Faces of Pacific: Bailey learns alongside young students

When Mark Bailey first arrived at Pacific University, he was given the opportunity to create a cutting-edge education program. Now, 19 years later, Bailey has been given such honors as distinguished university professor, director of teacher education and currently serves as the director for the Early Learning Community. When you combine this with the developments in Pacific’s College of Education, one can see that Bailey has been part of a program that is both diverse and fulfilling.

Bailey was able to develop Zaine’s Playroom, a learning environment for children less than three-years-old. The children play in the environment during the week for usually three hours a day, three times a week alongside three to eight other children. The playroom, an entity of the Early Learning Community in Berglund Hall, consists of about 60 children. Some of these children have a parent attending Pacific or have other family that serves as faculty on campus.

Although Bailey takes great pride in the playroom that is closely connected with the Pacific family and curriculum, his largest area of interest is educational psychology, in which he received a PhD.

“I like the aspect of education that includes the thinking and learning,” explained Bailey. “How they learn and how young children think.”

When asked what he enjoys most about his job, Bailey mentioned that he appreciates the number of highly skilled colleagues from whom he can learn and work with.

“I like that I can work with colleagues from the psychology department, optometry department, all of the different colleges on campus,” said Bailey.

In Bailey’s opinion, Pacific is both lucky and unique in the amount of diverse programs and colleges it offers. When you combine that diversity with the familial atmosphere of a small university, Bailey said that “we all work and play very well together.”

In his spare time, Bailey submits to his fascination with modern technology. In his personal research, he enjoys finding developmentally appropriate technology for each age group that could supplement a child’s learning process successfully. He has done research and written endless articles about the advanced use of technology with child development and has presented it with Pacific’s current faculty as well as other universities.

“Teaching and learning is in my blood, my wife is a teacher, my father was a professor,” said Bailey. “I enjoy learning just as much as I enjoy teaching.”