From April 12 to May 6, Harker DECA members competed virtually in the annual International Career Development Conference (ICDC). With 46 competitors and two first place champions, Harker DECA had the best ICDC results in chapter history. An exceptional 12 finalists placed in the top 20 for the preliminary round. Out of those 12, eight finalists were in the top 10 final round.
“ICDC and just DECA in general are both very exciting. It allowed not just my team but the entire DECA community to come closer together. I am looking forward to another DECA season,” said Armaan Thakker, grade 10.
This year, Harker DECA introduced the DECA alumni coaches program to help students excel in their competitions. The officer team reached out to several competitively successful alumni and former officers including Aditi Ghalsasi ‘20, Mahi Kolla ‘20, Lucas Wang ‘17, Evan Cheng ‘20, Shania Wang ‘19, Riya Gupta ‘19, Rishi Dange ‘20, Radhika Jain ‘20 and Phil Han ‘20. Many of the alumni continued their education at top universities including the University of Southern California, New York University and University of Pennsylvania. Each alumni was assigned to a competitive team and was required to meet with them at least three times to prepare for their competitions. Overall the inaugural program dramatically improved the success of Harker DECA’s competitors this year at ICDC.
“I think one of the biggest factors that contributed to how far we got at ICDC was the fact that we had an alumni, Radhika, as our mentor. It was even more special for us personally because she had mentored us in her junior and senior year, so it was great to be able to work with her again. Even though we only met four times for about an hour each, her feedback was so helpful, and we could actually feel ourselves improving each time. I definitely feel like Emily [Zhou] and I wouldn’t have been able to get as far as we did without the alumni mentorship program,” said junior Emily Tan.
Due to the pandemic, ICDC was held virtually this year. For the preliminary round, competitors were asked to submit their presentations in video form to a portal. However, for the final round of competitions, members joined a Zoom call with a judge to perform their presentations live.
“ICDC was an incredible experience, and we were so excited to represent Harker during the final round of competition. Our previous rounds were recorded videos, so being able to present a live presentation in front of a judge was a thrilling experience, especially since this was our first year competing in DECA,” said sophomore Annmaria Antony.
Despite most of the conference being online, Harker DECA hosted a viewing party of the grand awards session on May 6. Members were invited to the Innovation Center on the upper school campus to watch the livestream of the ceremony and were given an opportunity to socialize with their peers in person. They enjoyed snacks while watching and Chipotle for dinner. This event emulated an in-person conference experience and allowed competitors to celebrate their wins together as a chapter.
Regardless of obstacles that came with competing online, members had a thrilling and enriching experience participating in ICDC. Congratulations to all of our competitors!
“These students put in countless hours and battled out seemingly endless obstacles and levels of competition to get to this point. I am so very proud of our unprecedented year resulting in not just one but two international champion teams. We had the most successful year to date for our chapter and I can’t be more proud of our Harker DECA Eagles, officer team and student mentors for all of the effort, time, grit and passion they demonstrated throughout the year. Go Eagles!” said Juston Glass, Harker DECA chapter advisor.
Winners and finalists are as follows:
First Place:
– Sasvath Ramachandran, grade 11; Virtual Business Challenge – Accounting
– Andrew Sun and Aditya Singhvi, grade 12; Hospitality Services Team Decision Making
Second Place:
– Grace Hoang and Annmaria Antony, grade 10; Marketing Management Team Decision Making
Valliani told Geekwire that she co-founded Glow because of her belief in a “well-funded, thriving media.” Her idea was not initially well-received. “Most people looked at me like I was crazy when I said that I was making it easy for podcasters to charge for content. No one thought that people would actually pay for podcasts on a large scale,” she said. “I’m proud of this acquisition because it’s a demonstration that things have changed.”
Last weekend, upper school economics teacher Sam Lepler caught up with several Harker alumni during a trip to Philadelphia. While visiting family in Pennsylvania, Lepler put out a call to alumni in the area to see if they would like to meet. Within hours, he was sitting down to dinner with Megan Cardosi ’18, David Feng ’20, Ria Ghandi ’17, Rashmi Iyer ’20, Kelly Shen ’19, Kevin Xu ’18 and Shaya Zarkesh ’18. “I just stepped out for a bit and they all came to meet,” said Lepler. “It was super fun seeing them all.”
