Jim Young died Aug. 8, 2013, at his home in Advance Mills, Va., after a lifetime of teaching at Columbia and the University of Virginia. He is probably best known for establishing the country’s only program dedicated to compiling comprehensive oral histories of the American presidency.

While at Princeton, Jim belonged to Quadrangle Club, was active in the Model Senate, and majored in SPIA. He graduated with highest honors and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Columbia in 1964, and taught there until 1977. While at Columbia, he also served as deputy provost, the third-highest position in the administration.

In 1978, Jim joined the UVA faculty as the research-program director of the recently established Miller Center of Public Affairs. He instituted the first oral-history program, focusing on the American presidency, but later expanded to record the life of Sen. Edward Kennedy. As Jim described it, the oral history was “both personal and institutional” so that “people would understand how laws are made.”

Jim is survived by his wife, anthropologist Virginia Heyer Young, and his daughters, Millicent Young and Eleanor Young Houston. To them all, the class offers condolences.

Undergraduate Class of 1949