Few of School for Adult Learning Faculty Adjunct Lloyd Bailey’s students know that the man who now teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in government and conflict resolution came from humble surroundings.
Bailey was the youngest of four children on his family farm in St. Paul, Ind. His family attended Union Chapel. Bailey said his family and his church instilled in him a sense of fairness.
“Growing up on a farm, you see things from a business side that you don’t think are necessarily, properly fair,” Bailey said.
A desire to help people led Bailey to a career in law. Bailey came to the University of Indianapolis, then Indiana Central College, when he was just 17. After his first few weeks of college, he began calling law firms from the phone book to try to find a job.
“Fortunately, not everyone hung up on me,” he said. “One person that I spoke to specifically asked me if I had a strong back … [because] they needed somebody to move files around the closed files department, which was fine with me. That was a great introduction for me.”
While working, Bailey continued his studies at the university. He graduated four years later with a bachelor’s degree in political science.
In the late 1990s, he received his master’s of business administration from Indiana Wesleyan University. While working on his M.B.A., Bailey was appointed to the Indiana Court of Appeals and had to defer some of his courses.
“I had to set priorities, and I was in the middle of the M.B.A. when I was appointed to the Court of Appeals,” Bailey said. “So that was my first and foremost responsibility, to try to make certain that I became competent at my job as soon as possible.”
In 2005, Bailey returned to the UIndy to teach for the School for Adult Learning.
“It’s a good university. It anchors the South side of Indianapolis. I had good experiences here. [I had] good professors here who were very patient with me,” Bailey said. “I may have had some deficiencies as a student, but they were patient with me. They taught me what I needed to know and taught me how to learn [and] how to appreciate an education. I guess … in some small way, you feel like you need to give back.”
Judith Apple-VanAlstine, the dean of the School for Adult Learning, enjoys working with Bailey.
“A lot of things make it fun,” Apple-VanAlstine said. “First of all, he is incredibly sensitive to the needs of adult learners. Second, he is very passionate about what he teaches. Third, he has this incredibly dry sense of humor that you have to pay really close attention to, because it’s an intelligent dry sense of humor.”
On Tuesday nights, Bailey teaches conflict management for the School for Adult Learning.
Susan Rider is pursuing her master’s degree in strategic leadership and design. She is currently taking Bailey’s conflict management course.
“He makes you think outside the box for alternative ways to manage conflict,” Rider said.
Rider also said that Bailey made the class focus on ways to communicate in order to resolve problems.
Laura Ash also is pursuing a master’s degree in strategic leadership.
“I like Dr. Bailey. When I grew up, things were a little different. You didn’t speak up or speak out. So I’m learning how to use that more effectively,” Ash said.
According to Bailey, helping students, such as Rider and Ash, is one of the main reasons that he continues to teach at UIndy.
“The [School for Adult Learning] provides a great opportunity for people who … haven’t been able to go through what would be consider the traditional travels, as far as education is concerned,” Bailey said. “Anytime someone is willing to spend their time and energy to learn and improve themselves … you can’t hardly turn your back on folks like that.”
