Introduction & Welcome
We are very pleased you are interested in learning more about the Bailey Scholars Program. The various sections of our website will introduce you to how you may become involved as an undergraduate student, as a graduate student, or faculty member. Please explore these various areas, and if you have further questions on how you may become a Bailey Scholar please contact Glenn Sterner at sternerg@msu.edu or (517) 432-0732.
The Bailey Scholars Program is a unique opportunity to learn through community. It is a program of possibility and potential, where we aid you in your pursuit of your learning interests. We focus on scholarship, excellence, and community. Here in the Bailey Scholars Program, you explain to us where your interests lie, and we provide opportunities to help you explore them in class, through faculty and staff/student interactions, on program and college committees, in internships, through research, on study abroad trips, through community partnerships, and beyond.
We are a non-residential, learning community housed in the Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies Department in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University. We are open to all undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff who wish to engage in our work, together. We are located in 65 Agriculture Hall, and our office hours are Monday - Friday, 8 am - 5 pm.
Bailey’s declaration is “to be a community of scholars dedicated to lifelong learning. All members of the community work toward providing a respectful, trusting environment where we acknowledge our interdependence and encourage personal growth.” We accomplish this by integrating our academics and our community; students are regarded as highly as faculty and staff – here we are all equals. Ideas you wish to explore and pose to others in the community are exciting new ways for each of us to expand our horizons.
By participating in the Bailey Scholars Program, undergraduates receive a specialization in Connected Learning. Each undergraduate member of Bailey forms a Learning Vision Statement – an expression of what you hope to learn and how you hope to grow as an individual in the community. Graduate students, faculty and staff undergo a process of envisioning, where they lay out their plans for their involvement in the program intertwined with their learning goals. We aim to aid you on your way, and support you in your learning journey.
Undergraduates and faculty have the opportunity to explore their interests in the Bailey Core Courses – ANR 210, ANR 310, and ANR 410. The courses are typically facilitated by two faculty members, and with 4 – 15 undergraduate students. These courses are unique because the schedule is formed by the individuals in the courses. The class decides what you hope to learn, how you will learn and research these topics, when you will learn them, how you will assess learning, and how to assign grades. These are the only university courses of their nature at Michigan State University and across the nation, both students and faculty explore as co-learners.
The Bailey Scholars Program is a unique place in higher education. It is where the pursuit of learning meets the research intensive institution. It is a community of learning that supports every member of the program, and aims to educate and influence the larger world community. Here we engage in innovative practices to find ways to better allow freedom for individuals to pursue their learning interests and goals, and together we find ways to make these goals a reality.
We encourage you to visit this overview of Bailey presented in question form for further information.
Important Information
The Bailey Scholars Program operates on our program declaration and guiding principles, each created by both faculty and students. To guide our inquiry, we have what are considered the Bailey 5 Questions to consider when reflecting on our learning. Please visit our program setup to learn more about our administrative structure.
Program Information & Updates
The Bailey Scholars Program's administration is Glenn Sterner, our Senior Director; Dustin Petty, our Student Director; Karen Springer, our Program Secretary; and Anne Nuttall and Hillary Welton, our student assistants.
This is a community update according to the outcomes in the Strategic Framework released. Please see the updates in bold.
Program Recruitment, Engagement and Outreach
In the next 3 years, it is our goal to increase our undergraduate student population to 75 – 100 students.
We have reached 68 students by the end of Fall Semester 2007. This is much quicker than anticipated, and it will be continuously necessary to understand if our growth is too quick.
It is our goal to increase the size of the program, and recruit students in the area of 25 students per year.
We are currently operating at 20 students per semester, with a total of around 40 – 50 students recruited per year.
It is also important to encompass a wide variety of majors, perspectives, genders, racial/ethnic makeup, sexual orientations, international students, geographical locations, and cultures.
Currently, our community of 94 people includes: our 4 administrators, 16 faculty, 7 graduate students, and 68 undergraduates.
Undergraduate Statistics
Our current undergraduate population consists of 68 undergraduates from 11 of MSU's degree granting colleges including 45 of MSU's over 200 degree programs.
