The year in spirit came to a rousing finish during the final week in April, which featured a number of exciting activities and themed dress days. On Monday, students, faculty and staff crawled out of bed and headed straight to Saratoga for Pajama Day, which two years ago was dedicated to Dr. Cheryl Cavanaugh, who loved this event before she passed away from cancer last year. Students took part in a mattress racing event, in which one student rested on an air mattress, which was then carried by other students across Rosenthal Field.
The theme for Tuesday was, “Would you be my friend if I wore this every day?” and as such, outlandishly colored garb was en vogue all over the Saratoga campus. In keeping with the unusual-looking atmosphere, the day’s special event was a three-legged race.
Wednesday was “Sports Day,” which students and staff celebrated by wearing attire related to their favorite sports teams. Everyone gathered on the bleachers at Davis Field to watch the all-female Powder Puff flag football game, which the team of seniors and freshmen narrowly won by a single touchdown, 14-7.
The US saw double on Thursday’s Twin Day, which featured pairs of people in identical clothing. Students raced boats made of duct tape and cardboard at the Singh Aquatic Center, earning points not only for finishing the race but also for having the most stylish vessel.
Students wore their class colors during the final day of Spirit Week, which concluded in grandiose fashion with the final spirit rally of the year on Friday. Performances by the Harker cheerleading squad, Varsity Dance Troupe and the Harker Jazz Band kept the crowds entertained. The funniest treats, however, were the dance performances put on by each class, which featured not only students but also teachers strutting their stuff on the Davis Field turf. Classes competed in a cheer-off as well as a series of entertaining (and sometimes chaotic) relay races.
Once the activities were over with, the scores for the year were tallied, and the juniors came away the spirit winners with 47,280 points. The seniors were a close second, with 46,580 points.
Congratulations to Public Forum debaters Kelsey Hilbrich, Gr. 11 and Kaavya Gowda, Gr. 12, for their win at the National Tournament of Champions (TOC) held in May at the University of Kentucky. The TOC is considered to be one of the most prestigious tournaments in the nation. Students compete on the national circuit all year against some of the best teams in the country to earn qualifying legs to the TOC. For most students, just qualifying to the TOC is a high school dream. Once at the TOC, debaters are pitted against the best, since every team in the tournament had to make it to late eliminations at other elite national tournaments. This means that every preliminary round (there are seven) is essentially a semifinal or final round at a regular season tournament.
When the dust clears after seven preliminary rounds, the top 16 teams at the tournament are left to battle in the elimination rounds. Much like a sports tournament, the winning team in each debate advances except there is no best of three or five, it is a single elimination. Hilbrich and Gowda defeated a number of top-tier teams, round after round for three days straight. In their semifinal round, they defeated the National Debate Coaches Association champions, and in finals they went head to head with a team who had been in a number of national final rounds including the largest national high school invitation in the fall (the Glenbrooks).
The entire year for debate culminates in the three national championship title competitions, so this win was a perfect end to the school year. Carol Green, debate teacher and coach, was thrilled with the girls’ per formance and stressed the difficulty of this achievement. Green explained, “It is rare that a national championship in debate is brought to a high school considering the thousands of schools that compete for the oppor tunity each year. As a coach I can honestly say this may be one of the highlights of my career!”
Hilbrich and Gowda were presented with their trophies in late May, and they presented the school with a framed award to be displayed perpetually on campus. The girls were also featured on the front page of the National Forensics League Web site. Congratulations to both the coach and our national champions!
In other forensics news, the Harker policy team comprising juniors Arjun Mody and Adam Perelman had a good showing at the National Catholic Forensic League Grand National Tournament in Albany, N.Y. The boys went 3-2 in prelims and made it to double-octofinals (top 32) in Policy Debate. This is the first time a Harker policy team has made it to elimination rounds at Grand Nationals. Nice work!
Meanwhile, David Kastelman, Gr. 12, made it to the four th level of competition in the Lions Club Speakers Contest, an annual speech competition for high school students. The topic for this year’s contest was “Water: Will California Be Left High and Dry?” Kastelman was defeated at the four th level after defeating Jyoti Narayanswami, Gr. 11, at the third level, and Kevin Kim, Gr. 12, at the second level. Kim had previously defeated Akshay Aggarwal, Gr. 10, at the first level. “This is the first time multiple Harker students have competed against each other at the various levels and we look forward to continuing this success in future years,” said Green.
Anand Natarajan, Gr. 12, has been chosen as a member of the team that will represent the United States at the International Physics Olympiad in Mexico this summer. In April, Natarajan and classmate Vikram Nathan, Gr. 12, as well as Andrew Zhou, Gr. 11, were chosen as semifinalists to become a part of the team. Harker’s total of three semifinalists was higher than any other school in the nation.
