SummEr/FAll 2011 - Nazareth College

Nazareth | in the world
From Nazareth to Nagaland
In the School of Education at Nazareth College, the professors
continually seek opportunities to develop personally
and professionally. While in pursuit of this, some also
manage to form global alliances.
Take Brian Bailey ’01G, Ph.D., assistant professor of
adolescence education.
In fall 2010, Bailey’s wife Heather Layton, an artist and senior
lecturer of art at the University of Rochester, was invited to hold
a formal art exhibition in Nagaland, a state in the far northeast
of India. She agreed to be the first American artist to exhibit
there and began planning for the late November sojourn.
But Layton wasn’t the only one to accept an invitation. Bailey
received a letter from Theja Meru inviting him “to participate
in an exchange of ideas regarding our common interests in
by Sofia Tokar
A Naga family having afternoon tea, Kohima, Nagaland.
developing public programs that foster and promote the creative
potential of our youth through popular culture, music, filmmaking,
and the entertainment industry.”
In Nagaland, Meru is the president of the Rattle and Hum
Music Society, an organization that supports youth in developing
artistic and personal growth. With Meru’s letter, Bailey recognized
an opportunity to support Layton, discover a new part of
the world, and collaborate with an international partner around
transformative artistic experiences for adolescents in Nagaland
and Rochester, N.Y.
The opportunity dovetailed with Bailey’s own research on the
combination of adolescents, popular culture, literacy, and education.
He primarily studies youth media arts as a valuable form of
literacy. In fact, his research resulted in the growth of the annual
24 CONNECTIONS | Summer/Fall 2011 www.naz.edu