Alumni Gazette: Alice Holloway Young ’57 (Mas), ’69W (EdD)

LIBERTY MEDALIST: Educator Holloway Young (©Annette Lein/USA Today Network)

A groundbreaking educator in Rochester for more than 50 years, Alice Holloway Young ’57 (Mas), ’69W (EdD) received the New York State Senate’s highest honor this spring.

The first African American in the Rochester City School District to hold the titles of reading specialist, vice principal, and principal, Young was presented with the Senate’s Liberty Medal in recognition of her lifetime achievement and exceptional community service.

In announcing the award, State Senator Samra Brouk said, “Dr. Young played a life-changing role in the lives of thousands of children and adults in our community. Her work will impact families in our region for generations to come.”

Born in 1923, Young grew up in the Jim Crow era of the South. Her parents sold their farm in Virginia, where there was no high school for Black students, and purchased a farm in North Carolina. The youngest of seven children, Young was 15 when she graduated as valedictorian of her high school and headed off to college. She earned valedictorian honors again while receiving her bachelor’s degree in childhood development and family relations from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Her first job out of college was working at a migrant camp in Poolville, North Carolina, where she established a preschool childcare center. Young married James (Buddy) Young at a church reception in 1946 and moved to Rochester in 1952 for a job as a substitute teacher in the Rochester schools. While raising a family, she earned master’s and doctoral degrees in education supervision and administration from the University.

In Rochester, Young wrote and supervised the city school district’s first integration programs, including the Urban-Suburban Interdistrict Transfer program, which allowed city students to attend school in a participating suburban program. She also was a founding trustee of Monroe Community College and served as board chair from 1978 to 1998.

“I suppose I have been a pioneer willing to face challenges,” Young once said. “Any achievements or successes I may have did not belong to me. Rather, they were for those following me. I knew that my performance had to be much higher than was expected.”

—Jim Mandelaro