the world, Bentley worked as a paralegal in South Africa, and studied abroad in Spain. Additionally, she was inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta, Pi Sigma Alpha, and Phi Beta Kappa honor societies. While at Spelman, she discovered her deep affinity for travel and international affairs and plans to pursue a career in the international arena. In the fall of 2021, Bentley will continue her education at Stanford University to obtain a Masters of Arts degree in International Policy with a concentration in International Security.