When Matt Young ’18 graduated from high school in 2010, instead of immediately going onto higher education, he enlisted in the Army. For the following three years, Young was stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. In those years, he married his wife, Arielle, and welcomed their first son, Liam. The Young family later moved to western New York, where he worked one year for the Buffalo News before enrolling at Houghton in the fall of 2014.
As a non-traditional student, Young found the transition into civilian life after the Army “weird.” He said, “It was weird because the army is not a normal work experience. It was weird getting out of the Army and going into the normal workforce for a year, and then to come here is just completely different.”
Young is a father of two young sons, Liam and Owen, who was born during the year that he worked for the Buffalo News. Owen suffered from several birth defects, an experience that Young described as a “punch in the gut to my faith.”
“It was during that time that I was considering which college to attend, and we settled on Houghton because of its Christian focus. I hoped to find some answers to why a good and powerful God would let things like this happen to children like my son,” Young said. “What I found at Houghton was a religious faculty that was willing to sit with me in my pain, frustration, and confusion, without shrinking away. They looked at the hard questions with me and did not offer trite and simplistic answers. I am very thankful to them for that.”
Although Young’s faith is not what it was when he arrived at Houghton almost four years ago, he still values Jesus “and his message of self-sacrificial love for our neighbors. Maybe one day the faith will come back,” Young said. “But as the author of Ephesians says, that will be a ‘gift of God.’”
Young is a philosophy major, and dreams of using his degree to “teach at some level, either as a professor or to use it as a springboard for a masters of education work,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind being a high school teacher either.”
Not only is Young an active voice in the philosophy program, he is also the vice president of the Student Government Association (SGA). Although his position came about a bit unexpectedly, Young filled the role with grace. “Last spring, the former vice president, Daniel Merriam ’17, and Joanna Friesen ’17 invited me to lunch and they said, ‘We think you should run for Daniel’s position in SGA. Have you ever thought of it?’ I said, ‘Not really, but tell me more about the position.’” After hearing more, Young was highly interested in stepping into the job. “I really like trying to make a difference in whatever community I’m a part of,” he stated. “I thought it was a good opportunity to represent the students’ needs to the administration, and vice versa. I try to do whatever I can.” All of the campus clubs fall under the SGA’s administration, so each club has to register and report to the SGA. In some cases, the SGA partners with clubs on campus.
Sergio Mata ’19, who serves as the SGA president, frequently shares responsibilities with Young. “I basically assist all the other executive officers with their duties. I keep track of all our office hours and attendance at our meetings,” Young said. “I also run all the blood drives in partnership with the Red Cross. That’s actually my favorite part.”
At the most recent blood drive, Young reported that they processed roughly forty donors. With each donation on average saving about three lives, “we literally saved 120 lives as a campus.” Houghton will host one more blood drive in April.
When asked what he would advise underclassmen to do in order to make the most of their time at Houghton, Young focused on the opportunity students have to learn from professors outside of the classroom. “One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most at Houghton has been the faculty lecture series,” he said. “It’s something that not a lot of students go to, but some of the most interesting research topics get covered from a variety of the faculty every semester and it always surprises me how few students are actually there. It’s a great opportunity to learn things outside of class.”