HR Update

“I think it’s amazing,” Lori Young-Williams says of working at the University. “We’re all here to support students, from the president to the janitor, from the dean to the [system campus] chancellor.”

As a consultant with the Office of Human Resources’ Talent Acquisition (TA) team, Lori doesn’t work with students directly, but she feels closely connected to the core mission of the University. “We hire managers, directors of admissions, advisors,” and other professionals that directly support students. “I know that this is bigger than me.”

Lori joined the TA team in 2023 but has been a part of the University community for much longer. Her memories of the University of Minnesota stretch back to childhood. She and her family would pick up her father from Wilson Library, where he was studying for his classes toward a master’s in counseling. “My family is education-based,” she says. She was taught that “education would lead you to ... know more, move up, and do more.”

Not surprisingly, a panel on the Twin Cities campus’s Scholar’s Walk holds a special place in Lori’s heart. It shows a professor’s notes not only on the professor’s scientific discovery but also how to explain it to students. “I think that’s way too cool!”

But the University offers more than education to Lori. She notes the University’s confluence of “knowledge, arts, music, history (good, bad, and otherwise),” giving examples of seeing John Cougar Mellencamp at Northrop Auditorium while she was in high school and going to lectures by thought leaders such as Angela Davis and Randall Robinson while employed at the University. Lori also loves the different atmospheres of each of the system campuses. “They all add to the greater institution.”

From Undergraduate to Employee

A U of M alumna, Lori originally wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a counselor, though she briefly entertained the idea of working at the University while studying toward her undergraduate degree. When family counseling didn’t work out, she applied for a temporary job at the University on the recommendation of a University employee she knew: the man who would become her husband. After a minor detour to work at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Lori made her way back to the University in 1997 and hasn’t left since. “I’m hoping to retire here.”

She also found her career path in HR at the University when she realized she was not cut out for the financial side of administrative roles. As she says about numbers, “We’re friends, but not the best of friends.” In HR she found a space to thrive while “dealing with people, talking, listening, solving problems. ... [HR] generalists need to know soup to nuts.” Each day was different with new—but manageable—issues. At one point, while working in Morrill Hall, she remembers “stopping at the top of the stairs [and realizing] ‘You did it, you made a career of it.’”

Employee and Grad Student

While working as an HR generalist, Lori also got her master’s degree using the Regents Tuition Benefit Program. Her cross-functional program in creative writing, women’s studies, and African American studies allowed her to study Black women and the Great Migration.

Throughout her career as an administrative professional, HR generalist, and TA consultant, Lori has worked with many University units, colleges, and campuses. She’s worked in labor-represented and civil service positions and earned a master’s degree. Throughout it all, she’s been grateful to have the University as an employer. “She’s done right by me,” she says.