The University announced on Thursday that 31 seniors have been confirmed as candidates in the annual Young Alumni Trustee election. Starting July 1, the winner of the race will serve a four-year term as a part of the 40-member Board of Trustees.
In order to enter the election, candidates had to submit a petition signed by at least 50 members of the Class of 2011 to be confirmed by the Alumni Association. This year’s applicant pool is larger than that of last year, when 24 seniors applied, and is the largest since the Class of 2004.
Candidates cited the lack of a USG president in the graduating class as a possible reason for the larger pool of applicants.
The YATs serve as full members of the Board of Trustees and are entrusted with the same responsibilities to “serve the long-term interests of the University as they understand them after weighing all the evidence available to them on various issues,” University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 said last year.
Candidate Andrea Grody ’11 explained that having recent graduates on the Board of Trustees is integral to the work of the board.
“Generations change so quickly in college that it’s good to have people who are members of the current generation of the University who can provide some perspective to the current lives of the members of the school,” Grody said.
Candidate Sami Yabroudi ’11 voiced similar sentiments.
“It is only natural that no one can quite know Princeton from the student perspective like its current students can,” he said in an e-mail.
Candidates often referred to their love of Princeton as their primary reason for joining the YAT race. Grody said that “Princeton has treated me really well and I wanted to give back and get involved as an alumni; the job sounded really interesting and something I would be really good at.”
Yabroudi’s stated reasons were similar. He said he hoped to “hopefully play a part in shaping a place that has quite honestly really shaped me.”
To candidate Melekot Abate ’11, “my nearly four years here have been incredible beyond description,” he said in an e-mail. “Whether in lectures at McCosh or talks at Robertson, during mornings at Rocky or nights at Prospect, with friends in the dorms or alone in my carrel, every experience that I have had at Princeton has made me a better and happier person than I could have been anywhere else in the world.”
Grody cited her involvement in campus theater groups as a qualification for joining the board. “I’m an arts person and I feel as though arts people are underrepresented,” Grody said.
Leading up to the election, candidates are restricted from campaigning, self-promotion or accepting third-party endorsements. They are also prohibited from supporting any positions on issues that could come before the board in the coming months.
The YAT restrictions are similar to those for regular trustee elections. The YAT election’s anti-campaigning rules state that candidates may not rally support through mass media or discuss specific issues.
The current YATs are Josh Grehan ’10, Elizabeth Dilday ’09, Meaghan Petersack ’08 and Jim Williamson ’07. Williamson’s term on the board will end this year.
The voting period, which is open to seniors only, began on Friday and will end on March 10. The primary winners will then move on to the second round of voting, which is open to current juniors and seniors as well as members of the classes of 2009 and 2010. The winner is typically announced during Reunions.
The Class of 2011 candidates for Young Alumni Trustee are Abate, Jack Ackerman, Mohit Agrawal, Aku Ammah-Tagoe, Sitraka Andriamanantenasoa, Brooks Barron, Nikhil Basu Trivedi, Jason Baum, Elizabeth Borges, Caroline Boulos, Brendan Carroll, Nick DiBerardino, Sam Dorison, Grody, Danny Growald, Colin Hanna, Jennifer King, Simon Fox Krauss, Barrett LaChance, David Leyva, Trevor Martin, Craig Matthews, Shannon Togawa Mercer, Michael Perl, Travis Pfander, Alex Rosen, Peter Tzeng, Eloise Ughetta, Michael Weinberg, Benjamin Weisman and Yabroudi.
Ackerman is the former editor-in-chief of The Daily Princetonian. Carroll is a columnist for the ‘Prince,’ Weisman is a member of the Editorial Board, and Matthews, Pfander and Ughetta are former sports writers.
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