This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Of all the remarkable milestones Harker students achieve, none is as great or as meaningful as their final rite of passage when they receive their diplomas. The pride was palpable on May 24 at the Mountain Winery as the Class of 2013 walked across the stage, collected their diplomas from Head of School Chris Nikoloff, gave a hug or handshake to Upper School Head Butch Keller, and smiled at their class dean, Jeff Draper, who read each of their names.
The weather was perfect – cool and clear; the music, provided by Harker’s chamber ensemble and all-choir Graduation Chorus, was beautiful; the speeches, perhaps among the best yet of the upper school’s 12 graduations.
Ashvin Swaminathan represented his class as valedictorian, and his speech found a perfect balance between honoring the past and preparing for the future. His first words remembered those who are gone: “Let us not forget how blessed we are to have had our lives touched by the love and friendship of” Jackie Wang ’13, teachers John Near and Sharron Mittelstet, counselor Sandy Padgett and school founder Howard Nichols.
He spoke of his own sickly childhood and his mother’s successful struggle with cancer and posed the question, “By what means did every one of us manage to triumph over our tribulations?” The answer? “Our parents,” who were “iron girders” of support. Introducing his theme of “Let us vow,” Swaminathan adjured his classmates, “Let us vow to continue to treat our parents as our heroes,” to honor them, make them proud and not neglect them “at any time.”
He asked his peers to vow to “never compromise on the value system that our teachers have established for us” in the face of all the temptations to come, and said, “Let us vow to share our leftover resources with those who are not as fortunate as we are.”
The teachers who had led Swaminathan and his classmates on what he called a “beautiful scholastic safari” were on their feet moments after his talk concluded, to be joined almost immediately by his classmates.
Keynote speaker Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, an organization dedicated to volunteerism which has nurtured projects resulting in the gifting of millions of dollars of services, including website creation and pay-it-forward restaurants, at which a person eats for free but pays for the meal of the next customer who comes in to dine. He has devoted his entire adult life to the pursuit of giving.
Mehta’s engaging speech was a rallying cry to fix what is “at the core of all of today’s most pressing challenges: … we have become profoundly disconnected …. We have forgotten how to rescue each other.” He says humans are wired to give and to help each other, and asked, “Will you, Class of 2013, step up to rebuild a culture of trust, empathy and compassion?”
There are three keys to living a life of giving, Mehta said. The first is to give, no strings attached. The second is to receive: “When you give externally, you receive internally.” His third key is to dance. “Our biggest problem with giving and receiving is that we try and track it. And when we do that, we lose the beat.”
He closed with this final thought: “Harker Class of 2013, may you all find greatness in service to life. May you all give, receive – and never, ever stop dancing.” Nikoloff also had an opportunity to offer some words of wisdom to the class, which he did in a lighthearted talk titled “Love like a Labrador,” meaning unconditionally and with joy. (See full text here.)
Then diplomas were bestowed, doves were released and tassels were switched from right to left; the graduates processed out of the amphitheater and walked through a tunnel formed by their teachers, who gave a final round of applause as Harker’s newest members of the alumni family were fondly sent on their way.
Choosing the right career path is often foremost on the minds of students in the upper grades of high school. With college just around the corner, older students begin to think more seriously about what they want to do in college … and beyond.
In an effort to help provide information about future college majors and career options, The Harker School Mentoring Program brings upper school students together with adult mentors. One highly successful and important feature of the mentoring program is its career panel luncheons.
Held throughout the school year, the panels offer guest mentors an opportunity to speak about their chosen professions to interested students. Mentors come from diverse professional backgrounds, yet they share strong connections with the school community, usually as parents or alumni. It is this shared dedication to education at Harker that provides a common ground for discourse.
The panels are organized by Jennifer Hargreaves, director of middle and upper school volunteer programs. “We are very grateful to all the parents and friends of Harker for their participation on a career panel,” said Hargreaves.
Below is a list of those who have generously dedicated their time to the project:
Doctors:
Dr. Stacey Law – orthodontist in private practice and adjunct clinical faculty with the Craniofacial Anomolies Clinic at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital
Dr. Surendra Gudapati –interventional cardiologist in private practice, El Camino Hospital
Dr. John Siegel –general and trauma surgeon at Valley Medical Center, a level one trauma center
Engineers:
Gautham Nadathur –architect, embedded platforms, Apple
Maria Gong –lead recruiter software engineer,Google
Rajiv Batra –founder and SVP of engineering, Palo Alto Networks
Business and Entrepreneurs:
Jack Jia,founder (Trusper, Interwoven, Baynote, V-max), CEO, angel investor
Joe Schneider,CEO of Lacrosse Footwear
Biotech:
Dr. Yalia Jayalakshmi,co-founder & VP, Product Dev, StemPar Sciences (past: Johnson & Johnson, Alza, Genentech, Cygnus)
Dr. Olga Issakova,executive vice president, Nanosyn, Inc.
