This story originally appeared in the fall/winter 2021 issue of Harker Magazine. The original version of this story is published on issuu.
A strong school library program results in higher student achievement, including test scores and subject mastery. That’s what 30 years of research has shown – and these correlations aren’t explained away by student-teacher ratios, teacher qualifications, or demographics. These benefits are why The Harker School has such a deep commitment to its library. The Harker library program is the school’s pedagogical backbone, an integral and essential part of the entire TK-12 academic program.
Harker librarians are teachers and their subject is information literacy. Using the library’s extensive resources, librarians collaborate with teachers in every grade and in every subject, whether reading stories to first graders, showing middle schoolers how to search a database or teaching upper school students proper citation formats. They meet with individual classes and are available for drop-in meetings with individual students.
Librarians also serve as a resource for teachers. They guest lecture, they team- teach classes, and they serve as teacher consultants.
Harker librarians promote literacy: Besides author visits and book clubs, programming includes the award-winning Re-create Reading Day, the student-run Book Blog and the teacher-founded Tournament of Books. Students of all ages say they love to pick librarians’ brains, browse the stacks and curl up in one of the many comfy reading spots the three libraries provide.
“There’s no more important time to have a library,” said Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs. “Our students are bombarded with a wealth of information and they need to know how to make sense of it. The strength of the library is really with the personnel and what they bring to our program. Our librarians are true experts in information literacy.”
“Our curriculum is about enabling students to become information literate, to be critical thinkers, to form habits of mind,” said Lauri Vaughan, Harker’s award-winning published library director since 2018.
With the advent of the internet and Harker’s upper school expansion, an outstanding library program was the central goal of Sue Smith and Enid Davis, Harker’s visionary former library directors. “The women who preceded me created this quietly awesome program that ranks nationally,” said Vaughan, who has worked at Harker for 15 years. “If there was an Olympics for school libraries, I think we’d get the gold.”
What is information literacy?
Harker’s library program focuses on four areas: information literacy, pleasure reading, robust resources and curricular collaboration. The keystone is information literacy, defined on the library website as “the ability to effectively find, evaluate and use information across all media and disciplines.”
“Information literacy is the difference between absorbing what a teacher is telling you versus finding something out for yourself and translating that into your own lesson,” said senior Ann Ryan, who plans to study chemical engineering in college. “You need to be able to understand what different sources are telling you, even if you’re not going into academics after graduation.”
Information literacy takes skilled, trained professionals to teach it – “information evangelists,” Vaughan calls them. At a time when many schools are laying off librarians and turning their facilities into media centers, Harker’s program has a staff of 12, including six librarians with master’s degrees in library science. Many have education degrees and general classroom experience as well.
The library curriculum at Harker extends from transitional kindergarten through grade 12, said Meredith Cranston, campus librarian for the upper school. “We scaffold these skills in ways that are developmentally appropriate, given the age level of the students, to introduce, reinforce and master these various skills of information literacy.”
Using college-level frameworks, she said, the goal is that by the time students graduate, they are research-ready, which means they are ready to pursue independent learning in universities and colleges. “We’re always thinking, what do we want our students to know, and understand and be able to do by the time they graduate? What kind of mindset do they need for information- literate thinking?”
It starts in the lower school, where students are introduced to the importance of finding and evaluating sources, paraphrasing what the sources say and citing where they got their information. Cranston’s 6-year-old son James, grade 1, looks forward to going to the library every Friday, he said. He likes the train books.
“My favorite thing in the library is just the whole library class,” he said. “I like that I get to hear stories and then go get a book. It’s just like a map and you travel around the world in stories.”
When Cranston and the other first graders were learning about animal homes – nests, burrows, caves – Kathy Clark, campus librarian for the lower school, showed them how to find information in databases and books.
“What we want them to do is understand how to take notes, how to pull the information out of these sources,” Clark said. “We don’t say, this is a database. We say, here’s another source of information for you. And it’s always a source that we trust. We’re not sending little ones out onto the open web to try and navigate.”
The rudiments of citation begin early as well, she said. “You have to give credit where you found your information. In first grade, it’s just simply, what’s the title of the book you got some of your information from? Because you didn’t just make it up.”
These skills become increasingly sophisticated through the lower school. They are built on in middle school so that by the time a student gets to the ninth grade, they are fine-tuning their citations and taking quizzes in paraphrasing. As they progress through the upper school, students have learned that librarians are resources who can help them do deep research and produce original work.
What does it mean to be a teacher librarian?
All this wouldn’t be possible without collaboration between librarians and subject teachers.
“Our classroom teachers talk the talk when it comes to information literacy, and they walk the walk in terms of collaborating with us on inquiry-based learning projects,” said Cranston. “It’s across the curriculum. Generally it originates with a teacher saying there’s some aspect of their course that students aren’t getting. They want students to dig deeper and learn more.”
