Marilyn Young

It was with great sadness and a heavy heart that I learned of the passing of Dr. Marilyn Young last week. She was my mentor and confidante through all four years of my undergraduate degree, beginning with a freshman seminar she taught entitled “American Wars Past and Present: Vietnam and Iraq” and culminating in her serving as faculty advisor to my senior honors thesis in history. No single educator has had more of an impact on my intellectual development than Professor Young. My mother, herself a colleague of Professor Young’s during their time as Fulbright Scholars in Rome in 1997, recounted fondly the first time I called home about my freshman seminar, “Mom, for the first time in my life, I think I’ve met someone more intelligent than you.” Professor Young instilled in me an inquisitive spirit reflective of her life’s work questioning the authenticity of the dominant narrative. She challenged me to aggressively investigate primary literature and base my viewpoints on the evidence I gleaned therein. She encouraged me to pursue academic interests beyond my comfort zone. It was at her urging that I decided to combine my passion for understanding the lived experiences of others through history with my intellectual satisfaction with the study of the sciences that I arrived at the NYU pre-med track. Now, on the cusp of graduating medical school, her humanistic teachings and the respect for evidence she nurtured within me loom large in my mind as I embark on a career as a doctor. I feel more prepared for the patients I will encounter in my career from having been her student than any lecture, lab, or clinical encounter I have had during my medical education. Besides her immense impact upon my scholastic pursuits, Professor Young demonstrated a warmth and openness to her students that made each of us feel valued as colleagues. She had us over to her home for dinner, took us to the theater, and invited us out for soup dumplings. She showed a group of freshman from all over the country all of the wonderful joys to be appreciated in New York City. I will never forget the kindness she showed to her students and will strive to pay that forward to the students of my own. Though it pains me to see the passing of a true hero of mine, I am reminded that my stories are just a small subset of all of touching moments her students shared with her over a long and successful career spanning decades. Her legacy survives in the mentees she inspired; we will make a more positive impact on the world by having known her. May she rest in peace. Raphael Rabinowitz NYU Class of 2011

Marilyn was unique in so many ways. Her profound influence on her own and younger generations will continue. I was blessed by her friendship at the Residential College at the University of Michigan, where we taught together and inevitably found ourselves subverting the reigning gender order. That subversion was not always planned. On one occasion in 1970 we began laughing so uncontrollably at a lecture by a patriarchal professor of philosophy on the topic of “women’s roles” that to avoid disrupting the lecture we felt we had to leave the room, disguising our laughter as best we could. We later apologized for our visibility in that dissenting act but not for the dissent itself. Thank you, Marilyn, for your many gifts to all who knew you. Thank you, Lauren and Michael, for so generously sharing your mother with the rest of us. Kitty Sklar

In 1997, Marilyn held the Bologna Chair in American History the year I was Fulbright Professor at University of Rome III and we spent a lovely afternoon at a trattoria in the Jewish Ghetto after attending a seminar at the Centro Studi Americani drinking prosecco and eating fried artichokes, reveling in the sun and our good fortune. Years later, she directed my younger son Raphael's Summa Thesis at NYU, When he first met her his freshman year, he called to say sorry, Mom, but he'd just met the most brilliant woman in the world--to which I said, I know.

Farewell dear Marilyn. You have been a generous friend, a path-breaking scholar, a passionate radical, and a mentor to many. Your countless compañeros will miss your ironic humor, your soft chuckle and your profound erudition.

I admired Marilyn’s work for years and tried to incorporate it into my own. She was an enduring inspiration.

The faculty, students, and staff of the Residential College express our deeply felt condolences. Marilyn was a wonderful teacher at the RC and we all appreciate her role in our recent program review. She will be remembered and missed.

Marilyn and I last communicated just before the Women's March in D.C. I said I was thinking about the women who had fought fights before we did. She said she wished she could be there. Well, she WAS there, in spirit. What a model of a feminist and a scholar! What a loss!

Marilyn was one of my mentors and friends. I loved Marilyn and admired her life's work on the Cold War history. She was always supportive of me - when my career was going well, and when it was more difficult. I remember her excitement and brilliance, and when she would occasionally tell something was a nonsense other people were saying. She made me stronger as a young academic and the world a more brilliant place to live. She was unique and of her own. Rest in power Marilyn!