Carol A. Bailey receives 2009 William E. Wine Award
Carol A. Bailey, associate professor of sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, received the university's 2009 William E. Wine Award.
Established to honor the former rector of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors and president of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, the William E. Wine Award is presented annually to three Virginia Tech faculty members with a history of university teaching excellence. Nominations by students, alumni, and faculty in each college are reviewed by selection committees. Each college’s' candidates are reviewed by a university-wide committee, which then chooses the winners. Winners are awarded $2,000 and are inducted into the university’s Academy of Teaching Excellence.
Bailey is deeply committed to both undergraduate and graduate level teaching. At the graduate level, she has served on 106 graduate committees. She is the past chair of 11 Ph.D. and 22 master’s degree committees, and served on an additional 33 Ph.D. and 20 master’s degree committees. Currently, she chairs five Ph.D. committees and one master’s degree committee, and is a member of 14 Ph.D. committees.
“Carol was largely responsible for major changes in how our department trains graduate students to teach,” said John Ryan, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology. “These changes include new requirements that all graduate students have to take a pedagogy class and teach a course, a more rigorous application process for teaching assignments, and improvements in mentoring graduate teachers. To facilitate these requirements, she created the class, “Sociological Issues in College Pedagogy,” which is an elective in the Preparing the Future Professorate program offered through the Graduate School.
Bailey also created the graduate class, “Sociological Issues in Qualitative Methodology,” which is always in demand by students, added Ryan.
Bailey also supports Virginia Tech’s emphasis on undergraduate student involvement in research. Throughout her career, she has provided undergraduates with opportunities to develop research skills and present their research in public forums. In addition, Bailey is highly involved in the university’s McNair Scholars Program, which encourages low-income, first-generation college students and students from groups currently underrepresented in higher education to pursue doctoral study. She has served as a mentor and a member of the McNair Advisory Board.
A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1987, Bailey has been recognized as an outstanding teacher throughout her career. She has been a member of the university’s Academy of Teaching Excellence since 19992, the same year she received the Alumni Award for Teaching Excellence. She received her college’s Teaching Excellence Award in 1992 and 2008, was named the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in sociology recipient in 1989, 2001, 2002, 20003, and 2004. She also received the Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award in sociology in 1989, 1992, 1995, 2003, and 2006.
“Teaching is both an art and a science,” notes Trish Boyles, assistant professor of business at Muhlenberg College, Virginia Tech alumna, and former student of Bailey’s. “Carol’s science is her rigorous devotion to scholarly research on learning and her methodical incorporation of that scholarship into every aspect of her classes. Her art is much more difficult to capture, though the evidence suggests that it consists of a unique compassion and understanding of students and the academic struggles they encounter and an authentic desire for each of them to be successful.”
Bailey received her bachelor’s degree from the College of Charleston, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Washington State University.
