A native of Queens, New York, Taylor spent twenty years in San Antonio, Texas as an affordable housing advocate, educator, and elected official before beginning her role as president of Rust College. Ivy served as mayor of San Antonio, Texas for three years and as a member of the San Antonio City Council for 5 years.

While serving as mayor, Taylor joined the Board of Trustees of a historically Black college in Austin, Texas and this sparked an interest in using her leadership skills at an HBCU. After leaving the mayor’s office, she enrolled in a doctoral program in higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2020, she completed the program, obtaining a Doctor of Education degree. Ivy also obtained a Master's Degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998. In 1992, she received a Bachelor's Degree from Yale University.   In May of 2020, the Board of Trustees at Rust College selected Ivy to serve as 12 th president of Rust College, a United Methodist affiliated HBCU located in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Ivy is the first woman president of the institution which was founded in 1866 to educate freed slaves.

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