Majors
The majors represented in our undergraduate students include (note: students have more than one major, and therefore more majors are represented than students):
Accounting (1)
Advertising (1)
Agribusiness Management (2)
Agriscience Education (3)
American Studies (1)
Animal Science (1)
Agriculture and Natural Resources Communications (4)
Applied Engineering (1)
Biochemistry (1)
Chemistry (1)
Communications (1)
Communicative Sciences and Disorders (1)
Criminal Justice (2)
Dietetics (2)
Environmental Economics and Policy (3)
English (3)
Environmental Biology/Microbiology (1)
Environmental Studies and Applications (2)
Finance (1)
Food Industry Management (2)
Food Science (1)
Health Studies (1)
Horticulture (2)
Human Resource Management (1)
Human Nutrition (1)
IDS Social Science (1)
Interior Design (1)
James Madison (2)
Lyman Briggs (3)
Lyman Briggs - Human Biology (2)
Lyman Briggs - Zoology (1)
Mechanical Engineering (1)
No Preference (1)
Nursing (3)
Spanish (1)
Political Science - Pre-Law (3)
Pre-Medical, No Pref. (2)
Pre-Vet (1)
Psychology (4)
Retailing (1)
Sociology (1)
Studio Art (2)
Telecommunication (1)
Zoology (2)
Colleges
The following colleges are represented:
Agriculture and Natural Resrources (26)
Arts & Letters (6)
Business College (2)
Communications Arts & Sciences (4)
Engineering (2)
James Madison (2)
Lyman Briggs (8)
Natural Science (5)
Nursing (3)
Social Science (8)
UUD (1)
Vet Med (1)
Degree Status
The following information represents our undergraduate population's class status in their degree program:
Freshmen: 10
Sophomore: 25
Junior: 18
Senior: 11
Gender
This is the Gender distribution of our undergraduate population:
Male: 17
Female: 52
Racial/Ethnic
This is our Racial/Ethnic distribution of our undergraduate population:
African-American: 24
Caucasian: 43
Asian: 1
Graduate Fellow Statistics
Currently we have 7 graduate fellows associated with the Bailey Scholars Program. Their home departments include:
Agricultural Economics (1)
Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies (2)
Fisheries and Wildlife (1)
Student Affairs Administration (3)
Faculty Fellow Statistics
Currently we have 15 faculty fellows associated with the Bailey Scholars Program. Their home departments include (note: some of our faculty have multiple appointments):
4-H (1)
Association for the Study of Higher Education (1)
Bio-Systems Engineering, Emeritus (1)
Chemistry (1)
College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (2)
Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies (4)
Fisheries and Wildlife (1)
Horticulture (1)
Lyman Briggs College (1)
Office of Campus Sustainability (1)
Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment (1)
Sociology (1)
University Outreach and Engagement (1)
As we look to introduce more graduate students into the program, we must refine the process by which we encourage personal and professional growth in our graduate students. It is the goal of the program to encourage 4-5 graduate students per semester to be involved in the program, and to rotate new students into this process in an effort to reach a number of different students. In the future, it is a hope that we will gain the opportunity to offer multiple graduate assistantships so graduate students may become students of higher education engagement. The Bailey Scholars Program will be educating the next generation of teachers and scholars for higher education.
We currently have 7 graduate fellows as part of the Bailey Scholars Program. The intentional fellowship program is based upon our faculty envisionment process. Please visit: here.
It is the goal of the program to be a center for faculty and staff development and growth in an effort to positively influence undergraduate education here at Michigan State University and beyond. Faculty and staff members may contribute to the work of the program for an academic year, a semester, or possibly more. It will be a goal of the program to recruit 2 – 4 new faculty members per semester, offering pay incentives, professional development dollars, and other options to support their work and levy their time with their department chairs and supervisors. It will also be a goal of the program to provide seminars, talks, trainings, and other professional development events for the faculty, staff and others associated with the program.
We currently have recruited three new faculty members to join our community in the Bailey Scholars Program. We will be having an all faculty meeting to discuss further how to meet the needs of faculty, and to find ways to utilize their knowledge for further outreach efforts.
We provide the opportunity to make the impossible possible, and we need to communicate this in a way that indicates the importance of our work.
We have updated our website, continue to present at conferences (two this previous year), and are working on two studies for formal publishing in journals about the impact of the program on alumni and faculty.