A red-carpet gala affair capped off a fantastic year in performing arts for many of the cast and crew of Harker’s recent spring musical, “Oklahoma!”
During the June 3 evening event the Harker Conservatory students and educators were honored for a very respectable eight nominations and announced as winners in the sound and choreography categories at the Bay Area High School Musical Theatre: Stage Top Honor Awards.
Held at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose, the gala ceremony featured performances from Harker and all the nominated high schools. Sponsored by the San Jose Stage Company, the prestigious awards program encourages and rewards exceptional accomplishments in the production of high school musical theater across the Bay Area.
Harker’s production of “Oklahoma!,” directed by Laura Lang-Ree, performing arts chair K-12, was among those that stood out from the 19 private and public high school musicals who competed in the awards, which are modeled after Broadway’s Tony Awards.
Among the awards that Harker was nominated for at the recognition event were: overall production, chorus, student achievement in technical theater (Simon Orr, grade 12, stage manager), best supporting actor (Justin Gerard, grade 12), best supporting actress (Shenel Ekici, grade 11), and musical direction (Catherine Snider). The school walked away with top honors for choreography (Katie O’Bryon, specialist) and sound design (Brian Larsen, faculty, and Nicholas Semenza, grade 11).
Lang-Ree said she is “thrilled” with both the nominations and awards. “It’s so great that Brian is recognized for making the very best sound experience in a very difficult space. He does a great job.”
“It’s nice to be singled out for something that you’re passionate about,” said Larsen. “I view our work as collaborative, a true team effort, so recognition of my work is lovely, but I think it reflects on the production as a whole: the choral work of the performers, the amazing musicians in the band – it’s another really strong production in a series of strong productions.”
“Nicky’s work as a sound engineer cannot be complimented strongly enough,” Larsen continued. “He grew into the show, along with the show, and got better and more confident as the run progressed. For me, that’s the greatest part of producing theater in high school: you get to watch first-hand as students gain the skills and confidence to do it themselves.”
Lang-Ree added, “It’s a very special honor to be one of only six shows (out of 19) nominated for best show, and it makes the evening so much fun when we get to perform on that beautiful stage. Performing in front of your peers is an awesome experience. The six casts and production teams were so supportive of each other’s work, and it was rewarding to hear all the positive feedback on our performance from a group of our peers.”
Lang-Ree also expressed her appreciation for choreographer O’Bryon, saying, “To all of us, Katie is part of the Harker family and has been so for over five years. We are so lucky that Harker is the only school where she works as a choreographer as her ‘day job’ as director of Peninsula Youth Theatre keeps her very busy. She is so talented and so much fun to collaborate with, and she brings out the best in our students, no matter what their skill level.”
Judges comprising theater professionals, performing artists, designers and theater arts educators evaluated the various schools’ productions and made their nominations in categories of acting, design, direction, musical direction, choreography, technical production and overall production excellence.
Congratulations to the cast and crew of “Oklahoma!” for a great end-of-the-year musical and a host of nominations and wins at the Top Honor Awards!
A two-part show on May 3, titled “In Concert,” brought together all of the upper school vocal groups to ring in the summer and bid farewell to the graduating seniors and honor them for their dedication to Harker’s performing arts programs.
The first portion of the show was dedicated primarily to songs hailing from Great Britain and the countries that were part of its once-massive empire. The upper school’s all-female chamber group Cantilena teamed up with Camerata, the mixed chamber choir, for Stephen Leek’s “Kungala (Australia),” the first song of the show. Other great selections included Camerata’s performance of “Shoot False Love” by Thomas Morley, the Monty Python classic “Brave Sir Robin” sung by the ever-popular boys a cappella group Guys’ Gig and a solo performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Silent Noon” by baritone Stephan Pellissier, grade 11. Cantilena closed the first portion of the show with their rendition of the Sting hit “Fields of Gold.”
Bel Canto kicked off the second part of the show with a pair of African folk songs and medley of songs from Leonard Bernstein’s beloved score from “West Side Story.”
Upper school show choir Downbeat concluded the concert, singing a variety of pop standards, including the poignant a cappella song by Billy Joel, “And So It Goes,” and Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” the group’s now-traditional closer. They also recreated their fashion show hit, “Wings,” to the clear delight of the audience.
Track and field continued their strong season this past Saturday at the league championships as both the boys and the girls teams placed third in the team standings. Claudia Tischler, grade 11, won the 1,600m after leading the entire race, then came from behind in the 800m to claim her second championship of the day. Isabelle Connell, grade 12, won the 100m in 12.24, then placed second in the 200m, setting a new Harker record in that race with a 24.85. Sumit Minocha, grade 12, roared back from sixth place all the way to second place in the final half of the 100m, finishing with 11.15. Again in the 200m, he stormed back, breaking his own meet record and cracking the 22.00 barrier with a 21.76. Corey Gonzalez, grade 10, won the 1,600m field, starting out with two 70-second laps then pulling away from the field with a 65-second lap and finally blazing a 63-second lap to win the title with a 4:29.79. He also led the entire 3,200m race from start to finish, setting a new meet record with a 9:50.37.
