![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/01\/v33n02-S2W-Kenneth-Bentley.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nK<\/span>enneth Bentley launched his career in photography by specializing in portraiture, work that allowed him to play with details and lighting to capture the humanity of his subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n He studied visual arts at a Philadelphia high school where he enjoyed drawing people, using pencil and paper to explore the human form. Now a senior at Bemidji State University, Bentley uses words and ideas to explore a bigger canvas of how social order, culture and institutions shape people’s lives.<\/span><\/p>\n A native of Philadelphia, he enrolled at BSU after he moved with his family to Laporte. He started with a degree in sociology and then added minors in leadership studies and mass communication.<\/span><\/p>\n “When I was doing photography, I thought, ‘This is fun,’’’ Bentley said. “But I wanted to know more about the people in my photos. For a long time, I was completely against going to college, but I wanted a career change, and I started reading a lot about sociology.”<\/span><\/p>\n Now he plans to pursue a doctorate in sociology, possibly to teach at the college level. At BSU, he participates in the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant program. His dream job would be to teach a course on the culture of hip hop, a style of urban popular music featuring rap with an electric backing.<\/span><\/p>\n “Hip hop has its own language about life,” Bentley said. <\/span>“It’s a part of the history of our times, a way for people to express what’s going on in their communities.”<\/span><\/p>\n As a first-generation college student, he is a TRiO McNair Scholar. His research interests include cultural trends across historical time periods and how media reflects or influences culture. He’s also done a sociological exploration of hip-hop culture. His other interests include poverty in urban and rural areas, incarceration in America and gender politics. On a recent visit to Philadelphia, he undertook a photojournalistic study of poverty on urban streets.<\/span><\/p>\n “Kenneth has been a welcome addition to the leadership program,” said Dr. Dennis Lunt, director of leadership studies. “He is an open-minded and serious thinker who has a bright future.”<\/span><\/p>\n Bentley has presented his research at the Sociologists of Minnesota annual meeting in St. Cloud, the BSU Student Scholarship and Creative Achievement Conference and at a McNair Research Conference at Florida International University in Miami. <\/span><\/p>\n “Everything that I chose to do academically has been aimed at self-improvement,” said Bentley, who finds he is a scholar at heart. “Five or six years ago, I never would have thought about presenting or all the things that I’ve done at Bemidji State.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" K<\/span>enneth Bentley launched his career in photography by specializing in portraiture, work that allowed him to play with details and lighting to capture the humanity of his subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[958],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26588"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31434,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26588\/revisions\/31434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}