The Bailey Scholars Principles
Each program and culture holds true to certain guiding principles, whether they are implicit or explicit. These principles for the Bailey Scholars Program came about through a community dialogue at a community retreat in the Fall of 2005. Thereafter, a committee of dedicated community members refined them, and the community adopted these as explicit representations of our implicit principles we have operated on for many years. These principles are:
Space
We seek to create and nurture space-physical, emotional, mental, and time-for diverse people and ideas, creativity, and for joyful and stretch learning. We strive to leave and respect space for individual and collective emergence to promote possibilities, discovery, engagement, and whole-person development.
Community
We expect, embrace, and create spaces for the change that is integral to our community. Bailey is an organic, evolving, and inclusive community. Bailey community members contribute their various strengths to support, nurture, and benefit each other and the community.
Respect and Appreciate
We show the respect and appreciation we hold for others and ourselves that arise from our desire for understanding, our interest in, and our compassion for all learners, learning journeys, and learning spaces we share.
Learning
We acknowledge that we can learn from others. Learning in Bailey is self-directed, co-created, scholarly, self-paced, peer-driven, and internally motivated through individual and collective experiences. We appreciate and practice multiple ways of learning, knowing, and expression, and embrace others’ gifts, worldviews, knowledge, experience, and wisdom.
Scholarship
We advocate for the serious, open, and regular exercise of scholarship. Participating in Bailey is both a privilege and an opportunity that requires individual and collective responsibility to uphold scholarship in all the dimensions outlined in these principles.
Co-Creativity and Collaboration
We co-create our learning with, through, and from one another through dialogue and reflection. Simultaneously, we respect each individual’s freedom of voice, choice, and expression in our collaborative approach to learning.
Transparency
We foster and practice openness in our dialogue, decision-making and shared spaces. We believe that learning, wise choices, and rich creativity emerge through dialogue, clear communication, openness, and inclusiveness. We accept and embrace the challenges, vulnerability, surprises, and joys that come with transparency.
Peer-Leadership
We believe each community member has the responsibility and opportunity to participate in peer-leadership by engaging in the process of shared decision-making in class, in the community, and at the Bailey Community Council (BCC).
Mindfulness
We strive to be considerate and mindful of these principles. At the same time, we seek to remain present, respectful, open-minded, and forgiving as we learn and practice these principles.