Cum Laude Welcomes 25 New Members

Twenty-five outstanding juniors and seniors were inducted into the Cum Laude Society on April 20, honoring and celebrating their high academic achievement.
The Cum Laude Society, a national honor society founded in 1906, recognizes juniors and seniors for their outstanding academic performances. This year’s Cum Laude Society inductees are:

From the Class of 2018: Joy Ashford, Gray Goodwyn, Mady Hand, Isabelle Holt, Claire Kurzweil, Frances McIntosh, John Pupel, Stuart Thornton, Maddy Warrell, Nettie Webb, Lilly Wilcox, and John Woodward.

From the Class of 2019: Mark Berry, Shaunjaney Bryan, Barrett Carney, Jerry Chen, Parker Driscoll, Christian Hudspeth, Esther Kim, Ben Korkowski, Olivia Morton, Katherine Schwartz, Harry Shi, Gray Shiverick, and Olivia Tucker.

Their honors were presented by the 12 current seniors who were inducted into the society as juniors last year: Henry Barrett, Alex Brown, Julie Choi, Ryan Grajewski, Julian Gu, Albert Jin, Jimin Kim, Doris Li, Judy Liu, Taylor Redd, Anna Smith, and Eleanor Sobottka.

"Cum Laude recognizes academic excellence and a love of learning," said Mary Fielder, Assistant Head for Academics, who emceed the inductions. "I look forward to the event every year, as students show such support and genuine joy in the induction of other members of the community. It is not just an affirmation of those particular students being inducted but a celebration of intellectual and moral courage, ideals upon which our school was founded."
 
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Alex Jones ’64 offered the day’s address. Following a distinguished career at the New York Times, Mr. Jones spent 15 years as the director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University. He has also been a longtime and loyal alumnus who served the last six years on Episcopal’s Board of Trustees.

Jones began his talk by recalling the only advice he ever remembered being given by a speaker from his younger days.

“The man who gave it was a Navy chaplain,” Jones said. “The Vietnam War was raging – this was in 1969 – and I was about to report to a ship bound for the Gulf of Tonkin. I was going to war, in other words. And the thing the chaplain said that I remembered were these words. He said, ‘Live gently.’ I remember thinking, ‘What a strange thing to be told on such an occasion.’ Maybe that’s the key. To say something a bit jarring.”

In an emotionally stirring speech that included recollections of Episcopal’s integration, a trek through the deserts of Africa, and his wife’s death from cancer in 2010, Jones offered what he hoped were five “jarring” bits of advice to the audience:
  1. Take time for the old folks and record them.
  2. Face your fears and be true to yourselves.
  3. Pursue joy.
  4. Try the “deathbed theory of life” for making the big, hard decisions.
  5. And have no regrets.
Watch the complete service, including the full remarks from Alex Jones, on our LocalLive channel. Registration is free and can be done fairly quickly by clicking this link.

Photos from the service and the reception following are available on our Maroon & Black Flickr channel.
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