The following article was written at the request of a fellow Bentley Student. This report was based upon available student perspectives, and the Vanguard recognizes that some aspects of the story may go unintentionally unrecognized as a result of the information that is accessible to the Vanguard. To respect the ongoing nature of the situation, portions of this article were omitted for the sake of legality.
The Facts of the Situation:
As a result of an insufficient and unsatisfactory background check, Bentley University has spent the past few weeks asking their students to consult for a convicted criminal and scam artist. Dan Flynn pleaded guilty to 9 counts of wire fraud, spent 4 years in a federal prison, and helps run the company The Hero Collectibles, that Bentley GB320 professors decided to partner with this semester.
For some context, GB320 used to be a mandatory class for all Business Majors at Bentley, but this is the last year that the class is running. GB320, also known as Bentley’s integrated business project, has Bentley students partner with an external company for an entire semester in order to create a new business strategy for them. During the first assignment for the class, news of Flynn’s criminal past was discovered by a Bentley student in one of the GB320 sections that had The Hero Collectibles. The student Googled Dan Flynn’s name and saw an article documenting the case.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office: District of Massachusetts, “‘Mr. Flynn preyed upon friends and family, taking their hard earned money with promises of high returns. Instead, he violated their trust, and used their investments to perpetuate an elaborate Ponzi scheme, using the money for his own personal expenses including renovations to his Milton home’”.
The uncovered article was then sent to the corresponding professors of the GB320 course, and within days, Bentley dropped the company from the class. The GB320 department had made their decision to cease working with The Hero Collectibles by February 10, 2024, and the students in the class were notified about the decision on February 20, 2024.
The removal of the company included halting all contact with the company, and the classes that were consulting for The Hero Collectibles, were tasked with working with a new business; the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation (MHIC). MHIC is focused on providing fair and equitable housing and resources for all members of New England, with a Bentley University alum acting as a liaison between the GB320 students and the business.
Even though The Hero Collectibles was promptly removed from the GB320 company rotation, their original inclusion has left many parents and students disturbed. Members of the Bentley community have begun to doubt the legitimacy of the vetting process that the GB320 professors stated they implemented prior to the start of the semester, a sentiment which is demonstrated in the following student claims.
Student Statements:
The following statements are quotes from two Bentley students who were interviewed regarding the companies chosen for the course this year, and on GB320 in general. These two students are juniors of the class 2025, one of whom is taking GB320 now and had The Hero Collectibles as a company, and the other student who took GB320 in a previous semester.
Current Student of GB320:
I think that Bentley is a disgrace. There are so many local businesses that would kill for this opportunity, and Bentley chooses [a] ponzi…[scheme] over legitimate companies with hard working members of our community.
They have teams for this. People whose entire job is to find these companies. This class isn't a surprise. It's been here for decades. They've known for how long that they need suitable companies by January 23rd? And this is what they come up with. They're failing their students and they're failing our community.
Then when we, the students, expose how terrible The Hero Collectibles are, with the intense scrutiny that is looking at the owner and his company name in the same Google search, they refuse to take accountability. [The Professors] Claiming that this is how things work in the business world.
People would have been held accountable, if not fired, if this was the real world. And they push all their failures onto us, and make us start the entire class over right at the beginning of midterms. They barely admit their failures, won't accept our frustration,
and claim that any concerns moving forward with the course is simply a personal problem. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Previous Student of GB320:
There is clearly no vetting process. Years back one "company" was a kimchi company where it was a singular broke dude making kimchi in his garage. He made samples for the students. The students didn't want it and he got pissed. Turns out he used his last dimes on those samples and they had to scrap the project and make up fake data for the rest of the semester.
The professors from last semester made a joke of a survey that my folks thought was made in 10 minutes by Bentley kids. The gift card raffle didn't work, and the company kept ghosting us.
An Overview of the Management:
These aforementioned statements are admittedly harsh criticism, but they seem to reflect the general consensus of many Bentley students. Students claim that the GB320 department barely took responsibility for their decision, and when they realized that The Hero Collectibles was run by a known criminal, the GB320 professors still had the students submit an analysis of the company which was worth 20% of the final grade.
The professors then reportedly announced that the students would have to complete a similar assignment for the new company MHIC, a decision that struck many students as unfair and irrational. Some even argued that the first assignment's research was difficult to finish because of the complicated nature of The Hero Collectibles.
When completing the required assignment a current student enrolled in GB320 reported that “The Hero Collectibles claims on their website that some stores in the area sell their products. [However] when a kid in my section called them to see how sales were, the store hadn't even heard of the company, let alone stocked their products”.
To the professors’ credit, they were considerate to the students, and allowed them to level questions as to how the company’s history managed to go unnoticed. However, with so many questions still up in the air, the Vanguard felt it was important to give all sides of the story an opportunity to be addressed. As a result, we reached out to Professor Erin Flynn among others for comment on the situation.
