Bentley Retiring From Ole Miss, Moving North Toward Home

After 28 years on the school’s faculty, Bentley, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management, distinguished professor of pharmacy administration and marketing, and a research professor in the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, is retiring from Ole Miss. In January, he’ll begin a new role as department head of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes and Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago's Retzky College of Pharmacy.

“This is a wonderful opportunity and I’m excited about it, but I’m going to miss my wonderful friends and colleagues and students at Ole Miss,” Bentley said. “If the position had been anywhere other than Chicago, I wouldn’t have considered it, but this is different. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

For Bentley, the journey north is a homecoming of sorts. He grew up in a suburb about 45 minutes outside Chicago, is a lifelong White Sox and Bears fan, and has family members who live in the area.

“Part of the calculus of retiring from Ole Miss was the chance to go home,” Bentley said. “This will be a new chapter my wife Sandy and me, a different environment, a new experience.”

Bentley enrolled as a graduate student in the Department of Pharmacy Administration in 1993, and joined the Ole Miss faculty in 1998. He entered a member of a cohort of young professors learning, in real time, what it meant to be well-rounded in academia. He later pursued a second Ph.D. while on faculty, driven by what he calls insatiable curiosity.

“Learning is my key. It’s my driving force," Bentley said. “The more you know, the less you know. You realize there's so much more to know, and that keeps me grounded. I get paid to learn. How much fun is that?”

Moving forward, Bentley plans to keep teaching and conducting research in his new role, alongside his administrative duties. He's eager to help younger faculty navigate their own paths, much as his mentors and Ole Miss colleagues once helped him.

Bentley is also looking forward to being close enough to family to meet for meals and casual visits, attend sporting events and celebrate holidays. Being offered the chance to spend more time with those he loves is an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

And while Bentley is excited about the journey ahead, he said that part of his heart will always be at Ole Miss.

"Leaving is bittersweet. If you’d asked me a year ago, I would not have seen this coming. It wasn’t on my bingo card,” Bentley said. “I’m looking forward to a new adventure, and I know it will be great, but I plan to visit Oxford often. There's something intangible about this place that’ll bring me back.”