That was biology teacher Kristen Morgensen ‘93’s experience when she was getting ready to teach her eighth graders about cystic fibrosis. As a microbiologist she was excited about teaching the topic and she wanted to get her students excited too. That’s where Bernie Morrissey, campus librarian for the middle school, came in.
Morgensen had started with the idea that her students would make posters. Morrissey suggested turning the poster topic into a question: “Which topic that we’ve studied so far this year is most useful for understanding cystic fibrosis? Why?” The assignment went from a general report to making an argument for one of three possible answers: diffusion and osmosis, genetics and heredity or DNA structure and mutations.
“That’s huge, because that’s science, right?” said Morgensen. “Claim, evidence, reasoning. I got some great, great projects, because they had to argue it. I had the idea and Bernie revamped it and made it what it is.”
The students learned the same information about the disease, Morrissey noted. “But this was at a much deeper level, and I think in a more interesting way. They’re more engaged with the material. It also helps emphasize the cumulative nature of studying science, the way scientific knowledge builds on other knowledge. These kids are super lucky to have two teachers essentially planning this experience for them. That’s pretty rare.”
Librarians also serve as co-teachers with subject teachers. Amy Pelman, upper school librarian, plays a prominent role in English teacher Brigid Miller’s popular Graphic Narrative class. Her contributions include a lecture on the history of the form and an introduction to the class research project.
“I couldn’t teach this class without her,” Miller said. “Amy is ridiculously well-read in general, and when it comes to graphic novels, she’s read everything. Plus she’s really happy when she gets to talk about this form and that passion spreads to the students.”
What are electronic resources and digital archives?
Whether finding a book to read or doing research, Harker students have 24/7 access to college-level online resources, including e-books, audiobooks and some 90 subscription databases – a searchable online collection providing access to scholarly journals, newspapers, images, movies and more. By the 10th grade, Harker students are proficient in navigating these resources, as well as NoodleTools, which they’ve been using since the fourth grade. NoodleTools is an online research management platform with three different levels that helps students build citations, take notes and organize their sources.
The electronic collection is maintained by Qi Huang, electronic resources librarian, who is also deeply involved with the Harker Digital Archives. Harker’s physical archives, an unusual collection for a school, go back 125 years. The school began digitizing it about five years ago. Nearly 16,000 pages have been scanned so far and they include yearbooks, newsletters, brochures and flyers. The earliest item in the digital archive so far is a 1924 student newspaper called The Jolly Cadet.
Recently launched, the site can be viewed online by the Harker community. Vaughan is already getting queries from teachers who want to use the archives for their classes, such as reviewing the newspapers over the years to see how students felt about different topics.
“We’re excited to make available anything that can bring to life a sense of what it was like to be a member of the Harker community during any particular time period,” she said, noting that the archives, both digital and physical, figured prominently during Harker’s 125th anniversary celebration in 2018-19. “We have a long and rich history with interesting and fascinating people.” The school also manages a separate photo archive with historic photos dating back to 1893, to which the community also has access.
Three-way collaboration: Teachers, librarians and students
These electronic resources are endowed in part by the Near/Mitra research program, which is a key way that Harker librarians work with upper school students. Every spring, eight to 10 juniors are selected from 40 to 50 applicants – about a quarter of the following year’s senior class – to pursue a non-credit, year-long research project. Near scholars explore United States history while Mitra scholars research humanities topics. Each student is matched with at least two mentors: a subject area specialist and an information specialist.
A visit from librarians to her junior year English class inspired Ellen Guo ’20 to write a Near scholar paper she titled “Bi Means of Queer: A Bisexual View of Sedgwick’s ‘Closet.’”
The librarians had taught the class about critical theory. The assignment was to select one and use it to analyze “The Scarlet Letter.” Guo chose the lens of queer theory.
“I got super interested in queer theory and I started looking at the literature,” she said. “My research project evolved into a theoretical angle about HIV/ AIDS and its impact on our understanding of bisexuality and homophobia.”
During the process, she met several times a month with her mentors, Cranston and upper school history teacher Donna Gilbert, who in 2009 stewarded the original Near scholars program with Sue Smith. “Ms. Gilbert helped me out with parsing through the historical context of the stuff I was researching,” Guo said. “And if there were sources that I needed that weren’t easily accessible, Ms. Cranston was great about providing them.”
Now a sophomore at Columbia University, Guo is on an engineering track but she’s still drawn to theory. “Perhaps more important than the actual content of the theory were the skills, specifically from Near/Mitra, that I developed,” she said. “As somebody who’s always considered herself a STEM person, being able to think in a way that’s very different from how I usually think is one of the greatest things that I took from Near/Mitra.”
Working with these students is incredibly rewarding, Cranston said. “Every year I think this is just such a wonderful and rich and unique experience, and nothing could ever top this. And then the next year again, it is special and rich and unique.”
