This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Harker once again hosted the annual Harker Golf Classic at the Stanford University Golf Course, consistently rated one of the finest university courses in the world. The event, held April 14, raised $28,000 for Harker’s general endowment fund.
First-place winners were Greg Lawson, Meurig Morgan and Allen Beede. Second-place winners were Scott and Susan McNealy, and Andrea and Chris Umdenstock. Longest drive went to Erik Verbeek (men) and Susan McNealy (women). Closest to pin was achieved by Evan Barth (men) and Dorothy Scarpace (women).
After the final round, golfers were joined by spouses and guests at the McNealys’ home for a fabulous wine reception (son Maverick ’13 plays on Stanford’s nationally third-ranked golf team and just qualified for the U.S. Open). Participating wineries were Corvalle and Left Bend, as well as distributor Joseph George Fine Wines. The Stanford golf course, designed in 1930 by renowned golf course architects William Bell and George C. Thomas, is located in the foothills above the Stanford University campus. In 2009 it was rated the nation’s third-best college course by golf coaches.
After the event, the advancement department gave special thanks to the day’s presenting sponsors: Sarvajna and Seema Dwivedi, Shi An Liu and Ping Xu, Ram and Indira Reddy and social network company Wayin. Further sponsorship was provided by Big Valley Ford Lincoln, Golfsmith, Golftec, C. Denise Brodersen and Harry and Lovelee Singh.
At the end of the day, beyond enjoying a good game of golf, all the participants left secure in the knowledge they had helped raise funds for Harker’s general endowment, which will benefit generations of students to come.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
At the annual Head of School’s Circle Celebration on May 2, Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, announced that Jeff and Marieke Rothschild (Isaac, grade 12; Jackiel, grade 10) had generously made a $10 million matching gift challenge. The annual celebration honors Harker’s leadership donors, who are recognized, thanked and shown the impact of their donations.
The Rothschilds will match, dollar-for-dollar, all gifts to the capital campaign up to $10 million that meet the following criteria: 1) pledges must be made between April 21 and Oct. 12, 2014, and 2) pledge payments must be made in the years 2014, 2015 and/or 2016.
The challenge is meant to inspire all members of the Harker community to join in and make a gift to help build a much-needed theater and gymnasium. The matching gift challenge, if achieved, will allow the school to begin construction on the new events center a full year earlier than previously thought possible without a gift of this magnitude.
“Marieke and I looked at the Harker community, what the school has meant to our children; we know that this events center is not going to be here for their benefit, directly, but everything on this campus is here for a reason. It is here because the Harker community envisioned it and pulled together and made it happen, and this project will be no different,” Rothschild said at the event, surrounded on stage by performing arts and athletics students.
The Rothschilds had previously made a $1 million gift to the school to help with the purchase of the preschool campus. They decided to contribute again with a transformational gift, leading the fundraising effort for the events center because they recognize the impact the building will have on the entire Harker community. Structuring their matching gift challenge as they did – by matching the pledges and gifts made within the given time frame – will enable Harker to provide this much-needed facility to benefit the students and families one year sooner.
If the match is met and construction goes as planned, the Harker community will cut the ribbon on the events center in fall 2016. Current Harker families, as well as alumni and parents of alumni, will be able to enjoy games and productions in much more suitable facilities, improving the experience significantly. The enhanced school spirit and pride invoked by the activities that will take place in this new building is one of the most anticipated benefits.
Preparing students for college and beyond by providing academic and programmatic excellence is at the heart of the Harker mission and will continue to be the central focus of the school’s whole-mission approach. Head of School Chris Nikoloff said that the events center will have a positive impact on Harker’s century-old mission both directly, from the numerous activities and events that will take place there, and also through the ability to allow other departments to expand into spaces currently used by athletics and performing arts that will be vacated when those activities move into the new facility.
Donors who rise to the challenge and make a capital gift during the match period will be recognized as a member of the Partners’ Circle, with their name added to an inaugural plaque in the atrium of the events center. Securing the $10 million in matching gift pledges from the Harker community over the next few months is a tall order, but, as the Rothschilds said at the Head of School’s Circle Celebration, “Together we can all make this happen. The sooner, the better.”
