Harker’s wrestling and boys varsity soccer teams earned Central Coast Section Interscholastic Federation scholastic championships this spring. Wrestling had a cumulative GPA of 3.61, while the soccer team earned a 3.65. Girls soccer was a strong runner up at 3.79, only 3/100ths of a point from the top. The awards began in 1985 and, since the inception of the high school in 1998, Harker has won numerous times.
Tags: Sports, topathleticsIn an effort to expand its presence on the Harker campus, the Harker Cum Laude Society (CLS) distributed its first issue of Reflections to all Cum Laude students, faculty and administration during the Induction Ceremony held March 24.
The CLS student publication showcases students’ works on a wide range of topics, all selected based on teachers’ recognition of academic excellence, and the first issue was dedicated to Cum Laude member and beloved teacher John Near, who passed away last September. Along with Reflections, CLS also began an inaugural lecture series as part of an initiative to become an active voice for change on campus.
An electronic version of the issue can be found on the CLS Web site.
This article originally appeared in the March 2010 Harker Quarterly.
Along with studying for history tests, meeting friends at the mall and signing up for drivers’ education classes, a trio of upper school girls have added “become agents of change” and “fight global warming” to their to-do lists.
Harker junior Olivia Zhu and sophomores Daniela Lapidous and Shreya Indukuri have already spun their interest in the environment into landing significant national awards, but continue their fights for environmental awareness and change.
In December 2009, Zhu became one of only four teens to represent the U.S. at the first Children’s Climate Forum (CCF), a precursor to the COP15, the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
While there, Zhu and an international gathering of teens wrote a lengthy declaration on climate change for presentation to world leaders. About her experience at CCF, Zhu said, “I was definitely surprised at how much the delegates from other countries were looking toward the U.S. with regard to climate change policies. While I knew that they were concerned about the state of American emissions, it was interesting to see how almost every single question they asked the moderators was about the U.S. and how many of the other delegates had really done their homework on the issue.”
Now, Zhu is channeling her efforts through San Jose District One’s Youth Advisory Council (YAC), which serves as a sounding board for city councilman Pete Constant. The YAC is the same vehicle Lapidous and Indukuri, who won a grant to install smart meters and improve energy use at Harker last fall, are using to encourage the duplication of their efforts in the Silicon Valley.
Working together, the sophomores launched www.SmartPowerEd.org, a Web site built to help teens launch energy-saving programs at their schools. The site features a survey which teens fill out on behalf of their schools.
Once the survey is completed, Lapidous and Indukuri get to work analyzing the data, which they return to students interested in making presentations to their school administrators. Lapidous and Indukuri can even direct interested schools to funding resources.
“The great thing about the program is that it requires students’ involvement and interest in energy reduction which ultimately lowers the school’s carbon footprint,” explains Indukuri. “Most schools are very enthusiastic about having a smart energy solution because the energy they conserve means saving money for the school – money that can be used for other projects.”
Zhu has been an avid supporter of her schoolmates’ work. She’s already penned two articles for “Voice 1,” a publication of YAC – one about her CCF experience and the other promoting Indukuri and Lapidous’ undertaking. Zhu reported that news of the girls’ work got rave reviews in Copenhagen.
“Daniela and Shreya’s project really impressed the delegates from around the world as an example of small scale but effective change, and their current work with the YAC is an amazing example of how powerful local action can be,” said Zhu. “The CCF’s main goal was to instigate this type of community change, and it’s great that Harker and now San Jose can be a part of that because of their work.” So far, the results are encouraging.
“One of our goals is to get smart energy moving in at least 25 schools in California by the end of this summer,” explained Lapidous, who reports that they’ve already received completed surveys from three schools: Notre Dame, Bellarmine and Westmont high schools.
“Students like Olivia, Shreya and Daniela are inspiring,” said Butch Keller, upper school head, who has been following the girls’ efforts since last summer. “Everyone at Harker is so proud of what they’ve already done to combat the effects of climate change at every level. There’s no telling what these girls will accomplish in the future!”
Maybe the girls will put off learning to drive until they’ve polished off this global warming thing.
Namrata Anand, Gr. 12, recently earned second place in the Intel Science Talent Search People’s Choice Awards. Anand was one of 40 national finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search, the winners of which were chosen by Intel and the Society of Science and the Public in March. Following the contest, an online vote was conducted at http://www.inspiredbyeducation.com/ to decide the People’s Choice winners.
Anand received a Dell Netbook for taking second place with her project, which studied the chemical composition of the Andromeda galaxy. The findings she made in the project could lead to the discovery of areas with a high likelihood of containing extraterrestrial life.
Tags: Science, topscienceNorbert Lain, classics professor at Stanford University, was the latest guest of the Harker Cum Laude Society’s Lecture Series on April 7. Lain gave a talk on the practice of textual criticism, a crucial part of the process of reconstructing ancient documents, which involves finding and correcting errors in texts by examining their surrounding context and patterns.
