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In preparing for a new leadership position at University of Minnesota, Darlyne Bailey ’74 is grateful for the experiences that have helped her forge her career and her life.
Bailey will become dean of the College of Education and Human Development and assistant to the president on Oct. 1. She is dean of Columbia’s Teachers College and vice president for academic affairs, and has been involved in a collaboration addressing the needs of Harlem elementary school children.
The college she will lead is being formed as part of a realignment incorporating the General College and the College of Human Ecology’s School of Social Work.
“I’ll be responsible for approximately 7,000 students and 200 full-time faculty,” Bailey says. “This is an amazing opportunity to help co-create a multidisciplinary college. In my role as assistant to the president, I will help oversee two university-wide consortia that focus on children, youth, families, and post-secondary education. That part is truly a social worker’s dream.”
Bailey will be University of Minnesota’s first African American female dean. It’s an opportunity she is both familiar with and embraces. Bailey notes that she was the first African American female dean at Case Western Reserve University and the first African American female vice president and dean at Columbia’s Teachers College.
“As I look back, I’m mindful of the fact that I have been a ‘first’ in a lot of situations,” she says. “The scale may get larger and larger in terms of overall responsibility, but I have gotten used to the pioneer role. I feel a lot of responsibility in making sure I do it in a way to punch through some stereotypes that we still may have in 2006. I want to make sure that not only is the door wide open, but that my hand is stretched out to others who may follow.”
Bailey’s trailblazing got its start at Lafayette where, in the early 1970s, she was one of a few people of color and one of the few women.
“I came from a public school system in New Jersey that was one of the first in the country to desegregate its schools,” she explains. “I was used to looking around the room and seeing different hues.”
According to Bailey, the faculty at Lafayette was “phenomenal.” A psychology graduate who also earned a certificate of secondary education, she cites the support of the late David Portlock, former associate dean and director of international education, and K. Roald Bergethon, then Lafayette’s president.
“It was at the time of black power,” recalls Bailey, who has coauthored two books. “We talked a lot about what it felt like to not ‘see yourself’ in your classes. We also spoke with white students about how they felt about having students of color in class with them for the first time.
“It was an incredible opportunity to break through stereotypes, to deeply empathize, and to not only have a much deeper understanding of what ‘differences’ meant, but also to understand what ‘similarities’ meant. I found Lafayette to be the perfect experience for me at that point in my life.”