Assistant professor of political science Dr. Ben Bailey was named Presbyterian College’s 2023 Professor of the Year at the college’s annual Honors Day convocation on Thursday.

Bailey, who also accepted an Excellence in Teaching Award from the S.C. Independent Colleges and Universities on Tuesday, now holds the traditional honor of addressing the Class of 2023 at PC’s commencement on May 13.

Bailey joins an illustrious list of PC Professors of the Year, including six former S.C. Professors of the Year.

Dr. Ben Bailey, PC Professor of the Year

“It’s humbling and kind of scary to think that I’ve joined that list of names –  names that people most associate with PC,” he said. “These are the professors who willingly serve as ambassadors for the college, so it’s an honor to join them in that cause. I hope I will serve well.”

PC president Dr. Matthew vandenBerg, who co-teaches the college’s Service Entrepreneurship in Action class with Bailey this spring, considers his colleague an exemplary educator and student mentor.

“I have had a front row seat to Dr. Bailey’s extraordinary impact on PC,” vandenBerg said. “He is a gifted educator with a talent for engaging his students and inspiring them to serve their communities through creative problem solving. He embodies the college’s identity as America’s Innovative Service College.”

Bailey will continue to influence service entrepreneurship at PC as the new director of the college’s service entrepreneurship program. In that role, Bailey will oversee the national Service Entrepreneurship Competition each year and develop a structured, dedicated program to help scholarship recipients build tools and a network to implement their ideas successfully.

“I look forward to helping PC find students who have a passion for social entrepreneurship and want to fix problems in their communities,” Bailey said. “Students that don’t just think of the case competition as a way to get a scholarship to a college – but those who have really interesting ideas and reasons for wanting to fix problems.”

Bailey will, of course, continue to teach political science, especially to students searching for a different way to serve their communities. In recent years, he said, students are discovering greater purpose serving at the grassroots, local government level instead of considering national politics as their only avenue for success.

Bailey began his professional career in public administration working for Cook County in Illinois before realizing that he would teach others about political science rather than work in government himself. But as Bailey considers how his students might find their futures in public administration, it is clear he would much rather talk about them than himself – as great professors do.

“I like seeing students coming into political science thinking they want to be a senator or got to work in D.C. find that spark and take their motivation to change and improve their own communities,” he said. “I love when students realize, I don’t have to go to Washington to change things. I can do it here.”

Bailey said PC’s emphasis on service attracts students who want to do more than identify problems. They want to fix them.

“They’re very solution oriented,” he said. “They want to fix things. They’re less about having a great career at a company and working their way up to become the boss and the CEO. They want to solve problems and work towards solutions that are innovative. That are interesting. And I think that’s why this kind of service entrepreneurship and the kind of re-orientation that students are having in political science go hand in hand.”

In addition to thanking his students and peers for inspiring him as Professor of the Year, Bailey thanked his spouse, Julio Flores, for his support and his mother for teaching him never to go through the motions.