As is the entire library program. Every 17-year-old today is a creator of information, said Vaughan. That means they have tremendous power – and tremendous responsibility.
“It’s about being part of the information community on every level, whether we’re talking about journalism, sharing a good book that you’ve read, writing an academic paper, publishing a book or being interviewed on television. How do you professionally, ethically, intelligently and creatively participate in the exchange of ideas and information? That’s how we want to empower our students.”
This story originally appeared in the fall/winter 2021 issue of Harker Magazine. The original version of this story is published on issuu.
The impact of the pandemic and the political and social upheavals of the past two yearshave prompted reflection and action by individuals and institutions alike. Harker is no exception, and the entire community has been involved in various ways in Harker’s self-reflection, assessment, and commitment to continue being the best school it can be for the students and the world.
An important component of this reflection was partnering with the National Association of Independent Schools in spring 2021 to conduct an “Assessment of Inclusivity and Multiculturalism (AIM)” to gauge and improve the inclusiveness of our school community for all members. Greg Lawson, then assistant head of school for student affairs, spearheaded the survey with the help of a faculty and staff committee of seven. The survey was offered in English, Spanish and Chinese to students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni. “It was important to get feedback from all our constituents to have the best data possible,” Lawson noted. “We were very pleased with the level of participation and extremely grateful for the valuable feedback our community took the time to share with us.” The results were analyzed by the administration and shared with the community. According to Brian Yager, head of school, the survey results indicated two key areas of suggested growth: 1. for multiculturalism to be integrated more intentionally into the curriculum; 2. for faculty and administrators to continue enhancing our capacity to bring out the best in our students in working with, understanding and embracing their roles as citizens of a diverse school and world. “While Harker has considered each of these areas a priority for many years, we are exploring further avenues to achieve success in these areas,” he said.
The survey feedback revealed high marks for the school’s respect for diversity shown by students, administrators, faculty and staff, and confidence in the school’s commitment to fostering an environment “where all members … feel included and affirmed.” Yager found this heartening but asserted that this work is never done. “Being an inclusive and safe space for students and staff alike will always continue to be a top priority for the school.”
Inclusive Curriculum and Programs
While Harker evaluates the curriculum routinely to ensure it meets the needs of students in an ever-changing landscape, the events of the past 18 months led the school to a deeper analysis. This included reviewing how we teach the history and works of marginalized people, particularly in the English and history curriculum. “The works we have taught to students have evolved over time,” explained Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs. “Teachers in our English departments have also taken time to review the titles and works we teach; while we are making some title changes, we are also looking at how we are teaching all of the works. Teachers are discussing as a department how to best leverage the opportunities we do have in each work to further our DEI mission and understandings.”
At the lower school, diversity co-coordinators Kathy Clark, campus librarian, and Andi Bo, grade 3 English teacher, have provided resources to teachers on a variety of topics, which are then integrated into classroom instruction.
“I was an adult before I saw myself reflected in a book,” said Clark, who is Chinese-American. “Knowing that and understanding that dynamic, we need to reflect who our kids are, so finding materials that are of their culture, characters that reflect who they are and give other people insight into who they are – that’s always been very important to me.” Clark and Bo also have worked with the administration to expand perspectives in areas such as the English curriculum. “We’re trying to freshen up the curriculum and make sure there is enhanced diversity within that,” said Clark.
Other departments, such as history, have made similar inroads. “Our teachers are consciously ensuring that diversity, equity and inclusion are finding a place in the classrooms,” said history chair Mark Janda, who also serves on the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee. “It’s not just happening by accident. There is a conscious effort to make sure that the curriculum reflects all our students.” American history classes, as an example, have increased their survey of the women’s liberation and LGBTQ+ rights movements. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s and its links to the Black Lives Matter movement has also become a staple in required U.S. history courses. Classes on the Holocaust, social justice and social psychology also have been added to the curriculum.
The middle school began holding a series of assemblies called “Windows and Mirrors” last year. “We wanted to provide students a window through which to see cultures other than their own, and a mirror for those who belong to those cultures,” explained Patricia Lai Burrows, assistant middle school division head. The first of these assemblies was held in September 2020, during which Andy Lulka spoke via Zoom on the experiences of living in Jewish communities in Mexico and Canada. Other assemblies welcomed poet Jonathan Rodriguez, Hawaiian cultural camp director Kawika Shook, Kwanzaa storyteller Diane Ferlatte, and director/activist Gabrielle Gorman. “It’s been a meaningful and eye-opening series that has led to a deeper understanding of life experiences different from our own,” Burrows added.
Additionally, in an effort coordinated by our newly formed Student Diversity Committee, representatives from the Muwekma Ohlone tribe visited the upper school campus in May for the unveiling of a monument that signified Harker’s formal recognition of the land it rests on as the ancestral home of the Thámien Ohlone-speaking people, the Muwekma Ohlone’s direct ancestors. Additional land acknowledgement assemblies were held on Harker’s middle and lower school campuses in October. Gargano noted, “Our history department chairs are creating a scope and sequence of how and when we teach about the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, as well, to ensure a well-articulated progression of topics and discussions as it relates to this community.”
