About
Needham Yancey Gulley
Both a professional and personal biography can be found below.
Professional Biography
Dr. Yancey Gulley (he/him/his) has been working in higher education for 22 years. He is currently program director and associate professor in the higher education student affairs program at Western Carolina University (WCU) in Cullowhee, NC where he also currently serves as Chair of the Faculty. He spent his first 15 years as a college administrator (primarily in the two-year college settings) prior to moving into a faculty role. Most of his professional administrative career was in the area of student affairs. He has worked administratively at several institutions, including: Louisburg College, North Carolina State University, Long Beach City College, University of Georgia, and Athens Technical College. His first full-time faculty appointment was in the Community College Leadership Program at Morgan State University.
Dr. Gulley has a long history of advocating for social justice within educational contexts through his scholarship, teaching, publications, presentations, trainings, and volunteer endeavors. Past research endeavors not only contributed to the scholarly conversation in higher education and student affairs but have led to changes in the academy, including the opening of the LGBT Resource Center at North Carolina State University. He has one co-edited book published in 2017, Using the CAS Professional Standards: Diverse Examples of Practice, and a solo-edited book was published in August 2022, entitled Multiple Perspectives on College Students: Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities. His work has been presented / published at all levels from local contexts to international platforms.
His service commitments are vast, including leadership positions in ACPA College Student Educators International; the same organization inducted him as a Diamond Honoree in 2019. He has served as the chair of the College of Education & Allied Professions Diversity Committee and is a WCU Faculty Senator (currently serving as chair-elect) and a member of the WCU LGBTQ Working Group. Community service commitments have included HIV/AIDS serving organizations and being a founding member of a non-profit educating for anti-bullying policies aimed at protecting LGBTQ secondary school students. For his dedication to social justice, Yancey has been honored as a Grand Marshall for Atlanta Pride as one of the top LGBTQ Educators in 2010. Additionally, the University of Georgia gave him the Founder's Award as part of Lavender Graduation for his work with the University and community for the improvement of LGBTQ+ lives in 2012.
He shares his life with his husband, Corey, and dog, Sedgwick. He enjoys travel, theatre, reading, fire pits, and time with good friends.
Dr. Yancey Gulley (he/him/his) has been working in higher education for 22 years. He is currently program director and associate professor in the higher education student affairs program at Western Carolina University (WCU) in Cullowhee, NC where he also currently serves as Chair of the Faculty. He spent his first 15 years as a college administrator (primarily in the two-year college settings) prior to moving into a faculty role. Most of his professional administrative career was in the area of student affairs. He has worked administratively at several institutions, including: Louisburg College, North Carolina State University, Long Beach City College, University of Georgia, and Athens Technical College. His first full-time faculty appointment was in the Community College Leadership Program at Morgan State University.
Dr. Gulley has a long history of advocating for social justice within educational contexts through his scholarship, teaching, publications, presentations, trainings, and volunteer endeavors. Past research endeavors not only contributed to the scholarly conversation in higher education and student affairs but have led to changes in the academy, including the opening of the LGBT Resource Center at North Carolina State University. He has one co-edited book published in 2017, Using the CAS Professional Standards: Diverse Examples of Practice, and a solo-edited book was published in August 2022, entitled Multiple Perspectives on College Students: Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities. His work has been presented / published at all levels from local contexts to international platforms.
His service commitments are vast, including leadership positions in ACPA College Student Educators International; the same organization inducted him as a Diamond Honoree in 2019. He has served as the chair of the College of Education & Allied Professions Diversity Committee and is a WCU Faculty Senator (currently serving as chair-elect) and a member of the WCU LGBTQ Working Group. Community service commitments have included HIV/AIDS serving organizations and being a founding member of a non-profit educating for anti-bullying policies aimed at protecting LGBTQ secondary school students. For his dedication to social justice, Yancey has been honored as a Grand Marshall for Atlanta Pride as one of the top LGBTQ Educators in 2010. Additionally, the University of Georgia gave him the Founder's Award as part of Lavender Graduation for his work with the University and community for the improvement of LGBTQ+ lives in 2012.
He shares his life with his husband, Corey, and dog, Sedgwick. He enjoys travel, theatre, reading, fire pits, and time with good friends.
Personal Background
Born in Rocky Mount, NC I was raised in a rural area outside of Raleigh/Durham in North Carolina. While my parents had little money and were not educated at the baccalaureate level, I was lucky to be in a home with unconditional loving support and from well-educated heritages. My great-grandfather on my paternal line was the founder of the law school at Wake Forest College (University) and my great-grandmother, his wife Mary Alice Wingate, was the daughter of Washington Manly Wingate (my great-great grandfather) who was the fourth president of Wake Forest and for whom Wingate University is named. My maternal grandfather was a small town pharmacist educated at Wake Forest and UNC-Chapel Hill. While my own financial circumstances growing up were not substantial and the majority of my close relations not college educated, I was enamored by stories of these ancestors and the lives they lived, though their existence seemed so far from my own. Naturally a curious child and, as my mother says, independently driven, I found my way into education as a means of self-expression and a way to fill my yearning for order.
