Penn Charter’s chapter of the Cum Laude Society held its annual spring ceremony on May 19, honoring the 24 seniors and 12 juniors inducted in 2024 and 2025 as members of the national organization that recognizes students who have achieved academic excellence while demonstrating good character, honor and integrity in all aspects of school life.
Established in 1908, the motto of the Cum Laude Society is Areté, Diké, Timé. Areté signifies excellence in the highest moral sense. Diké includes the concept of what is suitable, appropriate and just. Timé represents dignity, truth and honor. Exemplifying scholarship and ethical conduct, our inductees have exhibited excellence, been just, and acted with honor during their time at Penn Charter.
At the ceremony hosted in the Meeting Room, Head of School Karen Warren Coleman and Director of Upper School Kimberley Berndt, along with math teacher and secretary of Penn Charter’s Cum Laude Society chapter Jen Ketler Hon. 1689, presented and introduced each inductee.
In addition to the student honorees, longtime PC faculty member and director of the Teaching and Learning Center Marianne Master was also inducted. As a founding chapter of the Cum Laude Society, Penn Charter has three standing faculty members in the society. In receiving this honor, Marianne Master takes the place of Ed Marks Hon. 1689, who is retiring at the end of this year.
The keynote speaker for the evening was Sierra Tishgart OPC '08, a Cum Laude Society member, cofounder and CEO of Great Jones, an online cookware company. She is also executive creative director of Meyer cookware, which includes brands such as KitchenAid, Farberware and Rachael Ray. Sierra made the Forbes Magazine "30 Under 30" list, and worked as a senior editor at New York Magazine, where she won a James Beard award for her food writing, all before starting her own business.
Tishgart told students, "Grit is much more important than IQ. Your whole academic career, people prize and reward you for being smart. That helps, of course, but any success I’ve had as a founder and CEO, I credit to grit."
To start a business, "you have to 1) figure everything out as you go, and 2) raise a whole lot of money. This was consistently one of my biggest challenges to overcome, and somehow the more I did it, the harder it got, which goes against everything we’ve been taught... The business was running out of cash every single day that I was building it, but I just kept pushing through that pressure, as gritty as our Flyers mascot."
Tishgart also had to acknowledge she could not do everything herself – she needed to be honest about her own weaknesses, and offset them through collaboration and creativity. She advised these high-achieving students: "Pursue your own definition of success. For me, what’s most important is creating beautiful, quality products that will last forever and bring people joy... Remember that success is a personal and subjective experience."
PC profiled Tishgart in the spring 2020 issue of Penn Charter magazine.
Congratulations to the 2024 and 2025 inductees to the Cum Laude Society! View photos.
Seniors
- Matthew Brucker
- Braden Cross
- Delaney Duffy
- Nolan Duffy
- Jaydon Gollapudi
- Henry Greenberg
- Ross Lee
- Eva McIver-Jenkins
- Sarah Mi Ae Price
- Leonardo Prichett
- Louella Whitaker
- Arielle Willis
Juniors
- Sydney Agosto
- Alex Brown
- Adrienne Chang
- Penelope Gray
- Evelyn Hasse
- Alice Ingram
- Marleigh Jackson
- James Kraemer
- Ava Lin
- Rainer Malhotra
- Lily Neuwirth
- Nora Prasad
Seniors inducted in 2024
- Fiona Brady
- Ava Coombs
- Lucy Cullen
- Lucas Fiss
- Bridgette Gold
- Elena Jadach
- Alexandra Jaffe
- Samantha Jaffe
- Dean Kaiser
- Wills Kaiser
- Karya Karabucak
- Zoe Page