Former Harker gridiron and swimming stalwart Cole Davis ’10, along with several of his Stanford University swim teammates, competed in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, held June 25 – July 2 in Omaha, Neb.
Although Davis did not place on the team, the experience was one he will never forget. “Olympic trials were really fun,” said Davis. “I was there for about ten days and only raced for 23 seconds, so most of the time I was a spectator, but it was cool to see such an important meet from a behind the scenes perspective. I was seated 106th going in and only 16 advance. I had a decent race, not my best, but I wasn’t expecting to make it to semi-finals, so it wasn’t a crushing disappointment.” The event had a serious wow factor: along with substantial security by U.S. Army troops, “I’ve never swam in a pool with a jumbotron above my head, cameras on the bottom, and flame throwers on the side,” said Davis.
Prior to heading off to Omaha to try out for the U.S. Olympic team, Davis and his teammates had the unique opportunity to train with former Olympic coach Dr. Genadijus Sokolovas at Harker’s Singh Aquatic Center.
In addition to working with Davis and his teammates over the course of a weekend, Sokolovas offered high-level training tips to Harker’s swimming and water polo coaches. A former professional marathon swimmer, Sokolovas has tested, evaluated and advised many U.S. swimming national and Olympic team athletes and coaches.
The private training sessions for the Stanford swimming teammates was made possible by Davis’ parents, John and Christine Davis, who, back in the fall of 2007, generously donated the funds to build the upper school’s athletic field. Christine Davis said that Cole and his friends had been staying with them since the end of school, leading to “some priceless dinner conversation.”
Following the conclusion of the trials, USA Swimming named the complete roster for the 2012 U.S. Olympic swim team. While female swimmers often peak in their teens, men usually peak in their mid- to upper-20s. So for Davis and his Stanford swimming teammates, all 20 years old, simply qualifying to compete at such a high level is an amazing feat.
This article was originally published in the summer 2012 Harker Quarterly.
Taking an advanced economics class as a Princeton freshman gave Sonya Huang ’10 the opportunity of a lifetime. Though the recession themed course, taught by acclaimed economist Alan Krueger, was an upper-class elective, Huang performed superlatively. She made such an impression that after President Obama nominated Krueger as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Krueger asked Huang to join his team as an intern at the White House.
“I really did want to experience politics,” said Huang, “so when the opportunity presented itself to work at the White House, I took it in a heartbeat.” As an intern, Huang prepared academic, policy, numerical and econometric analysis supporting the Council of Economic Advisers and the White House. The data she provided was used in speeches and internal memos, as well as highlevel policy discussions. “My work touched many areas, the most exciting of which (to me) was inequality, intergenerational mobility, and labor economics as a whole,” said Huang.
Apart from the thrill of bumping into President Obama in the halls, Huang said the internship was valuable for sparking and solidifying her interest in labor economics. Though she will be an investment banking summer analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York this summer, Huang says her time at the White House inspired her to get a Ph.D. and pursue a career as an academic economist. “I really want to experience everything firsthand so that I can weigh which path will give me the best combination of intensity, intellectual stimulation and personal fulfillment,” says Huang. “We’ll see what happens. I am confident that everything will work out in the end.” We can hardly disagree.
Upper school Latin students attended the California Junior Classical League Convention in late March and took top spots in many of the convention’s events.
In the high school level 1 events, Serena Wang, grade 9, took first place in mottoes, abbreviations and quotes, second in reading comprehension and third in grammar. Tyler Yeats, grade 11, placed first in both reading comprehension and vocabulary.
At level 2 of the high school competitions, Annirudh Ankola, grade 9, placed second for boys costume, and William Bloomquist, also grade 9, finished second and third respectively in vocabulary and sight Latin reading. Richard Gu, grade 9, had first place finishes in both reading comprehension and vocabulary, and Mary Liu, grade 10, placed second in English oratory.
Harker had seven high placements at high school level 3, all from grade 9 students, with Maya Nandakumar taking second in history and third mythology, Aadyot Bhatnagar placing second in vocabulary and earning an honorable mention in reading comprehension, Sahana Rangarajan receiving an honorable mention in derivatives and Sophia Shatas taking third in dramatic interpretation.
