Spotlight
Forever Feeling at Home: Bethany Laural Anderson Young and the Lasting Bonds of SVU
Long after classes end and degrees are framed, some connections refuse to fade. For alumna Bethany Laural Anderson Young (‘07), the relationships she formed as a student at Southern Virginia University have stood the test of time and, in the process, strengthened her connection to the university she first arrived at nearly 25 years ago.
For Anderson, Southern Virginia became the place she wanted to call home during a campus tour, when she met Dr. Keith Bradshaw, director of Choral Studies and founder of the university’s music program. Watching the genuine and joyful camaraderie he shared with his students left a lasting impression.
“I distinctly remember that being the moment I realized I wanted to come to SVU,” Anderson said. “Watching Dr. Bradshaw interact with his students, I knew I wanted to be part of that familial bond I sensed.”
That sense of lasting connection returned at Homecoming during her freshman year in 2002, when she watched alumni return to campus and eagerly greet former professors and classmates with a deep fondness for the university that had shaped them.
“It felt like a family reunion!” Anderson recalled. “I saw love and nostalgia in the eyes of the alumni, and the energy on campus felt full and expansive. I felt a sense of belonging to something much bigger than myself.”
In 2022, Anderson returned to campus for Homecoming and experienced firsthand what she witnessed twenty years earlier–the profound love that an alum can have for their alma mater. She traveled with friends Lauren Kennard Richards (‘05), Carolena Ackerman Graves (‘07), and Maggie Worthington (‘07), and together they participated in an alumni choir reunion, organized by then director of Choral Activities and SVU alum Dr. Kyle Nielsen (‘12).
“It was pure magic to be back on campus after so long!” Anderson said. “We took advantage of every moment, seeing every nook and cranny of campus, visiting old professors, and making new memories singing again for beloved choir directors from our time as students.”
During her years as a student, Anderson helped organize SVU Idol–a student singing competition–and joined the Shenanigans improv club. Those experiences instilled in her a mindset of seeing a need and creating a solution. She carried that approach into her service on the university’s Alumni Association Advisory Board, where she helped create a Shenanigans event that paired alumni mentors with current students for a performance in the Main Hall Ballroom.
This experience gave Anderson a blueprint and vision for future alumni gatherings centered on mentorship and connection.
“It was so meaningful to meet and interact with the current students, infusing the Shenanigans club with a taste of its rich heritage,” Anderson said. “I could see that SVU is eager to support its alumni and provide the campus resources needed for events. It felt just like the movie Field of Dreams, where ‘if you build it, they will come’.”
After graduating from Southern Virginia University, Anderson served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Provo, Utah. She later completed a master’s degree in social work from Brigham Young University in 2012. Today, Anderson works as a licensed clinical social worker and registered play therapist supervisor, specializing in experiential-based trauma therapies with children, teens, and adults. She is married to Tyler Young and resides in Utah.
No matter where her career has taken her, Anderson says SVU will always feel like home, a place defined not just by buildings or traditions, but by the people who continue to shape her life.