UND Young Alumni Award – Amanda Bentow

Oct, 18 2011 by Lisa M

Amanda Bentow is the President of the Greater Grand Forks Young Professionals and has been highly involved in the process of hiring an Executive Director.

Congratulations, Amanda!

2011 UND Young Alumni Award Recipient

It didn’t take long for Amanda Bentow, ’04, ’06, to establish herself as a leader in the University of North Dakota and Grand Forks communities.

In April, the 30-year-old became the first Community Relations Officer for the University of North Dakota. She develops relationships and seeks partnerships between the University and the broader Grand Forks region community. “I feel like the role is a culmination of all the things I’ve been involved with until this point,” she said.

Bentow has held various positions at UND, including Director for Operations of UND’s Health and Wellness Unit and Associate Director for Strategic Development at the UND Wellness Center. Within the Grand Forks community, she’s president of the Greater Grand Forks Young Professionals; a member of the Steering Committee for the Community Visioning project through The Chamber’s Business, Government and Education Alliance; a board member on the Altru Foundation Board of Directors, and has been heavily involved on the steering committee for the Launch Grand Forks Initiative.

Her proactive community involvement earned her a spot on Prairie Business Magazine’s prestigious “40 Under 40” list in 2010, but the humble Bentow deflects the credit to those around her. “I’ve really just been involved with some great projects,” she said. “People have personally taken time and invested in me. It’s helped me to learn and be a successful part of the projects I’m involved in.”

Bentow’s community involvement started when she was a UND student, where she served as Student Body Vice President in 2003-04. She was named the Memorial Union’s Outstanding Chapter Advisor (2006) and the UND Multicultural Student Services Martin Luther King Jr. Award-winner (2004). “UND is really the place where I’ve kind of grown up,” she said. “I say that I’m from Fargo but I grew up at UND.”