Meet the ETSU Student Trustee: Aashi Vora

Aashi Vora held numerous leadership roles in high school, but intended to focus primarily on academics when she first entered ETSU. Now, though, Vora is excited to serve as the Student Trustee for 2025-26 – a role that piqued her interest in her first year at ETSU.  

Vora is a senior majoring in biology with a minor in culture and health. As a Quillen Honors Scholar, she is on a path to guaranteed admission to ETSU’s Quillen College of Medicine.  

She says coming to ETSU for the opportunities and resources provided through this program is one of the best decisions she ever made. “I’m going to be a Buccaneer for quite a while, and I love it,” she said. “I love getting to stay in Tennessee, right where I grew up, and giving back to my region.”

The Knoxville native loved school in general, and sciences in particular, while growing up. And in her first year at ETSU, she mostly went to class, studied, and participated in student research, with no intention of getting heavily involved in campus life.

“A few months in,” she said, “I realized that some of my closest friends and people I look up to were doing a lot more than just what their major classes required. Many were involved in student government.”

So Vora immersed herself in student life, joining and taking on leadership roles in Alpha Delta Pi Sorority and the Student Government Association. In addition, she founded a new student organization — the South Asian Student Association.

And when her older sister competed for a student trustee spot at another school, Vora got excited about that possibility herself.  

“It happened, and I’m so grateful to have been selected and that they trust me enough to lead as best I can,” she said. “As a pre-med student, I’m going to be in school for a long time, and I’m not going to be able to actually change a patient’s life for many years. So to be able to have an impact now is really gratifying. It’s a great motivation. It doesn’t matter your age – you can actually make our region better.”

As student trustee, Vora hopes to connect students with other trustees on a grassroots level, perhaps by creating a social media page or having “lunch and learn” gatherings.  

In her spare time, Vora enjoys time with friends, and when ETSU’s synthetic ice rink opens each fall, passersby may see the lifelong skater gliding and twirling on the ice.  

By Jennifer Hill | Photo by Larry Smith