Many parents and faculty members already have started planning their pledges and making gifts to be matched. Harker parents Alex Franz and Keiko Horiguchi (Kai, grade 7; Maya, grade 5; Nina, grade 3) stated, “We can see the strategic importance of the theater and gymnasium project for all of Harker, so we wanted to join the campaign to support this construction. Harker provides an exceptional setting where kids can unfold their potential and reach for the stars. The amazingly generous matching grant, which lets us double our contribution, led us to donate before the beginning of the next school year, and we wanted to support the best-case construction schedule so we just decided to make the donation right away.”
Those interested in learning more about the proposed events center can visit www.harker.org/eventscenter to review the “Case for Supporting the Events Center” booklet. A video featuring a virtual tour and several members of the Harker community – students, parents and teachers alike – sharing the impact they envision the new building will have on the Harker community is also available on the website, alongside Harker’s Vision Statement, which illustrates how the construction of the events center is aligned with Harker’s overall strategic plan through 2020.
Interest in making a capital pledge can be expressed by clicking the “Pledge Now” button on the events center website or by contacting Rosenthal directly at joe.rosenthal@harker.org or 408.345.9266.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Many baseball and softball teams would be blessed to have a trio of aces. Tina Bean and Aaron Bean ’85 have given Harker that many from one family. Their three children – Sarah, Nicolas and Annalyn – are all Harker students, and all pitchers. The eldest is Sarah, a junior. She is also the newest to pitching – or at least to pitching again. When Harker’s softball coaches learned before the start of the season that their expected pitcher would not be able to play, they asked Sarah to step up. “It was completely unexpected that we weren’t going to have a pitcher,” Sarah said. Luckily for the team, however, the coaches knew that Sarah had pitched a bit when she was younger.
A few months before the season began, Sarah started working with the coaches, pitching semiweekly. At practices, the team would simulate pitching in a live game to get her up to speed. “The coaches had faith in me. It has been a huge responsibility, but one that I have been willing to take on because of my love of the team and of the sport,” she said. Last year, the team had the best pitcher in the league, with the most strikeouts. Replacing her would be daunting. “This year, it was such a void that needed to be filled,” Sarah said.
Sarah, her younger brother, Nicolas, grade 9, and their younger sister, Annalyn, grade 3, have grown up with the sport. “We’ve always been a big softball and baseball family,” said Sarah. “As long as I can remember, we’ve always watched the Giants on TV, so as soon as I could start playing softball, I wanted to.” They have also grown up with tremendous encouragement from their parents. “With Dad coaching, and Mom coming to almost every game, it’s a great support base that we have,” said Nicolas. “It feels really good to have everybody out there.”
Nicolas has taken the Harker baseball team by storm. In his first year of high school, playing on the varsity team against the best players – much older players – on other teams, he had the highest batting average on the Eagles, hitting a preposterous .448, while also playing in all 25 of the team’s games and recording by far the most at-bats and plate appearances. His 39 hits and 21 runs scored led the team, as did his .713 slugging percentage.
While Nicolas is the middle child, Sarah says that when it comes to athletics, he’s a model for her. “I look up to him in sports so much,” she said. Nicolas “totally gives himself to the sport.” And, “he’s the best hitter I know.”
On the mound, Nicolas’ 29 innings pitched were fourth-most on the team, and his 31 strikeouts were second-most. That’s meant a lot to the ballclub, but nothing compared to what Sarah’s performance meant to saving the softball squad this year. She pitched 85 of the team’s 92 innings, starting 14 games. With some pitchers from the eighth grade team heading to the upper school next year, Sarah is ready to return to her favorite position: third base.
Sarah and Nicolas grew up not only rooting on for the Giants together, but also playing and working to improve together. “We have always tried to practice together and make each other better,” she said, adding that Nicolas “always complains that we use a softball when we play catch!”
The Beans also have a new pitcher on the way; Annalyn promises to be an asset for Harker one day in her own right. “She is a natural athlete,” said Sarah. “She is crazy athletic.” Sarah stopped by one of Annalyn’s pitching lessons and, shocked by the level of talent she saw, asked Annalyn to promise that she would work to one day play in college. “Even at this young age, she’s showing so much potential – bounds above where I was at that age,” says Sarah. Nicolas sees something else in Annalyn: her spirit. “Annalyn is very hardworking and just enjoys the game,” says Nicolas. “Overall, she just likes having fun out there with her friends, and that’s one of the most important parts of a sport.”
So, will Annalyn play for Harker one day?
“Yeah, for sure,” said Sarah.