Responses for The Vanguard from Professor Erin Flynn:
The following section highlights questions that the Vanguard asked the lead professor of the GB320 department, Erin Flynn. The Vanguard thanks Professor Erin Flynn for her time and consideration during our investigative process.
Q: What does the GB320 vetting process look like?
Experiential learning and connecting students with corporate partners are an essential part of Bentley's approach to preparing students for success in their professional lives. The core of GB320 is enabling students to use their skills, knowledge, and teamwork to help a company develop a business plan.
The university was disappointed to learn that one of the companies included in the current GB320 curriculum has a key advisor whose past suggests that their values do not align with ours. We are thankful to the students who made this discovery while doing their research as part of the course assignment. The GB320 faculty acted quickly to inform the company we would no longer work with them and identified a new organization to work with.
The university follows a vetting process for each company invited to participate in GB320 that involves these steps:
● Source a company based on referral or university-initiated outreach. In this case, The Hero Collectibles was referred by a Bentley faculty member.
● Confirm that the company’s business model will support the learning objectives of GB320. We prioritize business-to-consumer business
models because they tend to be the best fit for the course. The Hero Collectibles has a B2C business model.
● Confirm that the company is in-market and is not a pre-revenue start-up. The Hero Collectibles was founded in 2020 and incorporated in 2022. It is in-market and generating revenue.
● Meet with company leadership to ensure that they can commit the time and resources required for student success. We met with The Hero Collectibles leadership and they confirmed they could commit the time and resources necessary to support the course project and our students.
In reviewing The Hero Collectibles website and materials, Maureen Burton is the founder and owner of the company. The company was presented to Bentley as a woman-owned business throughout the vetting process with the advisor in question presented only as a sibling and supporter of the founder and owner.
Q: Why was the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation not the first pick over The Hero Collectibles?
Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation was not part of the initial recruiting process for spring 2024. We contacted them when we decided to end our working relationship with The Hero Collectibles.
Q: Why did you choose to have the students submit their first assignment only to then have the students do the assignment over again?
We did not have students repeat the first assignment. We adjusted the course assignments to support the change in course direction, and we drew a clear tie between the insights gleaned from the original assignment #1 and the assignments with our new corporate partner.
This course has four assignments:
Assignment #1: secondary research on the company’s industry, competitive landscape, consumer behavior, marketplace trends
Assignment #2A: focus group analysis
Assignment #2B: survey analysis
Assignment #3: preparation of a written business plan and oral presentation of the plan
When we ended our relationship with The Hero Collectibles, students were underway with their assignment #1 secondary research pertaining to the industry, competitive landscape, consumer behavior, and marketplace trends applicable to The Hero Collectibles. We had them finish and submit this assignment for two reasons: 1) they were already well underway with it and 2) some of the key insights arising from this research are pertinent to the new corporate partner project and set the very foundation for the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation mission, which is to provide innovative financing to create and sustain healthy, equitable communities, with a focus on communities that have historically been under-resourced and under-served.
The initial research performed for the first assignment #1 highlighted racial inequity in physical activity and sport participation, which is now the foundation for the new project with the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation.
Under the new course direction, students will submit the following:
An additional assignment #1, because secondary research is necessary for them to understand the company, what it does, and the reasons why its work is important. Assignment #2A
Assignment #3
We have removed Assignment #2B from the course plan, which means that students still submit the same number of course deliverables as originally planned. Essentially, the new Assignment #1 was swapped in, while Assignment #2B was swapped out. The new Assignment #1 assumes the same grade weight as Assignment #2B.
Q: The department states to have known about Dan Flynn's history since the weekend of the Super Bowl, however, the students were only notified on February 20. Would you mind explaining why the students were not notified when the department reached its decision to drop The Hero Collectibles?
The intent was to speak with students directly, in class on Tuesday, February 13. When the university canceled classes that day because of the predicted snowstorm, we delayed the announcement until classes were back in session on Tuesday, February 20 so that we could provide all students, across all six sections working on the course project, the opportunity to hear from course leadership in person on the same day and to be able to ask questions in person.
Concluding Thoughts:
While Bentley’s academic and legal departments acted succinctly and professionally when they discovered the nature of The Hero Collectibles, inquiries have been raised as to why professional staff of the university did not question the odd business structure of the company.
Such as the fact that despite coming to Bentley to give a presentation on The Hero Collectibles, and indicating his involvement with the company, Dan Flynn is not mentioned anywhere on the company’s website or their list of corporate leaders.
While there seems to be conflicting statements as to what degree the GB320 professors were aware of Dan Flynn’s involvement in the company, it was clearly outlined in the GB320 Project Statement. In the collaborative document made by GB320 professors they state that “The Hero Collectibles is a woman-owned enterprise conceived and started in 2019 by founder and owner Maureen Burton and her brother, Director of Operations, Dan Flynn”.
Ultimately, the decisions that have been made in regards to the management of the GB320 course have left students with a sense of unease and mistrust in Bentley that prides itself on ethical business practices.
The Vanguard reserves the right to publish a follow up report as information about the situation becomes accessible.
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