Cathy Young

Cathy Young is the eleventh president of Moore College of Art & Design. She brings more than 35 years of experience as a choreographer, arts educator, academic leader, and entrepreneurial artist to her role at the nation's first and only historically all-women's college for art and design.

Young spent the next 20 years building a national and international career as a dancer, choreographer, artistic director and dance educator. She returned to academia to earn her MFA in dance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and became a tenured associate professor of dance at Ursinus College, where she co-founded the dance program, and chaired the Theater and Dance Department.

From 2011–2017, Young led the dance division at Boston Conservatory as dean. Her emphasis on diversity, innovation, collaboration and community as core values attracted the top students, faculty, and guest artists in the field. She revamped the program, implementing a comprehensive and forward-thinking curriculum designed to prepare students for 21st-century entrepreneurial dance careers. Under her leadership, the dance division at Boston Conservatory became recognized as the top contemporary dance program in the United States.

In 2017, Young was named to the dual role of senior vice president of Berklee and executive director of Boston Conservatory at Berklee, following a national search to replace the former president, and charged with leading the Conservatory through the highly complex merger with Berklee College of Music. Young developed a strategic plan for the Conservatory which aimed to reinvent conservatory education through large-scale innovation of curriculum, pedagogy and delivery of degree programs, with diversity as the central driver of curricular, artistic and cultural change. Under her leadership, the Conservatory made significant progress toward these goals including enrollment growth; strong philanthropic momentum resulting in increased scholarship support for students; an increasingly diverse student, faculty, and staff population; and academic innovation, including the launch of technology curriculum for all first-year students, development of online courses, and the launch of an innovative three-year, six-semester BFA program.

In February 2022, Young was unanimously confirmed as president by Moore College of Art & Design's Board of Trustees, following a comprehensive national search led by a 13-member, Board-appointed search committee. She officially joined the Moore community on June 30, 2022.