Scheduling conflicts prevented Natarajan and Nathan from being able to attend both their Harker graduation and the Physics Olympiad training camp. Nathan, the 2009 valedictorian, stayed behind in California to speak to his fellow graduates. Natarajan made the difficult decision to attend the required training camp in Maryland in lieu of his graduation ceremony, and his hard work deservedly paid off. “The AAPT (American Association of Physics Teachers) would not let him miss a single day of the physics camp in Maryland, so he made a choice between two once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” said US physics teacher Eric Nelson.
At a special ceremony in late May, Butch Keller, US division head, presented Natarajan with his high school diploma, with family present.
Senior Daniel J. Kim has been named a 2009 Presidential Scholar, making him the third Harker Presidential Scholar since 2006. This marks the first year Harker has had two semifinalists in the Presidential Scholar selection process; Vikram Nathan, Gr. 12 was also a semifinalist.
Kim has been invited to Washington, D.C., where he and other scholars from around the country and abroad will be presented with a Presidential Scholar medallion during National Recognition Week in June.
Harker’s previous two Presidential Scholars were Senan Ebrahim ’08 and Samantha Fang ’06, who was named a Scholar of the Arts.
Each year the U.S. Department of Education names one male and one female Scholar, from each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. In addition, two students are selected from families living abroad, 15 students are chosen at large and 20 are chosen who specialize in visual and performing arts.
About 3,000 academic candidates are eligible based on evaluation of their College Board SAT or ACT Assessment scores. Students interested in joining the arts portion of the Presidential Scholar program must register for youngARTS, a program by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, which then nominates students as Presidential Scholars.
Baccalaureate, a ceremony with roots in 15th century Oxford, formally began the graduation festivities on the Thursday before the big day. In a warm and sunny quad on the US campus, music was played and speeches were spoken.
Cantilena, directed by Susan Nace, and a string ensemble, directed by Chris Florio, provided beautiful and thoughtful musical selections to set the tone. In her opening remarks, Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs, told the junior class it was time to say goodbye to the seniors and prepare to accept their new leadership role. She reminded the audience of juniors, seniors, senior parents and faculty that this was a time when we are “celebrating each and every one of you… as individuals and as a class.”
Math teacher Anthony Silk, selected by the graduates to represent the faculty, delivered a talk he based on a popular NPR radio program, “This American Life.” His theme: The Road Not Taken. His time in the Navy encouraged him to learn how to find small things that can give one a quick lift or encouragement in hard times. His venture into the rat race of software engineering taught him that, “Our lives don’t have one correct route to the cheese…don’t make your life a race.” And he urged the seniors to think about the people who helped them. “None of us get anywhere without someone else,” he remarked, adding that history teacher John Near, a frequent and accomplished Baccalaureate speaker, has been an inspiration to him.
Graduating senior Daniel Kim had the honor of addressing his class as salutatorian, a word he says he looked up in the dictionary and found to mean the speaker who “salutes” the incoming senior class. He thus directed his remarks to the juniors, telling them that appearances don’t matter, it’s the attitude that counts; to follow one’s passion, saying “what you love is what you are”; and be thankful to those who have paved your way.
As seniors departed for more class activities and juniors left with the understanding of their new role, parents and faculty mingled and talked about the students they were sending off to the next phase of their lives.
Harker teams have won two state academic team championships, the California Interscholastic Federation announced June 8. Harker’s boys tennis and baseball cumulative team GPAs, 3.7960 and 3.64 respectively, won state and section honors. Harker won five North Coast Section academic championships in 2008-09. Along with baseball and boys tennis, Harker earned top honors in boys volleyball, 3.6340; boys soccer, 3.6520; and wrestling, 3.6080. The school will receive a banner for display recognizing the accomplishment. The academic championships were initiated in 1996 to reward teams with the highest collective grade-point averages, based on an unweighted 4.0 scale. The program now encompasses 17 sports and 27 teams.
Global Empowerment and Outreach (GEO) reached unprecedented levels with its efforts during its week-long focus from April 6-10 on United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 2, Universal Primary Education. After raising over $14,000 in its fight against poverty in the fall, GEO concentrated its efforts on activism this spring. Over 200 students signed a petition created by GEO supporting Education for All, an act that aims to bolster the U.S.’s involvement in the international effort to provide all children with a quality basic education. A group of students – GEO president David Kastelman, Gr. 12 and members Shefali Netke, Gr. 11, Ariel Fishman, Gr. 11 and Katie Forsberg, Gr. 10 – met with U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren to present her with the petition.
Fishman was inspired by the trip. “I thought she was very friendly and helpful in letting us know what we could do to ensure provisions for worldwide primary education in the Foreign Relations Act,” she said. “Representative Lofgren also loved that we were high school students taking an active interest in a cause and I would encourage other students who are passionate about various issues to meet with her in order to find out what they can do to change things. She made me feel like we, a couple of high school students, really did have the power to change the world.”