Sarah is a more than effective advocate for Harker’s softball team. Though Sarah has played softball all of her life, she talks about falling in love with the sport all over again because of the team at Harker. “We are the strangest group of people ever,” she said, “but we just work for some reason.”
The closeness that she has within her own family translates to her team as well. “It’s a family thing,” she volunteered, “in that everyone on the team is like family. You get so close with the people you’re working with every day. I think that makes you appreciate them more.” For someone who knows what it is like to play the sport with the people she loves, it is a powerful sentiment and a testament to the atmosphere that the Harker coaching staff – led by Raul Rios with assistants Ray Fowler, Dan Hudkins and Rikki Martinez – has created.
“My love for softball comes from my love for the people I am playing with,” said Sarah. Harker’s softball team has given Sarah a new family, and like her actual family, it’s full of hurlers and sluggers, having a great time together. “Having fun – that’s what it’s all about for all of us,” says Nicolas. “The game is fun, and that’s why we want to go back out there.” With Sarah and Nicolas returning to their teams next year, and Annalyn surely on the way, the future looks bright for Harker’s baseball and softball teams, and for the Bean family pitchers.
This story was submitted by middle school debate teacher Karina Momary.
The middle school speech and debate team was awarded the Overall School of Excellence Award for the third year in a row at the National Speech & Debate Tournament, held in Kansas in June. The award, based on the overall success of the team, is given to the top three middle school programs in the country.
Notable achievements at the event included two National Championships. The team of Aliesa Bahri and Megan Huynh, both rising freshmen, won the National Championship in Policy Debate, debating the pros and cons of economic engagement with Mexico. Nikhil Dharmaraj, a rising eighth grader, won the National Championship in Original Oratory, presenting a 10-minute memorized speech he wrote about talent versus practice. These two wins mark the sixth and seventh National Championships earned by the middle school debate team since 2010.
Attending the tournament were 730 students from 100 schools spanning 31 states, the Northern Mariana Islands, Canada and Taiwan. Those students constituted more than 1,200 entries across 14 speech and debate events. Harker was one of the larger entries, with 29 students competing in eight events.
Middle school English teacher Marjorie Hazeltine helped the speech students prepare throughout the year. Upper school debate teachers Jenny Alme, Greg Achten and Carol Green joined the team at Nationals and helped coach the students to perform to their level of success.
This year’s Spring Orchestra Concert on April 18 brought the middle and upper schools orchestras together on stage at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater in San Jose, delighting the audience with traditional, classical and modern selections.
A trio of grade 6 groups, led by director Dave Hart, performed first. Grade 6 Winds first played the traditional Irish folk tune “Danny Boy,” followed by “Let It Go” from the 2013 Disney film “Frozen,” with both pieces arranged by the students of the ensemble.
A set by grade 6 Strings, also directed by Hart, spanned several centuries, beginning with Reinhold Gliere’s “Russian Sailor’s Dance.” The group followed this with the famous “Scarborough Fair” before finishing with a symphonic rendition of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.”
A special treat that evening was a series of performances by the middle school chamber groups. The first was an all-grade 7 ensemble comprising Christie Chen on alto saxophone, Arushee Bhoja and Connie Xu on guitar, Donna Boucher on flute and Sonal Muthal on violin. Grade 7 students Arthur Oung on cello and Tiffany Wong on harp were the second group to perform, and the grade 8 duo of Justin Au on flute and Andrew Semenza on piano played third.
The strains of Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 5” rang through the theater as the Grades 7-8 Orchestra began its set, which also included the Symphonic Suite from “The Lord of the Rings” by Howard Shore and Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings Mvt. IV.”
The Harker School Orchestra, directed by Chris Florio, fresh off of winning a Gold Award at the Chicago International Music Festival, headlined the evening, playing works from Wagner, Shostakovich and Mozart. A highlight was the West Coast premiere of Jeremy Van Buskirk’s “… such as I am you shall be,” which the orchestra played for the first time in Chicago.
When Amira Valliani ’06 recently had her photo taken with President Obama, she never expected it to become a Harker Quarterly cover shot. Now the photo has made Harker Quarterly history – marking the first time a graduate has graced the magazine’s cover.
Published four times a year, Harker Quarterly showcases some of the top news, leading programs, inspiring people and visionary plans of the greater Harker community. We mail it to current families and alumni, and post to our account at issuu.com for all to enjoy.