In 4×400 relay action, Tischler led off the race with a 62-second 1,600m relay, then handed off to Nadia Palte, grade 9, for a 66-second run and Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 12, for a 63-second lap before Connell charged forward with an unbelievable 57-second lap, sending the Eagles from fourth place all the way to first with a new school record of 4:10.10.
Julia Wang, grade 10, set a personal record in the discus with an 80’9″, giving her third place. Michael Chen, grade 12, placed second in the discus with a 124’7″ and sixth in the shot put. Matt Giammona, grade 12, placed third in shot put with a personal record of 41’1″ and wound up in sixth place in the discus.
Connell, Minocha, Gonzales, Chen and Tischler all qualified for next week’s CCS championships, as did the girls 1,600m relay team. Seven Eagles are moving on!
Swimming
Congratulations to all our swimmers and divers on a terrific season!
This weekend, Craig Neubieser, grade 10, set a personal record in the 100m butterfly, bumping up his CCS ranking from 52nd to 45th. Aaron Huang, grade 10, finished 17th out of 56 swimmers in both the 200m individual medley and the 100m breaststroke. On the girls’ side, Manon Audebert, grade 11, finished 14th overall in the 200m freestyle with a time of 1:57.16 and 13th overall in the 100m freestyle with a season-best time of 53.81. Angela Huang, grade 9, finished 15th in the 50m freestyle with a time of 25.26. The girls’ 400m freestyle relay team of Huang, Audebert, Kimmy Ma, grade 11, and Anika Mohindra, grade 9, finished 15th overall with a season-best time of 3:43.23.
Baseball
The boys closed down their season last week with a 7-1 loss to Menlo. Seniors Kevin Cali and Jacob Hoffman and sophomores David Lin and Ayush Midha all recorded hits in the final game. The boys end their year at 9-15-1 overall.
Softball
In playoffs, Harker drew the #11 seed which pitted them against sixth-seeded Aptos High last night, where they went head to head at Aptos in a very tough game. Harker led the game 2-1 until the sixth inning when Aptos pulled into the lead capitalizing on a hit and an error to take the lead and win, 3-2. Aptos is a Division II team, versus Harker’s Division III status, and each team had seven strikeouts; there were a total of five hits between both teams for the entire game (three were by Aptos). Coach Raul Rios noted that Aptos players repeatedly congratulated Harker players on a tough game, and our girls ended the season heads held high. Congrats on a great season!
Volleyball
The boys volleyball season came to a close this week in the CCS quarterfinals at Leigh High School. The Eagles fell to the Longhorns 25-27, 22-25, 24-26 to finish the season at 17-15 overall. Thank you to the supportive crowd!
Forbes published an article in mid-May on entrepreneurship in higher education. The author talked to entrepreneurial students at some of the top universities in the country – and to one from Harker, Sameer Vij, grade 11. Read on! http://onforb.es/15MVsme. Harker’s own entrepreneur program is coming on line in August. Here are some useful links:
The Harker School will hold a memorial in honor of Sandy Padgett, original member of the upper school faculty and founding director of Harker’s college counseling program, who passed away April 22. The celebration of Padgett’s life will be Thurs., May 30, 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the quad at the upper school campus.
Guests will be able to peruse some of the wonderful comments her former students have sent in and honor her invaluable contributions to Harker and to the lives of so many students. There will be a few formal remarks and guests can share memories from 4-5 p.m.
The school is creating a book of messages to give to the family after the event. To have a message included, email it to Nicole Hall at nicoleh@harker.org.
Padgett’s family has requested that in lieu of flowers, please send all donations to The Sandy Padgett Memorial Endowed Scholarship Fund, established in her memory. Checks can be mailed to the Sandy Padgett Memorial Fund, Harker Advancement, 500 Saratoga Ave., San Jose, CA 95129. Please note “Sandy Padgett Memorial Fund” in the check’s memo line.
So that we can prepare adequate refreshments, please RSVP to Nicole Hall at nicoleh@harker.org by May 24 if you plan to attend.
This has been a sad and tragic loss for the Harker community. The school continues to provide support to the students and staff, and we hope the outpouring from our community about Sandy Padgett’s impact in their lives is a comfort to her family.
Huge news out of Harker softball this week! In the bottom of the seventh and final inning of a 1-1 tie game against King’s Academy with two outs and the league championship on the line, freshman Tong Wu singled to knock in sophomore Briana Liang from second base, delivering Harker a walk-off victory and our first-ever league championship!