It is the goal of the program to foster this culture, and encourage participation in community events and committees by all members of the community. It is also the goal of the program to remain open to others that are not affiliated with the program an opportunity to engage with the community in all events.
Committees such as the Bailey Community Council, the Bailey Outreach Committee, Bailey’s Service Organization, Wednesday Lunches, Colloquy Events, Funding Events, and community activities are increasingly becoming more attended and functioning according to community needs. Now that all administrative structures (BCC, Sr. Director, Student Director, Secretary, Student Assistants, and Community Population) are functioning properly, we will need to continuously assess if the needs of our community match the work of the program’s committees and the opportunities we provide support a scholarly, communal atmosphere.
Research and Scholarship
It is of absolute importance we do not simply perform innovative work as a program, but to research and study the outcomes of this work so we may better inform the practice of ourselves and others in higher education.
Currently we are researching two studies on outcomes of faculty and alumni from their participation in the Bailey Scholars Program. There is interest to do a longitudinal, mixed methods study of impact on student participation in the Bailey Scholars Program.
It will be the goal of the program to produce 1 – 3 articles per year for peer reviewed journals and other outlets on the work of the program and research performed as part of the program.
We have completed none. However, we are planning on two or more being published in the next year. This is an area of concern and needed attention.
It is the goal of the program to be able to document our learning outcomes, both explicit and implicit, in the work we perform in courses, community activities, and co-curricular activities.
Documentation is becoming more prevalent through archives on our website, but this will continue to be a need to emphasize and find ways to meet this outcome.
In the future, an endowed Professor of Learning will be pursued.
This may not be as prevalent a need now that the Bailey General Endowment has been formulated. This option has been discussed previously in BCC, and was decided that it may not be a viable option for the Program.
Partnerships
It is the goal of the program to strengthen current partnerships, and meet with new departments and programs to formulate new partnerships.
Departments are consistently recognizing the strength of the Bailey Scholars Program once again. The Senior Director has liaised with multiple department individuals, indicating the growth of the program and the work of its community. New departments are collaborating with the program, for example in the Annual Colloquies on Teaching and Learning.
It is the goal of the program to create a stronger relationship with the members of the CARRS department.
We are continuing to strengthen our ties with the CARRS Department. The Senior Director sits on the Departmental Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and also advises the Departmental Student Organization. There is more open information sharing about Bailey Scholars Program Study Abroads and CARRS efforts with internationalization. The Senior Director represents the program at CARRS Faculty meetings.
It is the goal of the program to establish and fund through grant writing and other development opportunities a national coalition for innovative practices in higher education here at Michigan State University in the next five years. Through our national partners, we will be able to serve as a national laboratory of innovation, rather than only an institutional program of innovation.
We still need to work on our grant writing efforts, as this is an area of no growth on the programmatic level. We need to explore if national work is of interest to the community.
It will be necessary to strengthen and create local partnerships with local organizations.
In an effort to strengthen and create local partnerships, a student organization, Bailey’s Service Organization, was created by students interested in doing one-time service learning projects, but to also create long-term commitments for students to do community engagement. This organization is still refining its efforts and leadership.
With the growth and innovation in China, it is the goal of the program to establish connections with this country to encourage our own development as a program and to encourage the development of this area of the world in the form of a study abroad program.
We have expanded our current study abroad offerings to include a semester study abroad to County Mayo Ireland, and Engaging with Borderland Communities in County Monaghan Ireland. These expansions are due in large parts to Shari Dann, Diane Doberneck, and Carole Robinson.
We have created partnerships with the Tokyo University Of Agriculture through the work of Murari Suvedi, and currently are a collaborator with his efforts to create exchange programs for students from Bailey and CANR to learn more about Asian and alternative methods of agriculture. Students in the community are collaborating with other students in the CARRS department and CANR to build a chapter of the International Students Forum organization to CANR. Soon, there will be efforts to understand Bailey’s role in the functioning of this organization as the students develop their plan for this organization.
The Bailey Scholars Program is also consulting on the process to choose students who attend the International Student Summit where students present on topics they researched on an international topic at the Tokyo University of Agriculture. This will become a function of the International Students Forum chapter once it is established.
Various members of the community are involved with a possible opportunity to collaborate between our engagement study abroads and others of like mind. More information will be available as this group formalizes.
