Nationally recognized for her leadership in student affairs, Nancy Young joined the UMBC community in 1986 and has served as the vice president for student affairs at UMBC since 2007. She shares responsibility with campus partners for the learning, success, and well-being of UMBC’s nearly 15,000 students.
Young is known for creating strategic partnerships across the university and beyond and is passionate about fostering a campus community in which all students are valued, engaged, and safe. Most recently, she advocated for and opened UMBC’s Center for Well-Being and played a critical role in bringing the American Council on Education’s Internationalization Lab to UMBC. Her commitment to creating safe and inclusive communities is also evidenced in practice, research, and teaching in developmental psychology and intercultural instructional system design.
She previously served as assistant vice president for student affairs and director of housing. Under Young’s leadership, UMBC’s residence community grew to 4,000 beds, transforming a commuter college to a Carnegie highly residential university.
As the 2021 chair of the Council of Student Affairs for the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, Young collaborated with other student affairs leaders across the U.S. to develop and promote practices that enhance students’ experiences and well-being during one of the most challenging times in higher education and student affairs. In May 2022, Young received a Fulbright International Education Administrators award and will travel to France for a seminar designed to help U.S. international education professionals and senior higher education officials create empowering connections with their counterparts and higher education systems of other countries. She was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women for 2022 by the Daily Record.
Young’s work extends to her leadership role as a consultant, trainer, and speaker. She has consulted with and conducted training for higher education, nonprofit, and government agencies and has given numerous presentations at professional conferences. She is regularly called upon to share insight with the media, recently providing input for the Chronicle of Higher Education Oct. 2021 student success report and serving as an expert consultant for Times Higher Education’s 2021 Student Success Forum.
With over 35 years of higher education experience, Young has previously worked at Southern Methodist University, McDaniel College, the University of Maryland College Park, and the Ohio State University. She earned her B.A. in Agriculture and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland College Park, her M.A. in Higher Education Special Services Student Personnel from the Ohio State University, and her Ph.D. in Higher Education, Policy, and Leadership from the University of Maryland College Park.
A long-time resident of Maryland and graduate of the Greater Baltimore Committee’s leadership program, Young is equally passionate about her hometown. She volunteers with Central Maryland Volunteers and as an instructor with KidPower, serves on the advisory board of the Maryland Collaborative to Reduce High Risk Drinking, and served on the Red Cross Life and Baltimore Child Abuse Center Boards.