Princeton graduate, 25, announces engagement to 71-year-old professor

A 25-year-old Princeton University graduate is set to marry her 71-year-old former professor one sweet day, the New York Post reports.

Cameron Platt, Princeton's 2016 valedictorian, proudly announced on Facebook her engagement to Lee Clark Mitchell, a lecturer who has chaired the university's English Department. Mitchell taught Platt when she was a sophomore five years ago, in the fall of 2013.

"I was taking his lecture course on Henry James and William Faulkner," Platt recalled in a private post. "Lee was little more than a stranger to me then, but he captivated me with his brilliance, sensitivity, and passion."

Photos: Princeton University

By the time Platt graduated, Mitchell had become a "dear and devoted mentor," she wrote.

But the chemistry appeared to hit the end of the road when Platt left for the University of Oxford to pursue a master's degree in English and U.S. history as a Rhodes scholar. The distance between them suggested that both would probably have to endure seasons of loneliness without each other.

Still, during Platt's two years in England, memories of her time with Mitchell passed her by, she said.

"I was surprised to find how much I still thought of Lee — and soon I understood that I felt something for him that I'd not fully acknowledged before," Platt wrote.

With encouragement from her friends, Platt asked Mitchell out on a date to the Metropolitan Museum of Art last September. She acknowledged that Mitchell was skeptical of her intentions at first, but the two eventually came to terms with their feelings for one another.

"We realized that the force of feeling that we'd long had for each other and called by other names (admiration, wonder, devotion, gratitude) held within it the hope and the potential for love," Platt wrote.

It's not clear who got down on a bended knee to propose earlier this month, but Platt admitted that she's been thrilled ever since their engagement.

"Now here we are, more enthralled than ever, wanting no life other than one we make together," she wrote.

Mitchell, who is currently on academic sabbatical from Princeton, did not respond to the Post's request for comment.

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