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In what its president, Arthur Levine, called a “groundbreaking” appointment, Darlyne Bailey '74 is the new vice president for academic affairs at Columbia University Teachers College, which offers 60 masters and doctoral programs. She is the institution's first African American woman vice president and holds a full professorship from the Columbia School of Social Work.
“Professionally, I hope to bring my passion for building community to Teachers College — building community within the college itself, between the college and other schools at Columbia University, and between the college and its surrounding Harlem neighborhood,” says Bailey, a Lafayette trustee. “Personally, I'm looking forward to continuing to learn more about the contributions of Teachers College and developing new partnerships among the faculty, students, and staff.”
Bailey hopes to recreate the unity she helped cultivate in her prior position at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western University, where she worked for 13 years, including the past seven as dean. “Everybody in the building recognized that they each individually and collectively played an important part in making the whole enterprise work,” she explains. “There was no academic hierarchy per se; people knew their responsibilities, but the atmosphere supported the value of everybody's contributions. There was almost a spirit of élan in the building, which took a while for us to create because one person can't do that. It takes other people believing in it and working alongside each other, and that's what we're working to create here as well.”
When first approached about the Teachers College position, Bailey responded that she was “not on the market,” finding great satisfaction in her job. When she left, the school had reached its highest private funding level and research funding in its history and had added three endowed chairs. “As I thought about it, I believed that I am called to do this kind of work, that I should not only use the gifts I have been given, but to continue to stretch myself.”
Before receiving several postgraduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Case Western Reserve University, Bailey graduated from Lafayette with a bachelor's degree in psychology and certificate of secondary education. Her college experience prepared her well to become the first African American woman to hold the position of dean at Case Western and the first to be vice president at Teachers College, she says.
“I didn't truly realize what it meant to be a pioneer until I became part of the first co-ed class at Lafayette,” says Bailey. “It required an incredible mixture of courage, naiveté and faith. What I found is that from that one experience at Lafayette, the seeds of all three of those were planted deep within me. Subconsciously, I seek out opportunities that would call forth all three of those dimensions.”
Those years also instilled a desire in Bailey to seek leadership positions. “People look at folks who are pioneers to set the pace, and I've learned two incredible things about leadership from my time at Lafayette,” she explains. “First, good leaders must have a true sense of humility. The best leaders are the best followers also. If others don't buy into what you're doing and you don't stay open to ideas, it all falls apart. The other critical thing is that power can be used for the good – it's not a negative thing that needs to be avoided, although it needs to be held lightly so you're not too wedded to it. I think the seeds of all this came from my four-year journey as a student at Lafayette. I consider my years at Lafayette a major blessingI grew a lot and met some incredible people. I stay in touch with many of my classmates.”
Bailey has been cited in The International Who's Who of Professionals and Who's Who in America. In 2000, she was labeled one of 13 “Rainmakers” by Northern Ohio Live, a magazine for women in business that describes “rainmakers” as those who have “taken on huge risks to meet high standards and attain meaningful goals.” In 1997, she was named a “Woman of Influence” by Crain's Cleveland Business. She was a Salzburg Seminar Fellow in 1996 and a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fellow in 1994, and won the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award from the Mandel School in 1992.
Bailey is the co-author of Strategic Alliances Among Health and Human Services Organizations: From Affiliations to Consolidations along with Kelly McNally Koney, and of Managing Human Resources in the Human Services, with Felice Davidson and Ellen Nutting, published last year.
Darlyne Bailey '74