Liang set up the scoring rally with a double after King’s Academy had retired Harker’s first two hitters. When Wu’s hit brought Liang around to score, the home crowd went wild. Harker has one more league game this week, then awaits its CCS opponent the following week.
Congratulations to all of Harker’s softball players: Ashley Del Alto, Alison Rugar, both grade 12; Alana Shamlou, Laura Thacker, Nithya Vemireddy, all grade 11; Sarah Bean, Vivian Isenberg, Briana Liang, Nitya Mani, Sonali Netke, Michaela Vachev, Serena Wang, all grade 10; Marita Del Alto, Alisa Wakita, Tong Wu, all grade 9. And a big congratulations to all of Harker’s coaches: Raul Rios, Dan Hudkins, Ray Fowler and Kacie Kaneyuki.
Volleyball
Boys volleyball will return to the CCS tournament as the #6 seed in Division 2. The boys host a first-round match-up on Tuesday against Valley Christian at Blackford. For CCS tournament games, tickets are $8 for adults and $3 for students with IDs. Come support the team!
Exciting note! Harker freshman Shannon Richardson, who plays for Harker’s girls volleyball team, and her partner Chanti Holroyd, placed first in the Huntington Beach Volleyball Tournament May 5, in the 16U division! With the win, the two qualified to compete in the AAU Junior Olympic Games this July in Southern California, as well as the AAU’s Best of the Beach Tournament this August. Good luck to her!
Golf
The boys play at the CCS tournament today in Carmel.
Baseball
The boys play their Senior Day this Wednesday at Blackford at 4 p.m. against Sacred Heart Prep. Congratulations to this year’s seniors.
Swimming
CCS swimmers compete this Friday and Saturday at the Santa Clara International Swim Center.
The Harker chapter of the Spanish National Honor Society (known in Spanish as La Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica, Capítulo Isabel Allende) took a trip to the local Mexican eatery Mexico Lindo on April 10 to induct the new Spanish NHS members. The group enjoyed a delicious buffet, after which the new members received certificates for their induction, which was followed by a recitation of the Spanish NHS oath.
Students must be enrolled in honors or advanced placement Spanish and receive at least an A- in their classes the previous semester, as well as finish three semesters of high school-level Spanish, in order to qualify for induction into the Spanish NHS.
This year’s inductees are: Manon Audebert, Juergen Buchsteiner and Ariana Shulman, all grade 11; Stacey Chao, Nathan Dalal, Shreya Dixit, Riya Godbole, Corey Gonzales, Juhi Gupta, Matthew Huang, Vivian Isenberg, Rahul Jayaraman, Andrew Jin, Allison Kiang, Daniela Lee, David Lin, Cindy Liu, Samantha Madala, Juhi Muthal, Nicholas Nguyen, Sachin Peddada, Archana Podury, Karnika Pombra, Apoorva Rangan, Sindhu Ravuri, Nikhil Reddy, Anokhi Saklecha, Vedant Thyagaraj, Helen Wu, Menghua Wu and Samyukta Yagati, all grade 10.
Alex Pei, grade 11, and Lawrence Li, grade 9, are two of only 24 finalists in the 2013 USA Computing Olympiad (USACO). The pair will now attend training camp at Clemson University, May 23 – June 1, hoping to qualify for the final team that the United States will send to the International Olympiad in Infomatics (IOI) in Brisbane, Australia.
The USACO (usaco.org) is one of a small number of national high-school Olympiads in mathematics and the sciences that are tasked with identifying and training the very best students in the country in their respective disciplines. Harker has finalists in various Olympiads each year, but having two in the same discipline is unusual.
During the academic year, the USACO hosts a series of challenging on-line programming contests – many of these are notoriously difficult, since they require high proficiency in both programming and algorithmic problem-solving, said Brian Dean, director of the USA Computing Olympiad and associate professor of computer science, Clemson University. “My graduate students usually cannot solve the problems in these contests,” he added.
“Based on their performance on these contests, Alex and Lawrence were selected as part of a group of 24 finalists – the very best in the USA – to attend a rigorous academic summer training camp where they have the opportunity to learn advanced concepts and hear about cutting-edge challenges in modern computer science,” said Dean. “This camp is a unique and unforgettable experience, and helps to bring participants to the point where they are truly world-class in terms of their talent. Many of our alums have gone on to make impressive contributions in academia and industry, and the most highly-selective universities know well that our finalists are indeed the best in the world as prospective applicants.
“Selection as a finalist in any Olympiad is one of the most significant honors a high-school student can earn in any discipline of study. The fact that the Harker School has two USACO finalists this year speaks volumes about the quality of your computing programs, and reflects very highly upon your school. As director of the USACO, I’m looking forward to working with Alex and Lawrence in a few weeks when they attend our summer program,” said Dean.