Diversity on Campus
The AIM survey recommendation to diversify faculty and administrators at Harker is one the school will continue to take to heart. “We search nationwide for the best teaching candidates for each position at Harker,” said Gargano. “We also work to ensure that each new teacher enhances and enriches our community, and we recognize that having a diverse teaching body contributes to that.”
Providing the Harker experience to as broad a group of students as possible has been a priority for the school for years, according to Danielle Holquin, K-12 admission director. “In addition to various outreach efforts over the years, the new Alumni Scholarship Endowment funded by Andy Fang ’10 bolsters need-based financial aid to students who qualify for admission,” she said. “Our goal is always to bring the best group of learners to our school given our mission and our program,” added Yager. “We believe there are diverse students out there who would benefit from our program – and bring benefit to it – and our goal continues to be to find them.”
Diversity Training and Awareness
Harker has had a long history of diversity education, particularly in faculty training. The annual faculty retreat, organized by Gargano, has had diversity education as a key component as far back as 2012, when Jayasri Ghosh spoke on the ways culture affects interactions between teachers and students. Other initiatives include the addition of DEI-related works into the faculty summer reading lists, started in 2014; and since 2017 Harker has hosted a yearly event featuring Rodney Glasgow, Ed.D., a noted speaker and facilitator on DEI issues and head of school at Sandy Spring Friends School in Sandy Spring, Md. “We understand the import of discussing these topics,” said Gargano. “Each day as a faculty we have a great impact on the types of adults and future citizens our students become. We do not take this responsibility lightly.”
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
The school’s DEI Committee was formed in 2013 with just under a dozen members. It has now grown to 70 faculty and staff who represent all divisions and support the DEI coordinators, who are Janda, Rebecca Williams, Tyeshia Brown and Karriem Stinson, and the division by Andy Fang ’10 bolsters need-based financial aid to students who qualify for admission,” she said. “Our goal is always to bring the best group of learners to our school given our mission and our program,” added Yager. “We believe there are diverse students out there who would benefit from our program – and bring benefit to it – and our goal continues to be to find them.”
Diversity Training and Awareness
Harker has had a long history of diversity education, particularly in faculty training. The annual faculty retreat, organized by Gargano, has had diversity education as a key component as far back as 2012, when Jayasri Ghosh spoke on the ways culture affects interactions between teachers and students. Other initiatives include the addition of DEI-related works into the faculty summer reading lists, started in 2014; and since 2017 Harker has hosted a yearly event featuring Rodney Glasgow, Ed.D., a noted speaker and facilitator on DEI issues and head of school at Sandy Spring Friends School in Sandy Spring, Md. “We understand the import of discussing these topics,” said Gargano. “Each day as a faculty we have a great impact on the types of adults and future citizens our students become. We do not take this responsibility lightly.”
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
The school’s DEI Committee was formed in 2013 with just under a dozen members. It has now grown to 70 faculty and staff who represent all divisions and support the DEI coordinators, who are Janda, Rebecca Williams, Tyeshia Brown and Karriem Stinson, and the division leadership teams of Bo and Clark (lower school); Bernie Morrissey and Abigail Joseph (middle school); and Susanne Salhab and Eric Johnson (upper school). DEI Committee members have regularly attended the National Association of Independent Schools’ People of Color Conference (PoCC) to gather and share ideas about DEI work and ways that schools can implement them. Joseph, the middle school learning, innovation and design director, remembered being the only faculty member to attend PoCC in 2011, her first year at Harker. The following year, she was joined by Burrows, Janda and middle school English department chair Arabelle Chow, who all traveled to Washington, D.C., for the conference. “That outing to D.C. sparked interest in finding ways to help the school embrace and grapple with the challenging work of bringing DEI into the forefront of the work that we do,” said Joseph. Now, six students and between six and 10 faculty and staff attend the conference each year. Stinson, the lower and middle school’s assistant athletic director and a DEI coordinator, has attended PoCC since 2014. “It’s so powerful to see people that look like you and that are in the same situation as you,” he said.
Brown, assistant to the assistant head of school for student affairs and one of the DEI coordinators, has also attended. “My life is diversity work, being a Black person myself,” she said. “My kids attend Harker and helping the school understand the importance of cultural competence, cultural humility is important to me.”
Student Organizations Following the mass unrest and protests that erupted after the murder of George Floyd, an upper school Student Diversity Coalition (SDC) was founded in fall 2020. Co-founders Uma Iyer, grade 12, and Natasha Yen ’21 were inspired to form the coalition after Harker hosted a group of students to attend the 2019 Student Diversity Leadership Conference, an annual nationwide conference in which students from independent schools learn how to discuss social justice topics with their peers and educators and find ways to ensure their schools are welcoming and safe for marginalized groups.