Exploration into developing a program to China has not emerged from community interests, but the opportunity to explore this and other areas of the worlds still exist. Other departments continue to inquire about our international efforts and we hope to continue to engage multiple entities in the future.
Development and Grant Opportunities
It is the goal of the Bailey Scholars Program to double our endowments in the next three years, and increase giving to our general account threefold.
Our endowments have not doubled, but are consistently increasing. We award over $4000 in scholarships from our Fear and Greenleaf endowments. We have founded a new endowment with the generous donation from Fred and Charlotte Poston named “The Bailey General Endowment” to fully endow the program with a goal of $3.5 million. This will create stability in budgetary needs.
It will be the goal of the program to produce 1 – 3 requests for grant funding per year.
We still need to work on our grant writing efforts, as this is an area of no growth on the programmatic level. We need to explore if national work is of interest to the community.
The first will be to pursue multiple reoccurring graduate assistantships.
As funding is raised through our endowment, this will be an option for further growth and investment. No assistantships are currently available.
It will also be a goal of the program to fund an endowed Professor of Learning.
This may not be as prevalent a need now that the Bailey General Endowment has been formulated. This option has been discussed previously in BCC, and was decided that it may not be a viable option for the Program.
Communicating Our Impact
It is the goal of the program to perform a faculty study in the next year to indicate the outcomes produced in faculty/staff interaction with the program.
This study is currently underway, and hoped to be wrapped up by the end of the Spring of 2008. We plan to publish this study as results are tabulated. Carole Robinson continues to be a driving force in this effort.
It is also the goal of the program to produce a report of the previous year’s alumni study to indicate impact on undergraduate alumni of the program in the next six months.
The results are published. However, there is continued effort to create a peer-reviewed publication from this study. Carole Robinson continues to also be a driving force in this effort.
In the next year and a half, it is the goal of the program to begin a comprehensive, longitudinal study on the impact of undergraduate and graduate students in the program.
This effort will hopefully begin summer of 2008. There is high faculty interest in this, and we hope to embark on this study fall of 2008.
Recognizing our Scholars and Program Accomplishments
It is the goal of the program to highlight the achievements of the program, the programs’ participants, research in and on the program, and other highlights associated with the program on a regular basis.
We are compiling all of our student, faculty, and graduate students accomplishments and awards currently, and hope to report these fully by the end of Spring 2008.
It is also the goal of the program to nominate individuals and the program for awards and recognitions on a more regular and widespread basis for those who perpetuate excellence.
Students and faculty are being consistently nominated for and winning university awards.
It is the goal of the program to formulate a scholarship with Frank and Kathy Fear, in their name, to support the work of our students in the upcoming 6 months.
This Fear Scholarship was established Spring of 2007. We awarded three students funding for international experiences. We are currently accepting applications for Spring 2008.
It is the goal of the program to establish a scholarship with George and Agnus Greenleaf, in their name, to support the work of our students in the upcoming 6 months.
This Greenleaf Scholarship was established Spring of 2007. We awarded two students funding for international experiences. We are currently accepting applications for Spring 2008.
It is the goal of the program to establish a distinguished faculty award and an outstanding student award in the upcoming year.
This was discussed in BCC, and has since been dropped from our conversation. The rhetoric was to continue to honor everyone in the program, and not be exclusive by honoring only a few.
Alumni Relations
It is the goal of the program to provide alumni opportunities to interact with the program through special events, invitations to host seminars and other events, communicating program happenings through letters and other communications, and by the opportunity to donate to the program.
We are currently planning our 10th Year Reunion where we plan to honor alumni, students, faculty, and supporters. We are planning multiple events to reinvigorate the involvement of our alumni during this year, and hope to plan events to sustain this development.
It is also a goal of the program to encourage faculty and graduate student “alumni” of the program to return and join the community for community events and celebrations to recognize the important work they have performed over the evolution of the program.
We currently are planning a session for former faculty, alumni, and current community members to interact and strategically plan for the future during our 10th Year Celebration week of March 24 – 29.
As you can see the Bailey Scholars Program has worked very hard to further the work of the entire community. Progress has been made; structurally we are stable and sound. We are entering a time of growth and reflection for the program, as it is necessary to understand what we are learning, what the community needs, and what we hope to be in the future.