“Texts get garbled all the time, and no matter how often we try to fix them, they still get garbled,” he said.
One of Lain’s particular interests is the work of the ancient Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus. “Textual critics are the people who have largely brought us the text of Catullus that we now have and for the most part we know to be right,” Lain said.
Lain illustrated what textual critics do by having students examine excerpts from various texts and correcting the errors found within them, ranging from typos to missing letters to incorrectly used words. Several passages required significant examination before their real meaning was discovered.
He also showed an example of a Catullus excerpt that he corrected, as well as corrections by others that have not yet been integrated into modern texts. “The first thing I do when a poem has a textual problem in it,” Lain said, “is I recite the poem hundreds of times with the mistake in it, then I go and memorize lots of other poems from Catullus and sometimes from other people. And then I just sit there. And then suddenly, ‘Oh! This one is like that one! Ah-hah!’ End of problem.”
After taking a sip from a glass Coke bottle, he added, “After 25 years or so.”
Tags: LanguagesIn December 2009, 27 Japanese students took and passed the annual Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). Administered worldwide to evaluate and recognize language proficiency for non-native speakers, the JLPT tests vocabulary, listening, reading comprehension and grammar. Fifteen students passed level 4, the lowest skill level offered by JLPT, and 11 students passed level 3. These levels recognized the hours of work students spent learning grammar, comprehension and conversational skills.
The 28th annual Spanish Declamation Contest “Gustavo A. Bécquer” took place at Harker March 24 at the Nichols Hall auditorium. Spanish students in levels I-V as well as native speakers from 14 public and private middle and high schools were in attendance. The students needed to memorize and recite a poem by a well-known Spanish-speaking author. Contestants were judged on their poise, memorization, delivery, pronunciation and diction by current and retired Spanish teachers from other schools, in addition to guest judge Rosario Vital, the editor of the Spanish language newspaper “El Observador.” Vital was also covering the contest for the newspaper.
Harker Spanish students won as the top school overall. In Spanish I, freshmen Rahul Nalamasu and Rohan Chandra respectively took first and second. Cole Manaster, Gr. 10, took first place in Spanish II, while Roshan Daran, Gr. 9, earned third place. Sumit Minocha, Gr. 9, took second place in the Spanish III category. Sophomores Kristen Herr and Priyanka Mody won first and second place, respectively, in Spanish 4, while senior Rashmi Sharma tied for first place in Spanish V.
Of particular note, native speaker Karan Das-Grande, Gr. 9, presented a poem titled “En mis sueños,” that he wrote himself. The students were coached by Spanish teachers Isabel García, Diana Moss, Abel Olivas and Daniela Rozanes.
Masters of ceremony were Olivia Zhu, Gr. 11 and Nathaniel Edwards, Gr. 12. Entertainment at the event was provided by junior Nikhil Parthasarathy, who played flamenco guitar at the beginning of the program, and a Ballet Folklórico group from Prospect High School, who danced prior to the event on the Nichols Hall patio. While students presented their poems, a PowerPoint presentation with imagery and lines in English from each poem was displayed to help non-Spanish-speaking students understand what was being said. After the contest, Constance Richardson, foreign language department chair at the Castilleja School, wrote to say, “The organization was seamless, the atmosphere was so welcoming and the efficiency was impressive. Kudos to you!”
Tags: Languages, topacademicsAlex Han, Gr. 12 and Jacqueline Wang, Gr. 9, have been selected as two of the five delegates from the Northern California region to attend the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS), held in Bethesda, Md., from April 28 to May 2. Han also earned a $1,000 scholarship and will present at the symposium.
The two students earned the all-expenses-paid trip to Bethesda after presenting their own scientific research at the regional JSHS held at the University of Nevada, Reno from March 18-20. At the national symposium, Han and Wang will each have the opportunity to compete for military-sponsored scholarships.
Tags: Science, topscienceTo all planning to attend the Gr. 12 graduation ceremony on May 22, please be aware that the time has changed from 10 a.m. to 9 a.m. This event is not open to the public.
Tags: Featured StoryDr. Paul Melendez, director of the ethics program at the University of Arizona, made a special trip to the upper school on March 15 to meet with several students and chat with members of the Honor Council.
While meeting with the Honor Council, Melendez learned just how much academic integrity matters to the student body. “He was definitely surprised that students were so involved with both the disciplinary and integrity-promoting aspects of the process,” said Honor Council member Olivia Zhu, Gr. 11.
The Honor Council used this unique opportunity to seek advice on accomplishing its goals. “He really suggested making honor and integrity a bigger part of daily life and raising it in the students’ awareness, which is exactly what the Honor Council hopes to do,” Zhu said.
During his visit, Melendez also met with the Honor Board to examine their approach to academic honesty, and spoke to the faculty before returning to Arizona.
“I thought his visit was a huge success, as he left us with a lot to think about and really a big pat on the back for the Honor Council’s and Honor Board’s vision,” said Butch Keller, upper school division head.
Tags: Featured Story