Bailey to Receive Kappa Alpha Psi Community Service Award

College of Education professor Deryl Bailey, whose mentoring program aimed at developing and nurturing academic and social excellence in young African-American males has gained state and national recognition, will be honored again for his groundbreaking work – this time locally.

Bailey, an assistant professor of counseling and human development who developed the program called “Gentlemen on the Move,” will receive a Community Service Award from the Athens Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

Currently, about 60 Athens area elementary, middle and high school students participate in Gentlemen on the Move, a program Bailey first created a decade ago when he was a counselor in a North Carolina high school. In total, there are about 130 K-12 students who participate in Empowered Youth Programs, the umbrella organization under which Gentlemen on the Move operates. Every Saturday, the boys meet on the UGA campus to study and to work on social skills. Faculty from UGA and Clarke County schools volunteer as tutors. Parents of the students meet monthly to provide feedback, receive support and participate in workshops.

The program has received growing recognition over the past few years and Bailey received a $10,000 grant from the state Board of Regents last May as one of six programs in the state designed to motivate African-American males to stay in school and to steer them toward college.

Black males are all but disappearing from Georgia's high schools and colleges, and state officials want to reverse the disturbing trend.

While college-age African-American males constitute 16 percent of the state's population, they make up only 7.2 percent of the students enrolled in Georgia's public colleges and universities. Black females are 15 percent of the student population.

In 1997, some 23.5 percent of the African-American males who graduated from Georgia high schools went on to college in the state. By 2001, that percentage had dropped to 20.8.

Many boys in the program have had no male role models before joining Gentlemen on the Move. Many are from single-parent homes. The program tries to fill a void left by schools, which have very few African-American male teachers.

“Students who have a positive relationship with teachers do well academically,” Bailey said. “For black male students, that often doesn't exist.”

Last fall, Bailey was invited to speak about the program at two important national conferences in Washington, D.C. – Double the Numbers: Post Secondary Attainment and Underrepresented Youth, sponsored the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation; and the Congressional Black Caucus’ 33rd Annual Legislative Conference.

This spring, Bailey was honored nationally for his work when he received the 2004 ‘Ohana Honors Award from the Counselors for Social Justice (CSJ), a division of the American Counseling Association. Prior to that, his Gentlemen on the Move program was named the 2004 Multicultural Program of the Year by the Georgia chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education (GA-NAME).

The Kappa Alpha Psi Community Service Award salutes those who have exemplified lifetime achievement and service in their profession. Former UGA 1980 National Football Champion, four-time San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl Champion and fraternity member Guy McIntyre will be the keynote speaker at the annual awards banquet on June 12 at 7 p.m. at the Classic Center in downtown Athens.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

WRITER: Kristen Heflin, 706/583-0811, heflin@uga.edu
CONTACT: Deryl Bailey, 706/583-0126, dbailey@coe.uga.edu