UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Courtney Sterner, an early childhood and elementary education major from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has been chosen by the Penn State College of Education as a student marshal for the spring 2024 commencement ceremony.
Sterner, who is the daughter of Kimberly and Drew Sterner, will also graduate with a minor in special education.
“I am so honored and grateful to get to represent the Penn State College of Education,” Sterner said. “I have met so many incredible people during my journey as an education student, and it is my privilege to be one of their student marshals.”
Sterner has been a member of Schreyer Honors College for all four of her years at Penn State, receiving the Gilbert Kahn Scholarship for University Scholars in the College of Education all four years as well. She wrote a thesis for which she researched ways to help foster a positive relationship between students and reading.
She was nominated for the College of Education Alumni Society’s Outstanding Field Experience Award (winner not yet announced at time of writing). In fall of 2023, she completed her pre-service student teaching in a second-grade classroom at Mount Nittany Elementary School in the State College Area School District. For her full-time student teaching placement during the spring 2024 semester, Sterner was placed in a kindergarten classroom at Lower Gwynedd Elementary School in the Wissahickon School District.
Additionally, she participated in the CI 295 Urban Seminar course, which was an intensive two-week course that allowed her to broaden her perspective in diverse and inclusive education.
During her time at Penn State, Sterner was family relations chair for Penn State Club Swim THON for the past two years, allowing her to plan events for the club’s three Four Diamonds families. She participated as a dancer in THON 2023. She was a resident adviser in the Pollock Residence Life area for three semesters for a floor of first-year students prior to her student teaching.
Outside of Penn State, Sterner is the swim lesson coordinator for a 600-student program at Fanny Chapman Memorial Pool in her hometown of Doylestown, where she has taught group and private swimming lessons for various organizations since the age of 14. She is also a third-generation Penn State student (her grandparents, mother, father and brother have all attended Penn State) and a fourth-generation teacher.
After graduation, Sterner is hoping to teach in the Bucks County or Montgomery County area and said she cannot wait to one day teach young students in a classroom of her own.
Sterner will serve as co-marshal alongside Gabriella Achampong, an education and public policy major from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
The College of Education's commencement ceremony is scheduled for 9 a.m., Sunday, May 5 at Pegula Ice Arena on the University Park campus.