{"id":772,"date":"2021-06-16T21:27:27","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T21:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/?post_type=stories&p=772"},"modified":"2021-06-16T21:27:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T21:27:27","slug":"professor-mentor-friend","status":"publish","type":"stories","link":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/news\/professor-mentor-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor, Mentor, Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/h5>\n
For more than 50 years, Bill Youngs has put students first.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

During his more than 50 years at EWU, Bill Youngs, author, mentor and professor of history, has used his uniquely successful brand of teaching and scholarship to positively influence the intellectual and personal growth of hundreds of Eastern students. Along the way he has also struck up dozens of lifelong connections with his former undergraduates, including some who never set foot in his classroom.<\/p>\n

Count among them Mike Clawson \u201907 and Alicia Kinne-Clawson \u201907, a couple who met at Eastern and later married. They first encountered Youngs while serving in student government. Youngs, who at the time was president of Eastern\u2019s Faculty Council, became an instant ally.<\/p>\n

\"Bill
Bill Youngs at a recent EWU commencement ceremony.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere had been some student leaders before us who didn\u2019t work all that well with the faculty organization,\u201d Kinne-Clawson recalls. \u201cOne of his goals was to really build that relationship with the students.\u201d<\/p>\n

She recalls Youngs hosting joint faculty-student governance retreats; scheduling meetings with university leadership; encouraging student representatives to articulate their own ideas about moving the university forward. He did all this with a contagious enthusiasm that the couple never forgot.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t spend much time with Bill without hearing about all the different stuff he\u2019s doing. He\u2019s just genuinely excited,\u201d says Mike Clawson. \u201cHe really cares about students in the classroom, but it doesn\u2019t stop at the end of class. You hear about the stuff he does for the community and outside of history; I don\u2019t know that we encountered anyone at Eastern who is more committed to general student success, and helping in any way, than Bill is.\u201d<\/p>\n

After later earning master\u2019s and doctoral degrees at the University of Washington, Clawson and Kinne-Clawson today work in careers they love \u2014 Clawson designing wildlife research studies and Kinne-Clawson drafting higher education laws for the state of Washington. But they\u2019ve continued to stay in touch with Youngs.<\/p>\n

When the couple recently began exploring ways to give back to the EWU, they knew right away they wanted to honor Bill\u2019s legacy. \u201cAnd we wanted to do it while he was still around Cheney and still engaged with the university,\u201d says Clawson.<\/p>\n

Thus was born the Bill Youngs Endowment, a fund that will help students cover expenses related to research, publishing and tuition. It\u2019s a way, Clawson and Kinne-Clawson say, to support students who are as excited about learning as they were at Eastern.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were both first-generation college students who, walking into Eastern\u2019s doors, didn\u2019t know what it meant to do research. We both benefitted from faculty members like Bill who provided mentoring,\u201d says Kinne-Clawson. \u201cA lot of students do research at the cost of not having a paying job. We hope this award makes it possible for a student who might be making that trade-off\u2026 to pursue an intellectual opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Youngs says he was honored and spurred to action by the establishment of his namesake endowment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had recently had twins,\u201d Youngs says of Clawson and Kinne-Clawson. \u201cAnd it hit me: If this young couple can dig deep to contribute to the university, so should I. I did then, and am giving now, and will keep giving during the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For more than 50 years, Bill Youngs has put students first.   During his more than 50 years at EWU, Bill Youngs, author, mentor and professor of history, has used his uniquely successful brand of teaching and scholarship to positively influence the intellectual and personal growth of hundreds of Eastern students. Along the way he…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":781,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-772","stories","type-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","stories_categories-campus","stories_categories-giving","stories_categories-students","stories_tags-spring-summer-2021"],"acf":{"featured_video":"","subheading":"","display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"Links":false,"Resources":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/772\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}