April Chou brings a record of bridge-building to her new role on the Alumni Council

As the vice president of the Alumni Association and vice chair of the Alumni Council, Chou is fueled by the recognition of how powerful belonging to Princeton’s alumni community can be: “We are part of this incredible institution with such a textured history, and we each have the opportunity to shape the future of what’s to come,” she said. 

Chou comes by this naturally after arriving at Princeton in the fall of 1992 uncertain of where she belonged. As the daughter of immigrants living in small-town Ohio and Texas, she grew up with a deep sense of her Chinese heritage, yet much of her early school experience was navigating how to fit in. 

During orientation week at Princeton, she found her way to the Carl A. Fields Center — then known as the Third World Center — to attend a meeting of the Asian American Students Association. “It was one of the first times that I had been in the company of so many Asian Americans with varied backgrounds and experiences, and I began to find both a sense of community and my voice,” she said. “It was also where I learned to build coalitions with other communities of color.” 

Chou was driven to get involved. During her time at Princeton, she was an Orange Key tour guide, a residential college adviser in Mathey College and a work-study Student Admissions Associate in the Office of Admission — all roles that were centered on enabling students to feel a sense of welcome and belonging at Princeton. 

In these communities, Chou also found a platform for broader institutional engagement. In her first year on campus, she became part a group of undergraduate and graduate students that advocated to expand the University’s academic offerings in Asian American and Latino studies. She also served on academic committees for both what is now called the School of Public and International Affairs and the American studies program and was part of the 1993 Committee on Race Relations led by then-vice provost Ruth Simmons. In 1995, she was a leader of the sit-in at Nassau Hall to advocate for ethnic studies on campus. 

The experience led Chou to become involved as an alumna to reconfigure and strengthen the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton (A4P), which involved channeling her advocacy into community building. “Many of my activities on campus were focused on creating a more inclusive environment,” she said. “This has also been the through-line of my years of [alumni] engagement with the University: sustaining a sense of community beyond our time on campus.” 

Chou’s involvement in reconfiguring A4P spanned more than a decade and required extensive coordination with alumni leaders across classes and regions to build upon what she calls “an institution with governance and infrastructure that would outlast any one of our individual contributions and be able to span generation of leaders.” The strategy proved successful, enabling alumni to come back into the fold through engagement, advocacy, mentorship and mutual support, including building connections with affinity groups and other communities. In recognition of her impact as chair and board member of A4P, Chou won the Award for Service to Princeton in 2007. 

In the spring of 2018, the University approved a certificate program in Asian American studies, which Chou had advocated for with others since her time as an undergraduate. For Chou, seeing the program come to fruition had involved decades of building bridges while never losing sight of those still seeking to cross them. “The creation of these programs represented an important milestone in the effort for a broader range of stories, histories and perspectives to be represented in the academy and was a powerful testament to how the changes we seek are built on the legacy of many who have come before us,” she said. 

Most recently Chou was member at large of the Princeton Alumni Council. She previously served on the Princeton Schools Committee, served on the steering committee for two affinity conferences and chaired the Committee to Nominate Alumni Trustees (CTNAT). 

Now, as the Alumni Association’s leadership team launches its new theme, “Our Princeton. Our time,” Chou sees it as an invitation for all alumni to claim Princeton as their own and actively shape what’s to come. “We’re proud that Princeton is standing up for higher education and that we’re collectively part of writing the story in this chapter of our country’s democracy,” said Chou. 

It’s a philosophy she’s embodied for decades — believing, as she puts it, that we always have an opportunity to actively shape the future of our shared institutions.