Ashley Duraiswamy ’20 Selected as Class of 2020 Valedictorian
Ashley Duraiswamy ’20 has been selected as the Lawrenceville School Class of 2020 Valedictorian. Each year, a Valedictorian is chosen among the Fifth Formers as the individual with the highest academic achievements, curiosity, and intellectual vitality. Duraiswamy will deliver the Valedictory address when diplomas are conferred to the Class of 2020 on May 31 in a virtual ceremony.
When Duraiswamy learned of her selection as Valedictorian, she said she was “so shocked that all I could do was stammer ‘thank you’ for several minutes.’” Being Valedictorian, she explained, “… is a staggering honor and a wonderful responsibility. I can think of so many people who would be just as (if not more) capable of delivering this speech, and I hope I can help make graduation feel as normal as possible after what has been a very unusual term.”
Duraiswamy has been a high honors student throughout her Lawrenceville career and, in the fall, continued her Latin studies at Princeton University in the class “Roman Women, Reality and Fantasy.” As a Scholastic Art and Writing Award recipient, she earned a 2018 University of Iowa Summer Writing Residency, a college-level program. She was selected as a 2019 New Jersey Scholar, one of only 38 New Jersey rising high school seniors to be chosen. Duraiswamy has also attended the New England Young Writers Conference and the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop.
As a Third Form student, Duraiswamy created a service project to teach creative writing to local children. She has taught weekly, after-school classes at the Trenton Boys and Girls Club and Hopewell Elementary School. “I really loved this program because I was able to design a complete creative writing syllabus and work with some absolutely wonderful kids!” she said.
She has been an Editor of both The Lawrenceville School Historical Review and Prize Papers and served as a Beta Reader for Working Title. Her writing has been widely published – on campus in The Lit, Working Title, and on the School’s website – and off-campus in The Daphne Review, The Apprentice Writer, Teen Ink, and Manuscription Magazine. She is the Genre Editor of Polyphony Lit and, at Lawrenceville, the Latin Editor of The Linguist. The Fifth Former is Co-President of the School’s Creative Writing Club and President of the Classics Club.
A National Merit Scholarship recipient, Duraiswamy won the Yale Book Award and the John H. Imbrie Prize for Humanities/English, and was selected as a McClellan House Scholar. She has earned nine regional awards and one national award in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Duraiswamy received two Gold Medals for her performance on the National Latin Exam and another for the Medusa Mythology Exam. She was a two-time finalist in Lawrenceville’s Woodrow Wilson Speaking Competition and the Poetry Out Loud contest.
Duraiswamy has also sung in Lawrenceville’s elite choir, The Lawrentians, and performed in the School’s productions of “Romeo and Juliet” and “Guys and Dolls.”
For additional information, please contact Lisa M. Gillard Hanson, Director of Public Relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.