The high school advanced level was Harker’s most successful category, with 12 students earning high placements. Sarika Bajaj, grade 10, took first in computer photography, second in multimedia and received an honorable mention in daily life. Nik Datuashvili, grade 11, had dual first-place finishes in ancient geography and derivatives. Sophomore Kevin Duraiswamy finished first in mottoes, abbreviations and quotes, second in grammar, third in reading comprehension and received in an honorable mention in sight Latin reading. Richard Fan, grade 11, placed second in ancient geography and received an honorable mention in history. Fellow junior Pranav Sharma placed third in vocabulary and received an honorable mention in mottoes, abbreviations and quotes. Another junior, Shannon Su, tied for third in sight Latin reading and received honorable mentions in both derivatives and vocabulary. Ashvin Swaminathan, grade 11, placed high in four events, earning first place in pentathlon, second place in both vocabulary and Latin oratory and third in grammar. Other students who placed well were grade 10’s Helena Huang, who took third in mythology, Zina Jawadi, also grade 10, taking second in sight Latin reading, recent graduate Jessica Lin winning first place in daily life, sophomore Brian Tuan earning an honorable mention in reading comprehension and Eric Zhang, grade 11, finishing third in ancient geography.
Harker Certamen (quiz bowl) competitors also performed well, with the team of Nik Datuashvili, Kevin Duraiswamy, Richard Fan and Jessica Lin taking second place in the high school advanced category. Serena Wang’s open certamen team took second in the high school level 1 open certamen contest, and Pranav Sharma’s high school advanced open certamen team finished second.
Harker was the number one high school overall in the medium-sized high schools category.
This past spring, Shannon Richardson, grade 8, was the envy of her classmates as she and five of her friends enjoyed a leisurely, lovely birthday luncheon served in the gazebo at the lower school campus’ amphitheater.
The birthday lunch was a gift from her parents, Brian and Lee, who were the highest bidders on the popular auction item described as “lunch al fresco with a stellar wait staff,” purchased at last year’s Harker family picnic.
Thanks to her parents, Richardson celebrated turning 14 in style, with Harker’s top administrative echelon catering to her every dining need. Her top-notch wait staff at the event, held on a sunny March 19 afternoon, was none other than Chris Nikoloff, head of school, Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school and Cindy Ellis, middle school head. The trio, having served at this event in the past, performed their duties with professionalism and flair.
Birthday girl Richardson had the opportunity to hand-pick her special lunch menu, comprising all her favorite foods. On the menu were Caesar salad, chicken pot pies, teriyaki chicken wings, cheese pizza, fruit smoothies, chocolate chip cookies, Dr. Pepper and cupcakes.
“As always, a stellar job was done by all! The girls loved it. I’ve already had inquiries from students about how they can have lunch on the quad with such a superlative wait staff,” said Kate Murphy, middle school English teacher, who helped coordinate the event.
This October, during Harker’s upcoming picnic, the unique luncheon will once again be available for purchase as a much sought after silent auction item.
In mid April, grade 3 students left campus early for an all-day trip to Mission San Juan Bautista. The students gathered with faculty and chaperones to tour the mission grounds and get a hands-on feel for daily life back when the Spanish missions were at the height of their power in California. This included a look at a bedroom, kitchen and sitting room that reflect different periods in the mission’s life.
San Juan Bautista, the largest of the missions founded by Padre Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, also has a museum and extensive gardens. The mission was founded in the summer of 1797, and today remains not only a functioning parish, but also a fun and educational way to teach students about early California history.
Middle school Latin students took the National Latin Exam in March, and of the 52 Harker students who received awards, 18 won gold medals and four had perfect papers.
In the Introduction to Latin category, Praveen Batra, Edgar Lin, Andrew Semenza, Eric Tran, Jeffrey Ma, Derek Yen, Rahul Bhethanabotla, Justin Au, all grade 6, and Grace Park, Raymond Xu and Arnav Tandon, all grade 7, received outstanding achievement awards. Achievement awards went to grade 6 students Sanjana Avula, Joshua Broweleit, Michael Kwan, Olivia Long, Sameep Mangat, Grant Chen and Satchi Thockchom.
Grade 7 students Venkat Sankar, Austin Tuan, Aditya Dhar, Amrita Singh, Arjun Subramaniam, Alayna Richmond, James He, Albert Xu and Kshithija Mulam all won gold/summa cum laude awards in Latin I, with Sankar and Tuan each submitting perfect papers. Meanwhile, Alexis Gauba, Manan Shah, Alexander Lam, Peter Wu, Eric Pei, Karthik Sundaram, all grade 7, and Anthony Luo, grade 8, won silver/maxima cum laude awards. Winning magna cum laude were Alex Youn, grade 7, and John Jerney, grade 8. Grade 7 students Brendan Tobin, Brandon Chow and Jackson Su all won cum laude awards.