Valliani recently wrapped up her duties as senior adviser to the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications at the White House. During her stint there, Valliani worked on a range of foreign policy, press and public diplomacy issues. Of her photo with President Obama, she said “It was taken in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before a town hall with young people from across Southeast Asia as a part of the launch of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI), which I coordinated. My boss introduced me to the president backstage before the event started and told him I put the initiative together.”
That event was actually Valliani’s last day on the job. “So the president and I chatted for a few minutes about the initiative and my plans for after the White House,” added Valliani who previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton. In that position, she served as special assistant to the State Department’s deputy chief of staff and wrote speeches for Secretary Clinton.
When not working (or posing with the world’s most powerful politician), Valliani enjoys running. This past spring, she ran in the Boston Marathon in an effort to raise money for the Aga Khan Foundation, one of the world’s largest international development organizations. “Our team of three runners successfully raised over $60,000,” she reported.
Valliani recently packed up her apartment in Washington, D.C., and backpacked around Myanmar (Burma) with fellow alumna Mina Lee ’06. She is spending the remainder of the summer traveling throughout Southeast Asia and Europe. Come fall, she will attend graduate school at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Harker singers from the lower, middle and upper schools gathered at San Jose’s Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater on April 1 for this year’s United Voices concert. Kellie Binney-Smart led the Bucknall Choir in the night’s opening performance of W.B. Yeats’ “The Sally Gardens,” set to music by Benjamin Britten, before moving on to Bret McKenzie’s “Life’s a Happy Song” from “The Muppets.”
Dazzling performances by the middle school groups followed, with highlights including Dynamics’ rendition of Kirby Shaw’s “Happiness Is …,” led by Mary Ellen Agnew-Place; a performance of Duke Ellington and Don George’s “Hit Me With a Hot Note” by the grades 7-8 show choir Harmonics, directed by Agnew-Place and Monica Colletti; and Vivace’s version of the Phillip Phillips hit “Home,” directed by Dave Hart.
Meanwhile, upper school introductory choir Bel Canto, directed by Jennifer Sandusky, delighted the audience with a medley of Brazilian folk songs and the Susan Nace-directed intermediate vocal ensemble Camerata sang “Dirait-on” from “Les Chansons de Roses.” Female vocal group Cantilena, also directed by Nace, displayed its multicultural talents with versions of Debussy’s “Nuits d’étoiles” and “Dravidian Dithyramb” by Victor Paranjoti. Soon after, Downbeat, codirected by Sandusky and Laura Lang-Ree, showed up to bring the house down, concluding with the Jason Mraz hit “I’m Yours/Over the Rainbow.”
As has become tradition, the show ended with all of the night’s singers assembled onstage for a special closing number, singing “O Sifuni Mungu” by David Maddux.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
In April, Harker instituted a new schoolwide program that separates waste into “wet” and “dry” categories. The initiative coincides with a system rolled out by the city of San Jose and Republic Services, which manages waste for commercial users in the area.
Labeled cans have popped up on every campus, along with signs indicating what kinds of waste go in each can. “Wet” waste includes food waste and used paper goods, such as napkins, tissues and paper food trays. “Dry” waste includes drink containers, clean paper and cardboard, and noncompostable food containers.
In addition to compliance with the city of San Jose and Republic Services, this initiative will help “divert as much of our trash toward recycling as possible,” said Diana Moss, upper school Spanish teacher and a member of Harker’s Green Committee. Making this a schoolwide effort will help ensure that students graduating from one campus to the next will be familiar with Harker’s trash procedures, she added.
“This contributes in a significant way to our green efforts,” said Kate Schafer, upper school science teacher and Green Committee member. “First, we’re making it possible for Republic Services to do their job of diverting material from the landfill, but it also gives us the possibility of assessing our production of waste and reducing it in the future through various efforts such as on-site composting, reduction in use of non-recyclable containers, etc.”
It may also have some financial benefits in the longer term. “Going forward, Harker could actually reduce its output from the campus by separating our white paper from compostable paper, and we could actually start giving that to a different vendor,” said committee member and upper school science teacher Jeff Sutton. “We can start composting. If we get good at it, we could take our own food waste and compost it into compost soil and then, ultimately, save money because we won’t need as many pickups per week.”
