Charles E. Young, UF’s 10th President, Dies at 91

Charles E. “Chuck” Young, who was the 10th president of the University of Florida died at 91.

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President Young arrived at UF in 1999 after spending nearly 29 years as chancellor of UCLA, where he remains that university’s most iconic leader, credited with transforming UCLA into one of the nation’s top-five public universities and the namesake for the Charles E. Young Research Library and the campus’s main roadway.

He began his tenure at UF as interim president, with the expectation that he would fill the spot left by the departure of the previous president, John Lombardi, only until a search committee found a permanent replacement. When the search failed, Young’s position was made permanent and he remained head of UF until 2004.

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Young, working with the inaugural UF Board of Trustees formed in 2001, guided UF in taking over the many responsibilities that had been the purview of the Board of Regents and the state, such as managing, for the first time, human resources and financial systems.

UF in 2020 awarded Young a UF Preeminence Award in recognition of his singular contributions to UF and its growth and rising stature. But among those close to him, he will be at least as well remembered for his congeniality and love of socializing.

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Young retired from UF in 2004, but then went on to serve as president of the Qatar Foundation in Qatar; CEO of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and, in the eighth decade of his life, as interim superintendent of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District in his home of Sonoma, California.

Young’s wife of 51 years, Sue K. Young, was ill with cancer when he arrived at UF, and she died in 2001. His daughter Elizabeth died in 2006. He is survived by his second wife, Judy, his son Charles Young Jr., his stepdaughter Lisa Rendic, his stepson Christopher Hillman, seven grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, according to UCLA.

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