In the Latin II category, Elisabeth Siegel, Allison Wang, Rishabh Chandra, Sadhika Malladi, Gurutam Thockchom and Michael Moncton, all grade 8, won gold/summa cum laude awards, and Siegel and Wang were recognized for having perfect papers. Arjun Narayan, Grace Guan, Malvika Khanna and Kaushik Sankar, all grade 8, won silver/maxima cum laude awards, and cum laude awards were won by eighth graders Jonathan Dai and Jonathan Yu.
Earlier this year, results for the National Classical Etymology Exam were also revealed, and Sadhika Malladi and Elisabeth Siegel, grade 8, and Venkat Sankar, grade 7 all received gold awards. Rishabh Chandra, Alison Wang, both grade 8, and Nikhil Manglik and Albert Xu, both grade 7, won silver, and grade 7 students Chris Finsterbusch and Alexander Lam won bronze.
For some middle school and high school students summer is all about relaxing and having fun. To others it’s a time to get a leg up academically. At Harker, it’s an opportunity to have the best of both worlds.
By combining a morning academic program with afternoon activities, Harker’s Summer Institute (SI) gives students in grades 6-12 the chance to earn credits, learn new skills, follow their passions and have a whole lot of summer fun.
But Harker students aren’t the only ones with these options. During summer the school opens its doors to the general public, attracting local residents to its Saratoga campus, where this year’s SI runs from June 18 to Aug. 10. A total of 722 students are enrolled in the program, of which more than half are non-Harker students.
The institute’s learning program offers rigorous for-credit courses such as algebra, economics and programming, as well as non-credit opportunities for enrichment and growth like creative writing, drawing and robotics.
A range of group afternoon activities are planned for middle schoolers. And, while there are no organized happenings for high school students, they have free afternoon drop-in access to the library, pool, art room, Ping Pong table, basketball courts and study spaces. For all grades, an on-site prepared lunch is included as part of the overall program.
Some examples of featured planned group events for the middle school grades are: making sidewalk art and tiki masks in the Olympic Village (aka the orchestra room next to Rosenthal Field), having water wars and boogie board relays in the pool, playing Hawaiian handball in the gym, and going on field trips to the beach.
On one particularly gorgeous sunny day, a group of SI participants were immersed in an exciting game of street hockey out on the front blacktop. Meanwhile, another group was equally engaged in a drum-making activity on the adjacent field.
Taking a break on a bench on the sidelines, participant Daniel Liu Miller, 11, looked up as a light breeze blew the paper he was holding. Miller is not a Harker student, but learned about the program from a friend who attends the school. Now back for his second year at the institute, he said he especially looks forward to all the fun afternoon activities.
Sitting next to him, Jedwin Mok, also 11, said he had previously attended camp over at the lower school, and has now moved up the ranks for his first year as a Summer Institute participant. His favorite part of the program is the morning academics where he is studying robotics.
Meanwhile, busily building a drum by hand, Sophia Angus, a Harker student who will be entering grade 6 this fall, said this is her third year attending a summer program and her second year attending Harker as a regular student. In fact, it was her initial experience going to camp at the lower school that prompted the switch to becoming a year-round Harker student. She said the best thing about SI, and Harker, are “the incredibly supportive people,” including her coaches, teachers and friends.
Standing out on the Rosenthal Field next to Angus, SI counselor Adam Smith explained that the campers were making drum sets from scratch and would then be decorating them. His first year working as a counselor, Smith, a staff member of Harker’s regular after-school BEST program (the Bucknall/Blackford Enrichment and Supervision Team) said he is really enjoying his new summer role, and that the institute had gotten off to a great start.
Street hockey and drum-making were just a couple of many fun activities which kicked off the SI. Another was making banana lumpia with Danae McLaughlin, Harker’s executive sous chef. For this activity, the students were allowed to get a “behind the scenes” look at The Edge’s kitchen facility, where they learned to make the yummy Filipino dessert made with bananas wrapped in spring-roll-like wrappers and fried.
Their hands-on session began by creating a solution called “egg wash” with eggs and water, and dipping the wrappers into the mixture before winding them tightly around a banana. After baking and topping them off with powdered sugar, cinnamon, chocolate syrup and whipped cream — their sweet smell wafting down the hallway — each student ate several of the delicious creations.
In addition to making banana lumpia, Sukrit Arora, 12, a first year SI participant and non-Harker student who will be going into grade 8, also enjoyed another Filipino-themed activity: a traditional dance routine. “It was really fun and interesting,” said Arora, who has family and friends who go to Harker. “I also liked the free throw competition and capture the flag game.”
According to Chris Florio, director of the SI program, the wide range of choices and flexibility allows each student to design a schedule around his or her own academic needs and personal interests, giving everyone just the right mix of summer activity, learning and fun.
