UCLA first lady passes away

  UCLA Archives Sue Young, wife of former
UCLA chancellor Charles E. Young, died of breast cancer on Friday,
Sept. 28.

By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff

Sue K. Young, wife of former chancellor Charles E. Young, died
of breast cancer at her home Friday. She was 69.

Young served as first lady of UCLA during her husband’s
29-year tenure from 1969 to 1997. Her efforts to achieve full
recognition of the spousal role in academic leadership inspired her
appointment in 1987 as the first University of California associate
of the chancellor.

“The entire UCLA family is saddened by the loss,”
current chancellor Albert Carnesale said Friday.

“This is someone who devoted 29 years of her life to make
the university a better place and to make all American universities
better places,” he added.

Since fall 1999, she served as first lady of the University of
Florida, Gainesville, where her husband is now president.

“While Sue Young was with us, the university benefited
from her grace, kindness, charm and personal interest in our
faculty and students,” said University of Florida provost
David Colburn.

During her time at UCLA, Young organized numerous campus events,
displaying a perfectionism that was unmistakable to those who knew
her.

“She was always a stickler for details,” said John
Sandbrook, who served as Charles’ assistant for close to two
decades and is the current assistant vice provost of the College of
Letters & Science.

“The words bravery, dedication and perfectionist all come
to mind,” said Sandbrook, who visited Young on Tuesday at her
Thousand Oaks home. “There was no one who loved UCLA more
than she did.”

Carol Afshar, who served as Young’s assistant while she
and her husband lived at the Chancellor’s Residence, said
Young went to great measures to entertain guests at their home.

“She was an expert at designing events and making everyone
feel welcome,” Afshar said.

Her public accomplishments were well-known and well-documented,
but friends say it was her personal warmth that left a lasting
effect on them.

Carnesale recalled the day his appointment was announced, when
he called Charles Young at home that evening. After Charles offered
his support, he asked Carnesale to wait a few minutes so his wife
could talk to him.

“She extended her welcome and offered to be of assistance
in any way at the university and made it clear that she would be
there to support UCLA and to support me even after she was no
longer the official first lady,” Carnesale said.

“That began a very warm friendship between us,” he
continued.

During the 1980s, Young brought national attention to the role
of a spouse of a university chancellor or president. This led to
her appointment as the UC’s first associate of the
chancellor.

“The position of a college president’s wife is an
isolated one, and spouses need to know they are not alone and can
work together finding solutions to problems,” Young said in a
1985 Los Angeles Times article.

In 1994, when Charles was honored for serving as chancellor for
25 years, Young offered one explanation for her pursuit of spousal
recognition.

“I have only been the associate for about six years.
Before that, I was simply the chancellor’s wife,” Young
wrote at the time. “One might ask why bother with a title? It
was the principle of the thing.”

Raymond Orbach, chancellor of UC Riverside and former provost
under Charles, said Young served as a role model for all university
leaders’ spouses, including his wife Eva.

“I learned from her what the wife of a chancellor can
accomplish and how important that position is,” Orbach said.
“She handled herself beautifully, and we have tried to
emulate her example in our dealings at Riverside.”

Young was born in Colton, Calif., on Jan. 4, 1932. She met
Charles while they were both students at San Bernardino Valley
College. They married in 1950 and celebrated their 50th wedding
anniversary last year.

She began her UCLA tenure in 1960, when Charles joined the
administration of then-Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy, whom he
succeeded as chancellor.

Young, who returned to school in her 40s after taking time off
to raise a family, graduated magna cum laude in 1977 from UCLA with
a degree in political science. She also completed 18 months of
graduate work in linguistics.

At UCLA, she was an ex-officio board member of the Faculty
Women’s Club and a member of the boards of Women and
Philanthropy at UCLA and the Iris Cantor Center for Breast
Imaging.

Young had been battling breast cancer for years. According to
Sandbrook, she nearly died in 1997 during the week Charles retired
as chancellor.

“I’m happy that Chuck was able to enjoy four years
of his retirement after UCLA with her,” Sandbrook said.

Young once chaired the Partners Committee of the Association of
American Universities and also the Council of
President’s/Chancellor’s Spouses of the National
Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

The UCLA Alumni Association presented her with a Special
University Service Award in 1985. She was honored again by the
association in 1988 with a Distinguished Achievement Award, given
to the Youngs in recognition of their 20th anniversary at UCLA.

Young served on the Los Angeles City Civil Service Commission
from 1974 to 1977.

She also wrote the “New Comprehensive American Rhyming
Dictionary” in 1991 and the “Scholastic Rhyming
Dictionary for Children” in 1997.

She is survived by her husband and two children, Charles Young
Jr. and Elizabeth Young-Apstein, and seven grandchildren.

Funeral services will be private, and a campus memorial will be
held at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made
to the Sue K. Young Scholarship Fund and sent to the UCLA
Foundation, c/o Rhea Turteltaub, 10920 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1400,
Los Angeles, CA, 90024.