The founding of the SDC also led to the founding of affinity groups, which the DEI Committee had been building up to foryears. Recently founded affinity groups such as the Black Student Union (BSU) and Latinx Student Union provide spaces for people belonging to those groups to meet and discuss topics related to their everyday experiences or just be their authentic selves. “[The BSU] has been a good space for us to just say what we’re feeling and get advice on anything if we need help,” said SDC officer Dina Ande, grade 10. The events of 2020, she said, were a major factor in her decision to be more active in combating racism in her communities. “I finally realized that it’s important that we discuss it, and I had these emotions built up that I didn’t really want to let out … but having the opportunity to let it out felt really nice.” Last year, the BSU and SDC co-organized an online event with University of Georgia professor Bettina Love, who holds a doctorate in educational policy studies and spoke on Black history and building a new society free of oppression.
One initiative of the DEI Committee has been Challenge Day, an optional all-day program where participants are led through activities designed to encourage peer support. The Challenge Day staff led the first one at Harker in February 2020 just before the pandemic, and the SDC has now taken the lead on this annual offering, holding the most recent one in September. This year the students, staff and faculty participating became peers in this social-emotional learning program, which included ice- breaking activities that involved singing, dancing, locking arms and – in a show of collective affection that had become rare during the COVID-19 pandemic – hugging. “Challenge Day inherently furthers diversity, equity and inclusivity initiatives because the program is designed to create an inclusive space for high school students and faculty,” said Iyer. “The program addressed deep topics such as racism, homophobia, ableism, hate and mental health, which not only bring awareness to these topics, but also starts conversations.”
Harker’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) is one of the school’s most enduring advocacy groups, founded more than 20 years ago. It has been a driving force behind many efforts to benefit the school’s LGBTQ+ community, including the introduction of gender-neutral restrooms and the practice of stating one’s pronouns. In 2019, middle school students founded their own GSA, and one of its founding members, junior Aastha Mangla, is now co-president of the upper school GSA, along with junior Aniket Singh. The GSA continues to be a key resource for LGBTQ+ students, particularly those new to Harker. “When I came here, it was a nice way to learn all the LGBTQ+ tips and tricks at Harker,” said one member of the LGBTQ+ student community, who preferred not to be named. “Like where all the best gender-neutral restrooms are, how to talk with teachers about pronouns and that kind of thing.”
They also continue to regularly reach out to the greater community on topics relevant to LGBTQ+ students, including a popular panel of upper school students who speak at other campuses. “We found that [middle school students] learn a lot through that, and that has been a really meaningful experience,” said Singh.
Both Singh and Mangla agreed that one significant area of improvement has been the practice of making sure teachers use students’ proper pronouns, instituted recently at the behest of Harker administrators. “When I was a freshman, I didn’t see a lot of teachers give that survey asking for pronouns and names and whether you wanted your pronouns to be used in front of parents, teachers, faculty, etc.,” said Mangla. “But this year all my teachers asked for pronouns, which I find really heartening. I’m honestly really proud of the direction the community’s going in, and I think we’ve made lots of improvement.
Focusing on the Future
According to Yager, the hiring of a diversity director is in the works, along with the continuation of the existing diversity leadership and committees at each campus. “We are grateful for the dedication of our DEI leadership and the many hands that have gotten us this far,” said Yager. “l look forward to having a director in place to coordinate our efforts and help us deepen our impact.” Harker’s DEI Committee has been compiling suggestions on this the new position, which will hopefully be filled by the start of the 2022-23 school year. “We’ve done a lot of research and pulled from other director descriptions from other schools in our area and from across the country,” said Brown.
Though Harker’s DEI work may never truly be complete, those directly involved with the work have expressed happiness with the progress made so far. Williams, a middle school English teacher and DEI coordinator, is encouraged by the buy-in for DEI initiatives demonstrated by faculty and administration. “There have been some major steps over the last couple of years that really indicate Harker standing behind this vision of creating a school that is equitable and inclusive and diverse,” she said. Another indication is the growth of Harker’s DEI Committee. “There are two leaders on each campus now,” said Stinson. “There are things now that we didn’t have two years ago. That happened really fast. It’s really cool to see that.”
Daedalus Quartet displayed adventurous spirit and instrumental mastery at Friday night’s Harker Concert Series season closer. The group opened with “Lyric Quartet” by Harlem Renaissance composer William Grant Still, composed as a tribute to his friend, violinist Joachim Chassman. The pastoral warmth of the first movement, “The Sentimental One,” gave way to the contemplative melodies of “The Quiet One” before ramping up the tempo and playfulness for the final movement, “The Jovial One.”