Although it is her first time at a Harker summer program, soon to be seventh grader Jenna Sladlu has been attending the school since kindergarten. “Yeah, I’m a Harker K-lifer,” she enthused, noting how much has enjoyed meeting new summer friends. “It’s more laid back than during the regular school year … with more activities and freedom. I’m really glad Harker made the Summer Institute and highly recommend it!”
Harker’s newest families had an opportunity to get their questions answered at the kindergarten Answer Quest, the school’s annual orientation for parents of incoming students.
The informal event, held during the evening of April 17, began with check-in and light refreshments, giving parents the opportunity to get to know one another. Then, as the quest for answers to parental questions officially began, participants were asked to travel from table to table in the gym at the Bucknall campus to chat with Harker staff. Following that came an administrative presentation and additional chance for questions and answers.
Sponsored by the Harker admission team for all grade levels, Answer Quest is an especially important first step for parents of kindergartners who are new to the Harker community and may not have other children already attending the school.
Knowing that answers to all the questions in the Answer Quest booklet handed out during the program would be made available in a special section of the parent portal on Harker’s website the day after the event, parents were relieved of any note-taking burden and instead were able to simply relax and enjoy the evening.
With the goal of working as a team in mutual commitment to each student’s success, Answer Quest enables newcomers to learn about Harker’s educational philosophy, gain an overview about curriculum and procedures and get a sense of the school’s dynamic, rich and exciting environment.
This past April, Harker hosted the first Green Teen Summit, featuring appearances by 350.org founder Bill McKibben and the co-founder of BioTour, Ethan Burke. Harker journalism students put together this video report of the event!
Indianapolis – June 18, 2012 – Harker’s middle school speech and debate team capped another strong season last Friday, earning one of only three all-around school of excellence awards at the National Junior Forensic League (NJFL) National Championships in Indianapolis, Ind. This honor recognizes the combined accomplishment of the 26 speakers and debaters from Harker who competed. While this is the first all-around award Harker has earned, the team extended their streak of being recognized as one of the five recipients of the school of excellence in debate award to three consecutive years.
Aditya Dhar, grade 7, improved another of the team’s streaks to three straight years with at least one student earning an individual national championship. Debating topics ranging from abolishing the Electoral College to passing the DREAM Act, Dhar dominated competition in congressional debate. He was joined in the final round of congress by teammate Alexander Lam, grade 7, who earned second place, as well as teammates Sophia Luo, grade 8, and Misha Tseitlin, grade 7.
Harker also enjoyed its best performance to date at nationals in policy debate by advancing all three teams it entered. The team of Steven Cao, grade 7, and Panny Shan, grade 8, advanced to semifinals (top four) before falling to the eventual champions from the Kinkaid School in Texas. Lisa Liu and Sophia Luo, both grade 8, compiled an undefeated record in preliminary competition and proceeded to quarterfinals (top eight) before falling. Joining these others was the team of Shannon Hong, grade 8, and Rahul Shukla, grade 7, who reached octafinals (top 16). This year’s policy topic focused on whether the United States should significantly increase exploration of space.
Numerous public forum debate teams advanced to elimination competition as well. The team of Sorjo Banerjee and Suraj Jagadeesh, both grade 8, advanced to quarterfinals (top eight) while the team of Kevin Chen, grade 8, and Joyce Huang, grade 7, reached octafinals (top 16). In addition to their successes in congress, Dhar and Lam joined forces to reach octafinals (top 16) in public forum. Debaters in this event discussed whether stand your ground laws are a legitimate expansion of self-defense.
The all-around school of excellence award was made possible by a breakthrough for Harker’s forensics program, as the school entered a significant number of students in the speech events for the first time. Though the middle school speech program is new, that did not stop several students from excelling at the tournament. Complementing her award in policy debate, Lisa Liu may have been the hardest working student at the tournament, advancing to semifinals (top 14) in poetry reading and quarterfinals (top 24) in dramatic interpretation of literature. Quarterfinalists in speech (top 24) included Sana Aladin, grade 7, in storytelling; Carissa Chen, grade 7, in original oratory; and Divya Rajasekharan, grade 7, in dramatic interpretation of literature.
Harker’s growing accomplishments at NJFL Nationals have occurred under the leadership of Karina Momary, the director of middle school forensics. This year the school also welcomed new assistant coach Marjorie Hazeltine, who has ably coached the fledgling group of speech competitors. The returning middle school students look forward to continuing their tradition of success next season in preparation for the 2013 NJFL Nationals in Birmingham, Ala.