The Light - An Alumni Publication Winter 2014/2015 | Page 13
ANDREW TOWNE
Program: Germany, CBYX, 1998
Current Title: Chair of the External Affairs Committee, YFU
Board of Trustees; Master of Business Administration and Juris
Doctor Candidate at the Wharton School and the University of
Pennsylvania Law School.
Education:
Grand Forks Central High School, Grand Forks, ND
Yale University, BA Political Science
University of Pennsylvania, MBA Candidate
Home: Philadelphia, PA
WORLD
conversations. One such conversation occurred
The exchange experience changed Towne’s life
during the week-long, mid-year orientation that is a
trajectory from music to foreign affairs. However, his
staple of the YFU experience. Together with fellow
experience returning home fundamentally changed
U.S. and German exchange students, an alumnus
the way he lived his life. “All I wanted to do was
described being assaulted by Neo-Nazis. “He was
talk everybody’s ear off about this great experience
heartbroken, not
I had, but I quickly
so much by the
realized that
“EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING — I
beating, but more
among teenagers,
by the fact that so
perhaps no one
LOVE FINDING THOSE THINGS
many onlookers
really wants to
who could have
vacation
THAT REALLY LIGHT PEOPLE’S FIRE.” see your Towne
stopped the fight
photos.”
would look on
began bottling up
without doing anything.” Towne continued, “he was
his great experiences and wondered what others
a 16-year-old