The group chatted about life at the University of Pennsylvania and how it has changed a year into the COVID-19 pandemic. “They told me that it’s awesome to be on campus from January – last semester was fully remote – and that even though the classes remain virtual, they are enjoying life in the dorms or off-campus housing, joining the ski club, and diving into life at Penn,” said Lepler. “It was truly awesome to see alums from all of the last four years, and I was genuinely honored that so many came out on such short notice.”
This year’s Alumni Day of Giving campaign is set to take place on April 8. This is a one-day effort that will take place online in partnership with GiveCampus.
Once again, this year’s goal is based on participation. We are aiming for 250 alumni donors, and no gift is too small or too big! In addition of the use of #loveharker to help spread the word, the beloved slogan “Put Your Eagles Up!”, used traditionally during school meeting athletic announcements, has been added to this year’s campaign in the spirit of our alumni community helping to lift up all future Eagles and showing their love for their first alma mater.
A link to make a gift will be emailed to all alumni beforehand and will be posted on all of our social media beginning April 7. This notification also will include ways to share the news about a donor’s gift as well as help with spreading the word to fellow alumni. All donors will be encouraged to post their donation status on social media using the hashtag #loveharker.
We are excited to announce that both Venmo and PayPal have been added to the platform to make it even easier to give.
The alumni office will have its virtual zoom room open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for alumni and friends to stop by and check in to help celebrate the big day’s milestones!
Those interested in becoming advocates for this campaign should contact Kristina Alaniz, director of alumni relations, at kristinaa@harker.org.
Tiffany Liou ‘08, now a reporter with the ABC-affiliated WFAA in Dallas, posted a video yesterday in which she speaks about the yearlong wave of violence against Asian Americans, including yesterday’s attacks in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent.
“I am angry, I am sad and I’m scared,” Liou says in the video. “I’m scared because I don’t want my family to become the next target.” She also shares personal experiences, such as a recent encounter at Target where the cashier would not speak to her or take her money: “I felt like she was disgusted by me because of my race. I felt like she was disgusted by my husband, who is Asian as well.”
Affirming her commitment to stand up for Asian communities, Liou also implores people to speak out and get active. “I need you to stand with us too,” she says. “Rhetoric matters. Speak up when you see hate, use your platforms to denounce racism, and reach out to your leaders and your elected officials to pass anti-hate legislation.”
On Feb. 18, a special panel on fashion was held with Arjun Kilaru ‘19, Jill Milan founder Jill Fraser, and upper school English teachers Nicholas Manjoine and Pauline Paskali. Each shared what initially intrigued them about fashion and, in the cases of Kilaru and Fraser, how they got involved in the industry.
Kilaru, who currently studies at the University of Chicago, where he curated a collection of his own designs, called his foray into fashion a “really big leap. It was challenging but I always felt like I had enough resources,” he said, recognizing the support and feedback he received from people back home. “I made a lot of mistakes and I will never stop advocating for trial and error.”
He said fashion offered him an avenue for self-expression. “I make new statements with how I look and what I hear,” he said, adding that in college, “you’re always in an environment where you can share ideas with your peers.”
Kilaru also started a podcast, affiliated with the university’s fashion magazine, which explores various fashion topics. “This quarter we’ve been really active with posting an episode every Friday,” he said.
Fraser, who is vegan, was working at a startup in 2009 when she decided that the fashion industry needed more ethical brands. Jill Milan was founded in 2011 with the mission of creating an animal-friendly fashion brand. “I hired a very good young designer and we began working in Italy. Mostly it was sort of making a lot of friends.” The designs were well-liked and have been worn at red carpet events by high-profile celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Kerry Washington and Eva Longoria.
Her advice to people hoping to break into the industry was to treat people respectfully. “Be very nice,” she said. “There’s always someone around you who could hurt you or help you a lot.” She also recommended seeking opportunities with Fashion Incubator San Francisco, a firm that offers mentorship to designers new to the industry.
Manjoine said he was initially hesitant to make clothes for himself, even though “for most of human history, people have made their own clothes. This is sort of a special moment in history where we rely on other people,” he said, recalling the time he spent in 4H learning how to knit and sew. He also showed off one of the sweaters he made for himself.
For people who find enjoying fashion difficult, Paskali said, “I think it’s really important to wear both what you think is really fun and what feels good on you, what makes you feel strong, cheerful, playful. Clothes should make you happy too.”
