From Recording Studio to Classroom: Alum’s Journey to Becoming an Educator!

Felician University alumna Jasmine Young ’11 sees blessings all around her. “Your energy precedes you, so offering and receiving blessings is what I like to do, because when you send it into the world it always comes back triple fold,” she remarked recently.

Young earned a Master of Business Administration in Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Felician and currently serves as Director of The Warner Music/Blavanik Center for Music & Entertainment Business at the Howard University School of Business in Washington, D.C. The center offers one-year fellowships preparing students for careers in the music and entertainment industries.

Young credits her time at Felician with preparing her for professional success. “Coming to Felician for my MBA was absolutely the very best decision,” she offered, “because the program is forward thinking and gave me the toolbelt of information I needed to succeed.”

Young has compiled an impressive, nearly 30-year impressive career in management, marketing, and education. She started her career journey at Def Jam Records where she supervised artists including Jay-Z, DMX, Erick Sermon, and Onyx. She also handled the company’s joint venture projects – Roc-a-Fella Records and Ruff Ryder Records – rising to senior director of marketing and general manager of rapper DMX’s Bloodline label. “Felician gave me the upper hand to survive as an executive in the music industry which is not for the faint of heart. You must have some tenacity and create a niche for yourself, and you need to be a game changer. Social Justice is about change, and the goal is to create creatures of social justice who can make changes that resonate for generations to come,” added Young.

Giving back to Felician is also a must for Young, who has recorded voiceovers for marketing content and recently served as the face of the Doctor of Business Administration program. She fondly remembers Associate Professor Michael Omansky, with whom she immediately connected, saying “I love everything about him, especially his lessons on reimaging the marketing for Elvis Presley.”

A Howard University undergraduate degree recipient, Young has taught at the Institute of Audio Research at Metropolitan College of New York (MCNY), and now is a full professor at the Blavanik Center where she seeks to replicate Felician’s approach to educational delivery. “I appreciate so much how Felician’s curriculum was designed around team building as it relates to career building,” she said. “We worked in teams and professors would have us work with real-life brands and real-life culture, which is important for students.”