Dr. Mallory Young was recently given the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents’ 2010-2011 Regents Professor Service Award, an award given to only 13 people across the state.

“What’s most important to me is my teaching,” Young said. “I was gratified of course and it was something I appreciated. It didn’t make everything worth while because that’s not why I teach but it also was something I appreciated to be recognized.”

Young, a 28-year faculty member at Tarleton State University, attended both the University of Texas in Austin and the State University of New York in Buffalo. Young has a Ph.D. in comparative literature as well as a B.A. in French.

The Regents Professor Service Award was created in 1996 by the Board of Regents. Its purpose: to honor the professors who contribute, not only to their college, but to their community as well.

Recipients of the award get a medallion, a certificate and a plaque that all comes in one large shadow box. “I have no clue where I’m going to put [the box] because it’s huge and I have no room in my office,” Young said.

In addition, recipients receive $9,000 over a period of three years. “I haven’t had much time this semester to think about [what I’m going to do with the money] but it will be much appreciated, for sure,” Young said.

Young had to put together a rather large portfolio to qualify for the award. She says that the big reason she was picked to receive the award was because of her research and publishing on “chick culture.”

In 2005 Young co-authored a collection of scholarly essays titled “Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction.” It was favorably reviewed by numerous scholarly journals, and led to scores of interviews, quotations, and references in such publications as The Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Post and The New York Times Book Review. It has since become a foundational text in the field and is frequently cited in books and articles by established scholars as well as in theses and dissertations.



Young has filled several administrative roles, serving as director of the Honors Program, assistant to the president, and head of the Department of English and Languages. As director of the Honors Program from 1988-1992, Young initiated and developed Tarleton’s honors degree program, providing the first honors courses in the university’s history. She had the distinct honor of teaching the first of these courses, an honors class in freshman English 112.

Young is the seventh Tarleton professor to receive the award. Previous recipients include: Dr. Russell Jack (1996-97), Dr. Tom Pilkington (1999-2000), Dr. Brad Chilton (2000-01), Dr. James Kirby (2003-04), Dr. Don Beach (2007-08) and Dr. Pamela Littleton (2008-09).

“To be honest, the biggest award for me is the award I get from my students,” said Young. “That’s what keeps mattering to me semester after semester. This matters. It’s important. I feel grateful for it but what really matters to me is the students and the rewards that they give me.”