Daedalus cellist Thomas Kraines then invited composer Laurie San Martin up to the stage to talk briefly about the next piece, “Six Cuts,” which she workshopped with the quartet personally. Consisting largely of unconventional and harsh sounds, “Six Cuts” at times resembled the noises of everyday life, rendered by the quartet’s instruments in sharp detail.
Following the intermission, Daedalus returned with slightly more conventional fare, including Amy Beach’s “Quartet for Strings,” and ended with Mendelssohn’s “Quartet in F minor,” whose galloping final movement was a fitting show for the quartet’s mastery.
At Wednesday’s Leadership Donor Celebration, held at the middle school campus, Neil Mehta ’02 announced the establishment of The Mehta Endowment in Support of Scholarships and Entrepreneurship. This new endowment will provide financial assistance in the form of scholarships to qualified students who otherwise could not attend Harker. It also will support Harker’s business and entrepreneurship program with the creation of the Mehta Scholar Program, developing Harker’s network of student, alumni and parent entrepreneurs and investors.
A member of the first Harker upper school graduating class, Mehta said at the event that finding a way for more students to receive the unique kind of high-quality education he received at Harker has been a dream ever since he wore the cap and gown 20 years ago. “Harker changed my life in remarkable ways, and ever since I graduated, I’ve been looking for opportunities to pay it forward,” said Mehta, who is now the founder and managing director at Green Oaks Capital. “Today, I’m pleased to share that at least five students each year will be able to attend the upper school with a scholarship specifically designed to support young people of diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.”
The endowment will be established with an initial gift of $5 million, and every amount donated to the Harker capital fund as part of the donors’ 125th Anniversary Gift will be matched, up to an additional $5 million. The full transcript of Mehta’s announcement speech at the event has been provided below:
Dear Fellow Members of The Harker Community,
I won life’s lottery the day I was born. I was fortunate to grow up with remarkable parents who cared deeply about who I would become, and who provided me with a set of values and priorities that allowed me to flourish within and beyond the walls of the classroom. Harker took this luck and amplified it. Since its earliest days, Harker has had an ability to bring out the best in young people – to push them to achieve things they don’t think themselves capable of; to expand the horizons of their minds; to remind them that hard work matters, and that to whom much is given, much is also expected. All of those things were true for me.
Harker changed my life in remarkable ways, and ever since I graduated, I’ve been looking for opportunities to pay it forward. Today, I’m pleased to share that at least five students each year will be able to attend the upper school with a scholarship specifically designed to support young people of diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.
It’s no exaggeration to say that whatever personal or professional accomplishments I’ve enjoyed in my life wouldn’t have been possible without the opportunities that I was afforded at Harker. I had extraordinary teachers who challenged me intellectually. I had sports coaches who put in time and effort to shape the person I would become (and encouraged us to play on, even as a new varsity program that was sometimes hilariously overmatched). And I had exceptional peers who were by my side throughout high school, many of whom remain my closest friends even today.
As more time has passed since graduation, I’ve come to appreciate a few things. First, while raw talent is evenly distributed, the opportunity to make the most of it remains largely limited to the well-off. Too many brilliant young people never attain their greatest potential simply because their families lack the resources to give them the best shot at it. Second, education is one of the highest leverage ways to amplify opportunity. When you are able to influence someone positively, early on in their development, you can profoundly change the arc of their life. And third, Harker provides the kind of education that gives talented students a springboard to become people of consequence – not just learners, but doers. A Harker education is an investment that pays lifelong dividends.
The Harker School is an exceptional place in the truest sense of the word. At a time when many schools in California are shuttering programs that let students aim for and achieve their grandest ambitions, Harker remains an exception, cultivating talented minds and affording them the conditions to flourish. It’s a place where you succeed because of what you can do.
Nowhere is there more human potential than in the young minds of our future. Their talent and energy are more urgently needed today than ever before. I’m confident that Harker is the right steward for those minds and hopeful that the Mehta Scholarship will help open its doors to anyone who can make the most of it, regardless of their ability to pay. My aspiration is for this scholarship to change the lives of its recipients, and also for its recipients to change the face of Harker, helping build a school that represents the technicolor of our community.
If you’re a high-achieving young person with big dreams, I hope you take the time to apply, even and especially if you don’t think that you could afford a school like Harker. I’m supporting this scholarship because the greatest talents, those that can really put a dent in the world, are vanishingly rare. To miss out on your potential simply because some are born lucky and others aren’t, is a loss not just for you, but for all of us. The Mehta scholarships are a small step towards ensuring that more talented students will have the opportunity to make the most of their abilities. We can’t wait to see what you’ll do.
P.S. One person in particular deserves special gratitude for his work with me on this gift is Joe Rosenthal. Joe took a keen interest in me as an unremarkable 14 year old. When I felt like giving up, he wouldn’t let me. He encouraged me to dream big when it felt irresponsible to do so. Thank you, Joe.
