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Aku Ammah-Tagoe ’11 has been elected Class of 2011 Young Alumni Trustee, the University announced on Friday. Ammah-Tagoe will serve as a full voting member of the 40-member Board of Trustees for a four-year term beginning July 1.
“I'm so happy and excited to be this year's YAT,” Ammah-Tagoe said in an email. “I’m looking forward to hearing ... the opinions of our classmates and other alumni, as I serve on the board for the next four years.”
“I feel a little bit overwhelmed and very, very grateful that when I walk out of FitzRandolph Gate next week, I won’t be leaving Princeton forever,” she added.
Ammah-Tagoe, who is from Silver Spring, Md., initially “didn’t feel at home” at the University, according to the University release, and left during her sophomore year to take a seven-month internship at Newsweek. “I came back to Princeton with a new appreciation for the resources we have here,” she said in the statement.
Ammah-Tagoe said that her term on the board will focus on ensuring the University is welcoming to students of all interests and backgrounds. “I think it’s a question of making Princeton fit each individual,” she explained in the statement. “Princeton does a great job of empowering students to do this, but there’s always more to be done — and that’s something that, as a member of the Board of Trustees, I’d sincerely like to be a part of.”
Since returning, she has served as head writing fellow at the Princeton Writing Center and as a residential college adviser in Forbes College. She has also worked for WPRB and The Nassau Literary Review. She is the winner of the Quin Mortin ’36 Writing Seminar Essay Prize and the 2010 English Department’s A. Scott Berg Summer Research Fellowship.
After graduation, Ammah-Tagoe said she plans to serve as a teaching fellow in English at Phillips Academy in Andover and later pursue a Ph.D. in English. She said she is considering a career in journalism.
A total of 31 seniors ran in the primary election for YAT, which was open to members of the Class of 2011 and was conducted in early March. Ammah-Tagoe, Nikhil Bassu Trivedi and Alex Rosen were elected finalists and ran in the second round of voting, which was open to the Classes of 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and ran from April 20 to May 18, and which Ammah-Tagoe won.
“It was an honor to be in the race with Alex and Nikhil,” she said in her email. “They're such sharp, thoughtful guys, and I really enjoyed getting to know them a bit as part of the election process.”
The winner of the YAT race is traditionally announced during Reunions. The current YATs are Josh Grehan ’10, Elizabeth Dilday ’09, Meaghan Petersack ’08 and Jim Williamson ’07. Williamson will be stepping down this year to be replaced by Ammah-Tagoe.
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