In middle school I began to be involved in student organizations as a way of finding relationships and sports as a way to work out youthful aggression. Wrestling and track served as outlets for physical energies and things like student government my intellectual ones. Simultaneously, I was taking on leadership roles in my church, in which my maternal grandmother made sure I was engaged – she helped raise me in many, and very significant ways. Involvement in student organizations and church leadership at the local, district, and state levels filled my need for structure and a desire to be of service to the outside world. This continued into high school and college.
During high school I knew that college was in my future but was not pushed in that direction by my family. In an attempt to understand my options, I spent hours with my guidance counselors planning and exploring, as well as trying to find every scholarship I could as finances would otherwise prevent me from making the college experience I wanted a reality. This time led me to spend a week at UNC – Chapel Hill during my 10th grade year with a college-student led program for lower-income rural NC youth called NC Renaissance. That same year, I was a part of a program aimed at similar populations to develop young leaders, called the Hugh O’Brien Youth Foundation. With the latter, I attended the state convention and was chosen (without my knowledge) to attend the international congress. All of these were life altering experiences that showed me a world beyond the one in which I grew up and one that made more real the stories I heard of my ancestors.
In my small, rural high school, I graduated with most of the same people I started kindergarten with. Never one of the cool kids and never an outsider, I balanced typical high-school cliques while being a closeted but known gay kid and was voted one of the most-likely to succeed. Not sure I agreed, I went on to a small two-year private college near home, Louisburg College – scared of a big leap to a huge institution. Heading into my junior year, having earned my associates degree, I was admitted to UNC – Chapel Hill but decided to go to UNC – Wilmington (UNCW) instead. It was a last minute but destiny making decision. At UNCW I was involved in so many student groups, worked in a variety of university offices, and learned so much in and out of the classroom. The Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Pat Leonard, sent me to my first professional conference (ACPA, College Student Educators International) in the spring of 2000 and told me I was going to make a career in Student Affairs… And, I have.
Fast Forward...
While working at Louisburg College as an admissions counselor and director of admissions after earning my undergraduate degree, I earned by M.Ed. from the Higher Education Administration program at North Carolina State University. In 2002, as I was heading into my last year of that program (while working full-time at Louisburg) a good friend introduced me and set me up with Corey W. Johnson who had just completed his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia in Recreation and Leisure Studies. We hit it off and have been together ever since, married in spirit and law over the course of years when such legal abilities we helped fight for were won. After finishing my masters, we moved to Long Beach, CA for him to take a new job. After a personal career slump from the relocation, I landed a job at Long Beach City College and began my career in community colleges. A few years later we moved to Athens, GA for Corey to take a job at the University of Georgia (UGA). There I found a wonderful career that included many positions at Athens Technical College and also earned my Ph.D. from the College Student Affairs Administration program at UGA. In Athens I was very involved in community organizations such as AIDS Athens (now called Live Forward) and the Boybutante AIDS Foundation, as well as helping start the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition.
At some point I got the itch to be a faculty member and Corey and I made the tough decision to begin a dual household family as I took a job as an assistant professor at Morgan State University, an HBCU in Baltimore, MD. He stayed in GA for a year before moving to work at the University of Waterloo in Canada, adding another location to our bi-geographical household. The next year I moved to my current position at Western Carolina University and our lives in shared locations continues. We always wanted to retire to the Blue Ridge Mountains and I always wanted to be a faculty member at a regional comprehensive university, so we are both thrilled to call Western Carolina University and these beautiful hills our home. And, as change is the only constant, our domestic dynamic changed again in Fall of 2022 when Corey took a new job at North Carolina State University as the Karla A. Henderson Distinguished Professor, focused on the work of social justice.
When not working, we love to travel (some of my favorite international places have been Ecuador, New Zealand, South Africa, Scotland, and Taiwan), hike, and entertain friends and family. Recently we moved our mountain home from Asheville, NC to Waynesville, NC where we purchased a fixer upper in mid-2021. It has been a pleasure to work on this place and make it something new. Corey and I celebrated 20 years together in Summer of 2022 and when not working or traveling we spend lots of time playing Scrabble and walking our French Bulldog, Sedgwick, around Lake Junaluska.