Last weekend, the Harker Research Symposium welcomed attendees to the upper school campus for the first time since 2019. This annual celebration of the sciences, organized by the students of Women in STEM, invites the Harker community to view presentations and hear talks by Harker students and experts in a variety of fields, as well as get a glance at the exciting innovations on the horizon.
In her morning welcome address, science department chair and symposium founder Anita Chetty remarked that more than 60 poster presentations were being given by Harker middle and upper school students, a new record for the event. Attendees spent much of the day perusing the spaces in the athletic center and Rothschild Performing Arts Center where the presentations were being hosted.
The theme of this year’s symposium, “STEM Will Save Us,” dealt with the many ways that STEM disciplines are responding to current and upcoming challenges. Kamini Varma, VP of genetic testing solutions R&D at Thermo Fisher, was the first morning keynote speaker. Her talk, titled “The COVID-19 Diaries,” covered her experience during the COVID-19 pandemic working in molecular diagnostics. It was a project that began not long after shelter-in-place orders were enacted, which Varma described as feeling like a diary or book. “I started to put together the COVID-19 diaries actually in April of 2020, when I was asked to present a talk, she said. “I had no clue that two years later, we would still be adding new chapters.”
Artificial intelligence was a major topic at this symposium, with Helm.ai demonstrating its self-driving software outside Nichols Hall for much of the day, while Harker’s AI Club gave a presentation on ethical and unethical uses of AI in the present and beyond. Also discussing this topic was the second morning keynote speaker, Yanbing Li, senior VP of engineering at Aurora, developers of the Aurora Driver self-driving system that has vehicles in testing in the Bay Area, Pittsburgh and Dallas. “Self-driving technology has been the pursuit of our generation,” she said. “It always feels so close, but it also feels still far away.” Li’s presentation covered the ways Aurora’s technology is addressing safety concerns while also bringing self-driving technology closer to being a fully realized commercial product.
At a special alumni panel, Steven Botte ‘82, Ashley Morishige ‘07 (via Zoom), Amy Rorabaugh ‘10, Simar Bajaj ‘20, Daniza Rodriguez ‘13, Jasmine Wiese ‘20 and Allison Sommers ’21 covered important topics in diversity, equity and inclusion, including changes that must be made in corporate culture to increase diversity, how the Harker community helped and supported them in affirming their identities and what improvements the community can make for a more equitable environment. Each of the panelists were given the opportunity to talk at length about their unique experiences and how to approach conversations about race, sexuality and gender identity.
Senan Ebrahim ’08 and Hassaan Ebrahim ’11, this year’s alumni keynote speakers, gave a presentation on their journey to co-founding Hikma Health, a nonprofit that provides free health data systems to organizations providing health care to refugees. Their path included partnerships with groups around the world and engaging with their network to find people who could help build the technology. The primary goal of Hikma Health is to provide readily accessible and up-to-date information to clinicians so that they can offer refugees “the kind of personalized care that they truly deserve as compared to what we had been observing routinely on the ground,” Senan said.
Throughout the day, guests visited the exhibitor area where companies including Google, Nvidia and Microsoft demonstrated some of their products. They also made their way to the Nichols Hall rotunda, where several stations of fun activities were set up for the younger science enthusiasts in attendance.
The first afternoon keynote speaker was Hari Mix, assistant professor of environmental studies and sciences at Santa Clara University and an experienced climber with a total of five months on Mt. Everest. Mix surveyed the various environmental, social and economic changes that have been brought to the area around Mt. Everest, as well as possible solutions to the problems posed by human waste and climate change, including those that have affected the people indigenous to the area of Nepal where the mountain stands. Mix, whose current goal is to reach the summit of Mt. Everest without the assistance of supplemental oxygen, advised the students in the audience to learn to appreciate the journey. “My lesson for The Harker School students today is to really focus on the process more than the achievement or the outcome,” he said.
Speaking last for the day was Upendra Mardikar, chief security officer at Snap Finance, who advised guests on how to be “Cyber Smart,” summarizing the different types of security risks presented by the growing presence of smart devices in our daily lives. These include threats from online predators, cyberbullying and the acquisition and sale of personal information. He also discussed some proper and improper ways to respond to these risks. Despite the many threats people should be cognizant of, Mardikar advised caution, not panic. “The idea is not to scare you,” he said. “Don’t be scared, just be careful.”
Emerald Brass Quintet’s clever and loving renditions of many of its favorite works were well received by the audience at the Patil Theater at the second event of the 2021-22 Harker Concert Series season.
For the first portion of the show, the group performed the entirety of its 2020 album, “Danzon,” which featured the works of a wide range of composers reimagined and rearranged for brass instruments. Several pieces featured the accompaniment of drummer and percussionist Jim Kassis, including Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla’s lively and dramatic “Libertango,” the concert’s leadoff number.