The labeled cans were set up during spring break in classrooms and strategic spots on each campus. Green Committee members have been working to get the word out. Lower school students were informed about the rollout during educational assemblies, and on April 22 – celebrated around the world as Earth Day – faculty and staff wore green and blue to show their support of the wet/ dry program. Meanwhile, middle school students took quizzes about the wet and dry classifications during their advisories. Upper school students were informed of the new procedures at the April 14 morning school meeting with a special video and presentation. A bulletin board display in the lunch area, featuring amusing photos of costumed students, also reminds everyone of the proper way to dispose of their trash.
So far, Schafer says, the roll out has been “a big success. Across as many campuses as we are and as many trash cans as we have, [when you] try to change a system, there’s a lot of components to it, there’s a lot of facilities-level changes that need to be made, a lot of education. I think the education part of it is ongoing and will continue to be.”
“On the whole, the community has really gotten behind our efforts,” said Green Committee member Margaret Huntley, a middle school math teacher. “People are pleased to have the opportunity to divert waste from landfill, particularly through the new composting collection. In particular, many of the students returning from exchange trips to Japan and China better understand the importance of protecting our resources and environment.”
Educating the community on the importance of adhering to the new program has been and remains a priority. “We see this new system as a journey, not something with a hard deadline,” said Huntley.
“The faculty and staff have been extremely cooperative and open to the new program,” said Robyn Stone, committee member and preschool STEM specialist. “They have asked great questions and come up with systems and strategies for wet/dry reclamation in their own classrooms and offices.” Preschool students have even discovered one additional benefit of the program: “Our preschoolers enjoy sorting out their lunch and snack items into ‘green’ and ‘blue’ bins,” Stone added.
Harker’s dedication to introducing the wet/ dry system effectively and on such a large scale has already received recognition from Republic Services, which gave Harker a recycling award in May. “We’ve had really a lot of positive feedback from Republic Services,” said Schafer. “They’re just so impressed with how serious we are about wanting to do this correctly.”
The wet/dry program is just one piece of the Green Committee’s – and the school’s – continued dedication to making Harker as environmentally responsible as possible. The lower and middle schools began adopting the upper school’s policy of eliminating the use of paper cups among students, faculty and staff. “We removed all paper cups from grades 4 and 5. They need to bring their own water bottles or use the water fountains,” said lower school art teacher Gerry-louise Robinson, another committee member. “After-school time has removed [paper] cups too.”
Paper cup usage at the middle school also has been “greatly reduced,” Huntley said, and the hope is that it will be eliminated on campus in the near future. In February, the middle school’s Green Club began a program to recycle Capri Sun drink containers by using a service called TerraCycle, which collects and recycles materials that are difficult to recycle. The money generated from this effort was donated to environmental programs.
At the preschool, much of the kitchen’s food waste has been converted into food for worms and rabbits at the campus’ farm area. In addition, “The facilities crew has diligently saved all of the schoolyard green waste in a compost pile, which has been rotting nicely all year,” Stone said. “We used that compost together with compost created by our worm colony in our garden beds.”
Perhaps the biggest recent step, however, was the Green Committee’s application to get Harker certified as a Green Business by the Bay Area Green Business Program. Getting certified was originally part of a longer-term plan, but the committee made the decision to apply after it realized how much progress it had made. “At the beginning of the year, we said we wanted to apply some time in the next three years,” said Schafer. “It turned out that we were a lot closer than we realized and there’s a lot of momentum right now to make change and a lot of people are really on board with trying to accomplish this.”
In addition to improved waste management, Sutton cited other improvements such as using more efficient light bulbs, and reducing the amount of printed material by putting information online and increasing electronic communications.
Although the committee had not yet heard from the California Green Business Program at press time, Schafer pointed out that the decision to apply was itself an indicator of just how far Harker has come in its green efforts thus far. “It may indeed take us another two years to have checked off all those boxes. We’ll have to see, but it’s a huge step,” she said.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I would like to welcome members of the board of trustees, administration, faculty, staff, parents, friends and family, alumni, and the true guests of honor, the graduating Class of 2014. I have the privilege of saying a few words of farewell to our graduates each year. Like most graduation speeches, my talk takes the form of advice, like “Dare to Singletask” or “Love Like a Labrador.” Since my talk is the only remaining formality standing between you and your diplomas, I will continue the tradition of confining my remarks to one page of single-space, size twelve font. I am so confident that I can achieve this goal that I have even spelled out the number twelve. But I will make no promises about the size of my margins.
