Chris A. De Young was a 1920 graduate of Hope College. During the early 1920s (as a missionary for the Reformed Church in America) he traveled to Madanapalle, India, where he was the principal of two schools, supervisor of a dormitory for two hundred boys, and Boy Scout Commissioner. Upon his return from India he married Marian Van Drezer, a Hope College graduate and French instructor.

De Young became the first graduate dean of Illinois State University, a position he held for twenty-five years. He retired in 1958 in order to travel to Cambodia to develop the Rural Education Demonstration and Training Center for teachers. De Young was an amateur photographer and took many photographs of his travels to Cambodia, Laos, and India. De Young's first wife died in 1957; he later remarried. In 1960-1961, he served for six months as the first employee coordinator of Grand Valley State College.

Dr. De Young was an internationally known educator and author. He wrote two books and over a hundred articles during his lifetime. He was the first to write a university textbook in the field of school budgeting (Budgeting in Public Schools, 1936). Dr. De Young died in 1971.

The Chris A. De Young papers include articles, biographical information, correspondence, photographs, and scrapbooks reflecting De Young's missionary work in India, Cambodia, and Laos and his teaching and administration work at Illinois State University, Grand Valley State University, and Butterworth Hospital. The collection is arranged alphabetically by topical heading.