Other pre-intermission highlights were the quintet’s rendition of Arturo Marquez’s “Danzon No. 2,” which fused styles from Mexico, Cuba and Argentina, and Maurice Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” which was arranged by Emerald Brass trombonist Chris Van Hof from Ravel’s original piano composition.
Following the intermission, the group capped off its official evening repertoire by returning to Piazzolla with its version of “Meditango,” which prominently featured the talents of each member of the group. They then offered a preview of what’s in store for their next recording, which will feature sounds from – and those inspired by – the German region of Bavaria. One of these was the popular drinking song, “Ein Prosit,” which led with the group singing the tune’s refrain.
For a brief encore, Emerald Brass performed a medley it put together as a fun experiment, which wove in melodies from famous pop songs, concluding with the hook from the Britney Spears hit “Toxic.”
The annual Kicks Against Cancer fundraiser will return in early January to benefit Camp Okizu, the nonprofit organization that provides outdoor activities and programs to families with children battling cancer. In addition to being affected by the wave of closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Camp Okizu was also impacted by the North Complex fire that ravaged Northern California in fall 2020. Last week, Camp Okizu announced plans to host both in-person and virtual activities in 2022.
For this year’s Kicks Against Cancer fundraiser, the boys and girls varsity soccer teams partnered with Chipotle, located at 1645 Saratoga Ave., Ste. 10, San Jose, raising more than $800. Customers who visited the restaurant on Monday afternoon donated a portion of the cost of their purchases by mentioning to the cashier that they were participating in the Kicks Against Cancer fundraiser. A special promo code was used for online orders. Students are selling T-shirts and baked goods during the week of Jan. 4 and on the day of the Kicks Against Cancer soccer games on Jan. 7 at Davis Field, which will start at 3 p.m. as the JV boys soccer team takes on Menlo. Girls varsity will take the field at 4:30 p.m. to face Monte Vista Christian and boys varsity will play Menlo at 6:30 p.m.
This month, Berlin-based painter and performance artist Britta Clausnitzer is Harker’s guest as first resident of the Dickinson Visual Arts Endowment, a new endowment that will support Harker’s visual arts programs and students.
On Jan. 14, Clausnitzer will take part in a collaborative performance project at the middle school campus, titled “Tiger on the Loose,” and on Jan. 19 she will appear at the upper school campus for another performance of “Tiger on the Loose,” a guest lecture at Nichols Auditorium and a special reception at the Rothschild Performing Arts Center.
In her home city of Berlin, Clausnitzer has become known for unique depictions of legendary figures from film, literature and classic art. Since 1994, her work has been showcased at exhibitions across Europe and the United States. She also works at as a curator and museum educator.
“I have always loved art and the way it moves and transforms us,” said Pam Dickinson, director of Harker’s Office of Communication, who established the new endowment. “It’s actually a gift for me to have this opportunity to give some heartfelt love to Harker’s art department and art students.”
Visual arts department chair Joshua Martinez expressed excitement at the upcoming residency and what has been made possible by the Dickinson Endowment. “This endowment will strengthen our school’s connection to the global art community by facilitating the expansion of our artist residency program,” he said.
One of the most enthusiastic crowds in Harker Concert Series history greeted drummer Jared Schonig and his quintet Friday night, kicking off the first in-person live HCS event in almost two years. The last time the Patil Theater hosted a live Harker Concert Series performance was in February of last year, when The Kronos Quartet played to a packed house.
Remarkably, Schonig and his assembled band of incredible players – saxophonist Patrick Bartley, bassist Matt Clohesy, trumpeter Michael Olmos and pianist Gary Versace – were performing as a group for the first time, though Schonig had worked with each of them individually for years. The group performed eight of Schonig’s original songs, none of which failed to impress. Naturally, Schonig began the show with a drum solo highlighting both his technique and musicality. For the remainder of the set, he was more than content to take the reins at the rhythm section while his bandmates skillfully interpreted his excellent compositions and traded solos.
The highlights were many, ranging from the alternating funk and swing of show opener “Sabotage” to the contemplative “Tig Mack” – a showcase for Versace’s crystalline piano lines – to the steady drive of “Climb,” which displayed Bartley and Olmos’ effortless virtuosity. The band closed with “White Out,” a rhythmically dizzying show of musicianship that could have easily gone off the rails were it not for the expertise and confidence of the people at the controls.
An ever-thankful Schonig, grateful for the opportunity to perform live (“It’s a wonderful thing to get to do it for people again,” he said), stuck around after the standing ovation to chat with concertgoers and sign copies of his double album, “Two Takes.”
Last week, Harker athletic coaches Ie-Chen Cheng and Theresa Smith were each named Coach of the Year for the Central Coast Section in girls golf and girls volleyball, respectively, by the National Federation of State High School Association’s Coaches Association. The two longtime coaches were recognized for the positive effects they have had on Harker athletes during the 2020-21 school year. They are now eligible to be recognized as top coaches at both the state and national levels. Congratulations to both of these amazing coaches!