“The social convention is that we all wear clothes, so you might as well have fun with it,” Manjoine said. “We might as well make [fashion choices] that present our best selves. Don’t be afraid to mix colors or put on shapes that make you feel like you.”
Last week, Simar Bajaj ‘20 gave a presentation to Harker students to expand on the points made in an essay he co-wrote that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in January. In the piece, he and Dr. Fatima Stanford argue that distrust of COVID-19 vaccinations among Black Americans is the result of decades of systemic racism built into the medical profession, and that too much attention is focused on well-known incidents such as the Tuskegee syphilis study to explain hesitancy among Black Americans to accept the vaccines.
While the horrors of these incidents should not be forgotten, Bajaj said, “you know what challenges you’re facing through the health care institution if you’re a Black individual, especially during this pandemic, which has highlighted a lot of inequities.” Many studies have shown that Black patients are misdiagnosed and are refused treatment and painkillers at much higher rates.
“If you are a Black man in the emergency department and the doctor … is not giving you your painkillers, even though you’re visibly in pain,” Bajaj said. “In those moments … perhaps you are thinking about Tuskegee and historicizing your frustrations there, but perhaps more likely you are thinking about the racist doctor that’s not giving you your painkillers.”
Bajaj said an approach known as “barbershop-based intervention” could help build trust among Black Americans. These interactions, in which Black patients are cared for by Black health care professionals, provide racial concordance that has had very positive outcomes. In one study, barbershop-based intervention brought the blood pressure of 64 percent of Black men to normal levels, compared to just 12 percent of the control group who continued to visit their primary physician. “Barbershops are often forums of camaraderie for Black individuals,” Bajaj said. “There’s this relationship between the barber and those getting their hair cut that is very close.”
He also cited research performed by Dr. Stanford that demonstrated an increased interest in seeking information when COVID prevention messages were delivered by Black physicians. “There’s a lot of information being thrown at us during the pandemic, a lot of which is incredibly important to understand and lot of which can impact health literacy,” Bajaj said. “So you can see the implications here.”
Lay press coverage that zeroes in on Tuskegee and other historical atrocities, Bajaj said, can also further the damaging idea that racism in medicine is mostly in the past. “I found it incredibly frustrating when I would read these lay press articles where they’d try to [explain that] Black individuals don’t trust the vaccine because of Tuskegee or because of J. Marion Sims or because of this or that,” he said. “And I thought such a framing is incorrect and harmful.”
We are saddened to report the passing of Justin Shamlou ‘11, who died unexpectedly on Feb. 15 at the age of 27. Born April 21, 1993 in Plantation, Fla., Shamlou moved with his family to Japan and Singapore before they settled in California. At Harker, Shamlou was a varsity football player with a love for music and poetry. After graduation, he attended the University of South Carolina. Most recently, he was a senior writer at the consumer advocacy website Grit Daily. Shamlou is remembered by his classmates for his uplifting character and ability to inspire others. A tribute wall has been set up for those who wish to share memories, condolences and kind words. His family has requested that donations be made to the Concussion Legacy Foundation in Shamlou’s honor.
Simar Bajaj ‘20, now in his first year at Harvard, was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals. His piece, co-authored with Fatima Stanford, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, examines the relationship between systemic racism and the reluctance in Black communities to accept COVID-19 vaccines. Reasons cited include the persistence of wrong diagnoses and denial of necessary treatment for Black Americans. The article also proposes that Black health experts be the directors of messaging to Black communities to increase trust of the vaccine.
On Wednesday, Joelle Anderson ’17 was selected in the third round (26th overall) by the Houston Dash in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) draft.
Anderson was a stellar player during her time at Harker. She was a two-time Forward of the Year in the WBAL and led the CCS in goals and points her senior year.
Continuing her amazing play in college, Anderson was a three-time All-West Conference selection and a two-time United Soccer Coaches All-West Region selection. The college soccer season was postponed until February because of COVID, so Anderson will still be able to finish her senior season.
Anderson comes from a family of athletes. Older brother Jeremiah ’15 played soccer at Westmont College and younger brother Jarrett ’19 is a standout volleyball player at Springfield College. Her parents also teach at Harker. Her mom Michelle teaches kindergarten and dad Pete is a middle school PE teacher.