Born in Rocky Mount, NC I was raised in a rural area outside of Raleigh/Durham in North Carolina. While my parents had little money and were not educated at the baccalaureate level, I was lucky to be in a home with unconditional loving support and from well-educated heritages. My great-grandfather on my paternal line was the founder of the law school at Wake Forest College (University) and my great-grandmother, his wife Mary Alice Wingate, was the daughter of Washington Manly Wingate (my great-great grandfather) who was the fourth president of Wake Forest and for whom Wingate University is named. My maternal grandfather was a small town pharmacist educated at Wake Forest and UNC-Chapel Hill. While my own financial circumstances growing up were not substantial and the majority of my close relations not college educated, I was enamored by stories of these ancestors and the lives they lived, though their existence seemed so far from my own. Naturally a curious child and, as my mother says, independently driven, I found my way into education as a means of self-expression and a way to fill my yearning for order.
In middle school I began to be involved in student organizations as a way of finding relationships and sports as a way to work out youthful aggression. Wrestling and track served as outlets for physical energies and things like student government my intellectual ones. Simultaneously, I was taking on leadership roles in my church, in which my maternal grandmother made sure I was engaged – she helped raise me in many, and very significant ways. Involvement in student organizations and church leadership at the local, district, and state levels filled my need for structure and a desire to be of service to the outside world. This continued into high school and college.
During high school I knew that college was in my future but was not pushed in that direction by my family. In an attempt to understand my options, I spent hours with my guidance counselors planning and exploring, as well as trying to find every scholarship I could as finances would otherwise prevent me from making the college experience I wanted a reality. This time led me to spend a week at UNC – Chapel Hill during my 10th grade year with a college-student led program for lower-income rural NC youth called NC Renaissance. That same year, I was a part of a program aimed at similar populations to develop young leaders, called the Hugh O’Brien Youth Foundation. With the latter, I attended the state convention and was chosen (without my knowledge) to attend the international congress. All of these were life altering experiences that showed me a world beyond the one in which I grew up and one that made more real the stories I heard of my ancestors.
In my small, rural high school, I graduated with most of the same people I started kindergarten with. Never one of the cool kids and never an outsider, I balanced typical high-school cliques while being a closeted but known gay kid and was voted one of the most-likely to succeed. Not sure I agreed, I went on to a small two-year private college near home, Louisburg College – scared of a big leap to a huge institution. Heading into my junior year, having earned my associates degree, I was admitted to UNC – Chapel Hill but decided to go to UNC – Wilmington (UNCW) instead. It was a last minute but destiny making decision. At UNCW I was involved in so many student groups, worked in a variety of university offices, and learned so much in and out of the classroom. The Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Pat Leonard, sent me to my first professional conference (ACPA, College Student Educators International) in the spring of 2000 and told me I was going to make a career in Student Affairs… And, I have.
Fast Forward...
While working at Louisburg College as an admissions counselor and director of admissions after earning my undergraduate degree, I earned by M.Ed. from the Higher Education Administration program at North Carolina State University. In 2002, as I was heading into my last year of that program (while working full-time at Louisburg) a good friend introduced me and set me up with Corey W. Johnson who had just completed his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia in Recreation and Leisure Studies. We hit it off and have been together ever since, married in spirit and law over the course of years when such legal abilities we helped fight for were won. After finishing my masters, we moved to Long Beach, CA for him to take a new job. After a personal career slump from the relocation, I landed a job at Long Beach City College and began my career in community colleges. A few years later we moved to Athens, GA for Corey to take a job at the University of Georgia (UGA). There I found a wonderful career that included many positions at Athens Technical College and also earned my Ph.D. from the College Student Affairs Administration program at UGA. In Athens I was very involved in community organizations such as AIDS Athens (now called Live Forward) and the Boybutante AIDS Foundation, as well as helping start the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition.
At some point I got the itch to be a faculty member and Corey and I made the tough decision to begin a dual household family as I took a job as an assistant professor at Morgan State University, an HBCU in Baltimore, MD. He stayed in GA for a year before moving to work at the University of Waterloo in Canada, adding another location to our bi-geographical household. The next year I moved to my current position at Western Carolina University and our lives in shared locations continues. We always wanted to retire to the Blue Ridge Mountains and I always wanted to be a faculty member at a regional comprehensive university, so we are both thrilled to call Western Carolina University and these beautiful hills our home. And, as change is the only constant, our domestic dynamic changed again in Fall of 2022 when Corey took a new job at North Carolina State University as the Karla A. Henderson Distinguished Professor, focused on the work of social justice.
When not working, we love to travel (some of my favorite international places have been Ecuador, New Zealand, South Africa, Scotland, and Taiwan), hike, and entertain friends and family. Recently we moved our mountain home from Asheville, NC to Waynesville, NC where we purchased a fixer upper in mid-2021. It has been a pleasure to work on this place and make it something new. Corey and I celebrated 20 years together in Summer of 2022 and when not working or traveling we spend lots of time playing Scrabble and walking our French Bulldog, Sedgwick, around Lake Junaluska.