The 90-year-old Spartan Daily publication was founded in fall of 1934 by the building namesake, Dwight Bentel.
He is one of the primary reasons why the journalism department has a multitude of options to major in according to “Spartan Daily: The First Fifty Years.”
The book was written by Delores Spurgeon on the first 50 years of SJSU’s department of Journalism and Mass Communications ranging from 1936 to 1986.
William Briggs served from 2006 to 2012 as director of San José State’s school of Journalism and Mass Communications.
“I had never seen anyone so passionate about what (he) believed in and what he taught,” Briggs said.
“Nobody stays at a job or university for a very long time,” he said. “Bentel did for over 30 years, and that's amazing longevity.”
Bentel taught as a professor of journalism from 1934 to 1974 according to the Online Archive of California.
Briggs said he never got to work with Bentel at the same time because Bentel retired in 1974, but he was a student of Bentel when he was a graduate.
“I had Dwight as a professor and I believe that was the last class before Dwight retired in 1974,” Briggs said.
He said he remembers taking Bentel’s Law of the Press course, and how passionate Bentel was about freedom of speech.
Bentel believed a well-educated graduate was someone who scrutinized the media, according to “Spartan Daily: The First Fifty Years.”
“He would often authorize stories that might have been critical of the administration of the university and they didn’t like that,” Briggs said.
Former co-advisor to the Spartan Daily and lecturer in journalism Mack Lundstrom knew Dwight Bentel and has a piece of history within Dwight Bentel Hall with the newsroom being named after him.
Lundstrom was the advisor from 1983 to 2000 according to “Spartan Daily: The First Fifty Years,” and said he had been diagnosed with early onset dementia.
“I forget an awful lot of things, but I don't forget the Daily and I’ll never forget Dwight Bentel,” Lundstrom said.
Lundstrom said that Bentel was crucial in the role of having other classes like advertising, editing and photojournalism so that students could be prepared to have a job.
Lundstrom said by the time he was running things at the Spartan Daily, the journalism field had changed as it always does.
“Television had started by then and we had a strong radio,” he said. “News, art, print, television, radio and advertising were all major parts of the program.”
Lundstrom said covering the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was one of the notable stories he remembers and was proud of, along with the rest of his students.
“When (the earthquake) hit, we were in the newsroom and then they kicked us out after,” he said.
Lundstrom said he decided to use his house as the newsroom and sent reporters out to start covering the earthquake aftermath.
He said they managed to print because the commercial printing plant in San José did not stop printing and they delivered it to campus with nobody there.
Former professor of advertising and the Spartan Daily’s coordinator of publications Clyde Lawrence was one the last hires from Bentel’s time as chair.
“I was working in Texas at the time and I wanted to get back to California,” Lawrence said.
He said Bentel invited him to SJSU and then sent him a letter saying ‘Come on out, we’d like to hire you.’
When Lawerence came for his first semester in 1967, Bentel had retired from his position as chairman but continued to teach on staff.
Lawrence said the people that Bentel brought in to teach classes were also big reasons why SJSU’s journalism program became so successful.
“Our students were so employable that you would hear publishers and editors say that when you came out of SJSU, you were ready to go,” Lawrence said.
Briggs said it was a surreal feeling to sit in the same place as Bentel. He received a letter from Bentel upon taking the position.
“ ‘Congratulations. You have exchanged the best job in the world, being a university professor, for the worst job in the world: being an administrator at a university,’ ” Briggs said.