Today I turn for inspiration to the award-winning song “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen.” I know, I know, by now we all are tired of the song. My boys howl from the back seat when I play the song in the car, let down my hair, and belt out its chorus. I can do it here if you would like. But Rolling Stone Magazine calls “Let It Go” a “bona fide anthem that’s Disney’s single-biggest and best song in a generation.” Also, this year’s Oscar win for best song brings one of the writers of “Let it Go,” Robert Lopez, what the magazine calls “a rare EGOT (wins for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).” (By the way, EGOT is an unfortunate acronym; why not the more stylish TOGE or pithy GOET?)
The song is sung powerfully by Idina Menzel, or, as John Travolta mispronounced her name at the 2014 Oscars, “Adele Dazeem.” In case you didn’t know, there is now a widget that will “Travoltify” your name for free. For instance, my name Travoltified is Catherine Nicheems. “Travoltify,” unlike “selfie” and “derp,” hasn’t made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. If it does, however, it will have the unique classification of being a proper name that is also a transitive verb with only one possible direct object: another proper name. Spooky. Nonetheless, Menzel’s glorious voice makes the song so meaningful and memorable that even 2-year-olds know the words. I know you do, too.
The song and the movie have had their share of controversies. The biggest controversy is the transformation of Elsa into a slender, elegantly gowned ice diva at the moment of her liberation during this song. I will not address these controversies, but I will add one of my own: why is the male hero, an ice harvester named Kristoff, so good looking and oafishly charming? Why aren’t there any movies with stuffy administrators, like, say, heads of schools, as the heroes? Instead of Kristoff the hero could be named, well, Chris Nikoloff. I could swoop into a life or death situation, devise some policy, form a committee and save the day.
In any case, the song’s message is to, well, “let it go.” What exactly are you letting go? On one level, the song can be taken to suggest letting go of inhibitions, the past, caring what others think, or even fears. This is not unlike Buddha’s third noble truth. Buddha’s second noble truth is that we suffer because we desire, or “cling” to be exact. His third truth recommends letting go of desire, or clinging, a process called nirvana, which literally means to blow out, or “whew” as translated by Alan Watts. Buddha’s students would point out that this puts them into the paradoxical bind of desiring not to desire. Luckily there is a way out of that trap, but that is for another graduation. In any case, some of these interpretations have gotten the song into trouble, but I think there is a more precise message anyway.
For those of you who have taken psychology, you may be familiar with Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow, the unconscious part of yourself that you dare not recognize but that you eventually must integrate to become whole. Elsa’s secret power that turns everything into ice is her shadow, the part of herself that she hides to conform to society’s expectations. She sings “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.” Your 2014 baccalaureate student speaker, Efrey Noten, captured this sentiment with a quote from David Wallace: “Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.” It is Elsa’s shadow that she accepts, after years of concealing, and lets go. When she lets her shadow go, she builds a marvelous ice castle in the mountains; her shadow is finally liberated, as is her hair when she lets it down.
Acceptance and liberation aren’t enough, however; Elsa still has to integrate her shadow. Not until she allows herself to love her sister, and her complete self, does she fully integrate her shadow and use her powers for good, like creating ice skating rinks for her adoring subjects. Also, because shadow material contains all of your so-called imperfections, integrating your shadow means dropping perfectionism, too. Elsa sings, “That perfect girl is gone.” I know that good is the enemy of great, but perfect can be the enemy of good enough, and believe me, there will be plenty of times in your life when good enough will have to be, well, good enough.
In closing, all of the weaker, less desirable parts of yourself, those parts that you hide to conform, can be sources of power, of your unique expression in the world. They are the metaphorical frogs that transform into princes, or the dragons that fight for you instead of breathing fire at you. In the movie “Shrek,” remember how helpful Dragon becomes once she discovers love with Donkey? So my advice to you today is to let it go, with the “it” being that part of yourself that no one, not even you, acknowledges. Lao Tzu, the great author of the Tao Te Ching, said the following: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” You have spent 18 years becoming what you are and if you dare to let it go, you will discover just how wonderful who you are really is. Thank you.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I would like to welcome members of the board of trustees, administration, faculty, staff, parents, friends and family, alumni, and the true guests of honor, the graduating Class of 2014. I have the privilege of saying a few words of farewell to our graduates each year. Like most graduation speeches, my talk takes the form of advice, like “Dare to Singletask” or “Love Like a Labrador.” Since my talk is the only remaining formality standing between you and your diplomas, I will continue the tradition of confining my remarks to one page of single-space, size twelve font. I am so confident that I can achieve this goal that I have even spelled out the number twelve. But I will make no promises about the size of my margins.