“When we asked Representative Lofgren about steps Congress can take to promote universal access to education, she suggested the ongoing task of rewriting America’s Foreign Assistance Act,” said Kastelman. “The act hasn’t been reformed in decades, and it essentially governs America’s international aid, and there has been talk of incorporating the MDG’s into the act,” he explained. “She also said that if we got her another petition on this matter of reforming the Assistance act, she could hand deliver it to Howard Berman, the representative heading efforts to rewrite the act.”
A new petition was promptly constructed and was put up for signing on May 4. Over 100 Harker students had added their signatures before it was presented to Lofgren two weeks later.
Keeping with Harker tradition, senior athletes were recognized at the last home games for each sport. Congratulations to all of our senior athletes. For softball, they were Sarah Christiano, Shelby Drabman, Deniz Ilgen, Samantha Lowe, Candace Silva-Martin and Andrea Thomas; cheerleaders were Noel Duan and Samantha Ipser. Senior boys volleyball players were Matthew Gehm and Daniel Tien; baseball players were Barrett Glasauer, David Kastelman, Kevin Laymoun, Taylor Martin, Jeff Mandell, Sean Mandell and Evan Maynard. Lacrosse players were Alyssa Boyle, Jia Jun Chia, Courtney Dellar, Pratusha Erraballi, Michelle Lin, Clara Lyashevsky, Prachi Sharma, and Priya Thumma; Borys Aptekar, Brian Chao and Harry Schwartz were the tennis players. Female swimmers were Kaytee Comee, Dominique Dabija andJenna Glasa; Sabrina Paseman was our diver; the male swimmer was Andrew Chin. Golfers were Sean Doherty, Kyle Hall, Aaron Lin and Paul Paik; track and field females were Carolyn Kuo, Diana Lai, Elena Madan, Susan Wang, Amanda Wong and Christine Yu. Males for track and field were Eugene Dao, Ryan Tam and Kevin Xu. Thank you to all of our seniors for representing our school, and best of luck to you as you move on to college!
Alyssa Donovan, Gr. 12, has her research paper, “Whaling in the International Whaling Commission: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Organization’s Failures,” selected for potential publication in The Concord Review, over the next year. The Review will notify Donovan a month before publication if selected. Donovan wrote the paper for Ramsey Westgate’s International Issues and Public Policy class, and it was presented earlier this spring at the Harker Research Symposium.
The paper deals with Donovan’s perception of the need to transform the IWC’s “bureaucratic and power structure to allow for enforcement of laws, re-evaluate its policy-making strategies to fairly and accurately portray both current scientific data as well as the nation-states affected, and …extend the reach of both its enforcement and political policy to non-state as well as state actors.” Concord Review founder Will Fitzhugh thanked Donovan for what he called a very good paper.
Donovan worked with several faculty members on the piece, including librarians Lauri Vaughan and Sue Smith. Smith noted the acceptance is a historic moment in Harker history and Anita Chetty, science department chair and organizer of the Harker Research Symposium said, “This is an incredible achievement,” and suggested the paper be made available for teaching purposes.
Founded in 1987, The Concord Review is a quarterly academic journal which publishes 10 or 11 papers per issue from around the world. It only publishes about seven percent of submissions and over 10 percent published authors attend Harvard, with many others attending Princeton, Stanford and Oxford
Baccalaureate, a ceremony with roots in 15th century Oxford, formally began the graduation festivities on the Thursday before the big day. In a warm and sunny quad on the US campus, music was played and speeches were spoken.
Cantilena, directed by Susan Nace, and a string ensemble, directed by Chris Florio, provided beautiful and thoughtful musical selections to set the tone. In her opening remarks, Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs, told the junior class it was time to say goodbye to the seniors and prepare to accept their new leadership role. She reminded the audience of juniors, seniors, senior parents and faculty that this was a time when we are “celebrating each and every one of you… as individuals and as a class.”
Math teacher Anthony Silk, selected by the graduates to represent the faculty, delivered a talk he based on a popular NPR radio program, “This American Life.” His theme: The Road Not Taken. His time in the Navy encouraged him to learn how to find small things that can give one a quick lift or encouragement in hard times. His venture into the rat race of software engineering taught him that, “Our lives don’t have one correct route to the cheese…don’t make your life a race.” And he urged the seniors to think about the people who helped them. “None of us get anywhere without someone else,” he remarked, adding that history teacher John Near, a frequent and accomplished Baccalaureate speaker, has been an inspiration to him.
Graduating senior Daniel Kim had the honor of addressing his class as salutatorian, a word he says he looked up in the dictionary and found to mean the speaker who “salutes” the incoming senior class. He thus directed his remarks to the juniors, telling them that appearances don’t matter, it’s the attitude that counts; to follow one’s passion, saying “what you love is what you are”; and be thankful to those who have paved your way.
As seniors departed for more class activities and juniors left with the understanding of their new role, parents and faculty mingled and talked about the students they were sending off to the next phase of their lives.