UBC Graduate School of Journalism director Mary Lynn Young will take on the portfolio of Associate Dean, Communications and Strategy, in the Faculty of Arts, effective July 1, 2011.
She will succeed Dr. Kathryn Harrison, who will complete her term at the end of June, having served and represented the Faculty of Arts on a wide variety of initiatives over the past three years.
“Dr. Young has been a transformative Director of the School of Journalism, and as a communications professional, she will bring impressive strengths to her new portfolio,” said Dean of Arts Gage Averill.
Her appointment to the Dean’s Office will trigger the search for a new Director or Interim Director for the School of Journalism, and the Faculty of Arts will work with the School and the Provost’s Office to provide as seamless a transition as possible to the leadership of the school.
Dr. Young joined the faculty of the UBC Graduate School of Journalism in January 2000 and was appointed as the Director of the School July 2008. An associate professor and award-winning academic and university educator, Dr. Young holds a PhD from the Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, and a Master of Arts from the same program.
Her list of awards includes the Rufus Z. Smith Award for the best article published in the American Review of Canadian Studies in 2006. The article, “Cross-Border Crime Stories: American Media, Canadian Law, and Murder in the Internet Age,” appeared in the autumn issue. She received a Freedom Forum teaching fellowship for journalism educators at the University of Indiana in 2000 and a UBC Killam teaching award in 2003.
Dr. Young’s research interests include gender and the media, newsroom sociology, media credibility, and representations of crime.
She has worked as an editor, national business columnist and senior crime reporter at major daily newspapers in Canada and the United States, including The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun, The Hamilton Spectator and The Houston Post.
Most recently she was a national business columnist writing about British Columbia at The Globe and Mail from 2003 to 2006.