Today I turn for inspiration to the award-winning song “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen.” I know, I know, by now we all are tired of the song. My boys howl from the back seat when I play the song in the car, let down my hair, and belt out its chorus. I can do it here if you would like. But Rolling Stone Magazine calls “Let It Go” a “bona fide anthem that’s Disney’s single-biggest and best song in a generation.” Also, this year’s Oscar win for best song brings one of the writers of “Let it Go,” Robert Lopez, what the magazine calls “a rare EGOT (wins for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).” (By the way, EGOT is an unfortunate acronym; why not the more stylish TOGE or pithy GOET?)
The song is sung powerfully by Idina Menzel, or, as John Travolta mispronounced her name at the 2014 Oscars, “Adele Dazeem.” In case you didn’t know, there is now a widget that will “Travoltify” your name for free. For instance, my name Travoltified is Catherine Nicheems. “Travoltify,” unlike “selfie” and “derp,” hasn’t made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. If it does, however, it will have the unique classification of being a proper name that is also a transitive verb with only one possible direct object: another proper name. Spooky. Nonetheless, Menzel’s glorious voice makes the song so meaningful and memorable that even 2-year-olds know the words. I know you do, too.
The song and the movie have had their share of controversies. The biggest controversy is the transformation of Elsa into a slender, elegantly gowned ice diva at the moment of her liberation during this song. I will not address these controversies, but I will add one of my own: why is the male hero, an ice harvester named Kristoff, so good looking and oafishly charming? Why aren’t there any movies with stuffy administrators, like, say, heads of schools, as the heroes? Instead of Kristoff the hero could be named, well, Chris Nikoloff. I could swoop into a life or death situation, devise some policy, form a committee and save the day.
In any case, the song’s message is to, well, “let it go.” What exactly are you letting go? On one level, the song can be taken to suggest letting go of inhibitions, the past, caring what others think, or even fears. This is not unlike Buddha’s third noble truth. Buddha’s second noble truth is that we suffer because we desire, or “cling” to be exact. His third truth recommends letting go of desire, or clinging, a process called nirvana, which literally means to blow out, or “whew” as translated by Alan Watts. Buddha’s students would point out that this puts them into the paradoxical bind of desiring not to desire. Luckily there is a way out of that trap, but that is for another graduation. In any case, some of these interpretations have gotten the song into trouble, but I think there is a more precise message anyway.
For those of you who have taken psychology, you may be familiar with Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow, the unconscious part of yourself that you dare not recognize but that you eventually must integrate to become whole. Elsa’s secret power that turns everything into ice is her shadow, the part of herself that she hides to conform to society’s expectations. She sings “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.” Your 2014 baccalaureate student speaker, Efrey Noten, captured this sentiment with a quote from David Wallace: “Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.” It is Elsa’s shadow that she accepts, after years of concealing, and lets go. When she lets her shadow go, she builds a marvelous ice castle in the mountains; her shadow is finally liberated, as is her hair when she lets it down.
Acceptance and liberation aren’t enough, however; Elsa still has to integrate her shadow. Not until she allows herself to love her sister, and her complete self, does she fully integrate her shadow and use her powers for good, like creating ice skating rinks for her adoring subjects. Also, because shadow material contains all of your so-called imperfections, integrating your shadow means dropping perfectionism, too. Elsa sings, “That perfect girl is gone.” I know that good is the enemy of great, but perfect can be the enemy of good enough, and believe me, there will be plenty of times in your life when good enough will have to be, well, good enough.
In closing, all of the weaker, less desirable parts of yourself, those parts that you hide to conform, can be sources of power, of your unique expression in the world. They are the metaphorical frogs that transform into princes, or the dragons that fight for you instead of breathing fire at you. In the movie “Shrek,” remember how helpful Dragon becomes once she discovers love with Donkey? So my advice to you today is to let it go, with the “it” being that part of yourself that no one, not even you, acknowledges. Lao Tzu, the great author of the Tao Te Ching, said the following: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” You have spent 18 years becoming what you are and if you dare to let it go, you will discover just how wonderful who you are really is. Thank you.