In early January, The Harker School alumni returned to the upper school campus to see old friends, teachers and advisors. MaryEllis Deacon, the director of alumni relations, said the alumni were also eager to “have some of the Harker food they miss.” More than 150 alumni – all college-aged – came back to the school to wander the campus again, and trade stories both about Harker days and current events in their lives. Deacon said, “Screams and hugs were exchanged from friends they haven’t seen in months or even years.” She particularly enjoyed watching the alumni talk about their favorite Harker memories, and seeing how excited they got to see their advisors and friends. “My favorite part was really getting to know the alumni, and hearing the stories they have to share,” she said.
This year, The Harker School has two students accepted into the junior high All-State Band: Cynthia Hao and Kristen Park, both grade 8. David Hart, instrumental music teacher for grades 6-8, said “Hao made it into the Concert Band while Park made the highest group, the Symphonic Band.” Having two students accepted to the All-State Band is a Harker first, as is having a student in the Symphonic Band. “It is very exciting,” Hart said.
For the last 52 years, the California Band Directors Association (CBDA) has hosted the California All-State Honor Bands. Once each year, the CBDA conducts auditions, which are held all across the state of California, and the highest caliber students from both junior high and high school are chosen to make up the All-State Honor Bands.
The Harker School has always been proud of the talent and passion of its performing arts students; and their talent certainly doesn’t stop growing after graduation. The annual Alumni Conservatory Classic allows graduates – recent or not so recent – to return and show off all they’ve learned, accomplished, and become interested in since graduation. This year marked the fourth annual such show, which was well-attended by approximately 70 alumni along with staff such as MaryEllis Deacon, the director of alumni relations, and Susan Nace, a performing arts teacher.
Performances ranged from solos, including one by Christina Li ’11 accompanied by a dancer to illustrate the piece, to groups of musicians – a string quartet opened the evening – to songs in foreign languages alumni have mastered, including an impressive piece in French. Nace conducted a group of female alumni along with current student Tina Crnko, grade 12, blending the school’s past and present talent.
Deacon enjoyed all the performances, and along with them, enjoyed seeing students catch up with each other. “Seeing them reconnect and visit with friends is one of the best parts of alumni events, I believe,” she said. The alumni, parents and staff had the opportunity to see each other after the performance, and talk about life after Harker.
Students, faculty and staff all began their participation in the Harker Influenza Project on Tuesday, wearing electronic motes around their necks which measure and record their interactions with other people around campus.
Led by Dr. Marcel Salathe at Penn State, the project will examine how viral disease spreads on a high school campus. The motes, which are activated when within nine feet of one another, record the ID of the motes they come in contact with as well as the time and length of the interaction. Stationary motes were also been placed in every room on campus so that the neck-worn motes can record where each interaction took place.
Participants will also fill out a survey in which they will identify who they came in contact with and when. One purpose of the project is to demonstrate that human memory can be unreliable as a source of information about how disease spreads. “The only tool [researchers] had in the past are these surveys, and so there’s a goal in trying to compare this new method to decades of research that’s been done solely based on this process that probably isn’t that helpful,” said Kate Schafer, upper school biology teacher.
Dr. Vicky Barclay, one of the researchers from Penn State leading the project, was impressed by the number of students she saw wearing the motes. “It’s good to see that we have so many people participating again,” she said. “It just goes to show that Harker really is interested in research.”
Students around campus, such as Aaron Bisla, grade 12, enjoyed the opportunity to help the cause of science in a simple, hassle-free manner. “I don’t really notice [the mote], actually,” he said. “I just put it underneath my jacket and just pretend that it’s another normal day.”
Two more “mote-wearing” days are planned for February.
Five student-led project teams will also be assisting with the research, working on such tasks as developing a smartphone application and measuring carbon dioxide levels in various rooms on campus. Each team consists of three to five students and is directed by a lead investigator from grade 11, since the project is expected to last until after the Class of 2012 has graduated.
Ruchi Srivastava ’08 invited upper level Certamen competitors to join in the Rice University Owl Certamen this past weekend, which included academic subject tests, as well. Read an article about the event, including comments by Srivastava, on the Rice website.
The three Harker competitors, juniors Nik Datuashvili and Richard Fan, and sophomore Kevin Duraiswamy, trounced their competition – two teams from St. Johns school in Houston – in the final round. Harker garnered 160 points to 20 and 15 for the two other teams.
In addition to the Certamen win, each Harker competitor earned top level placing in the academic tests. Duraiswamy was first in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations (Latin and Greek), Datuashvili was first in Latin Language, and Fan was second in Roman History and Life.
“Rice has a group of advanced Latin students who were top Certamen competitors in high school,” said Donald Morrison, professor of philosophy and classical studies and the faculty sponsor of the event. “They love the language and the culture and the competition so much that they organize and run this tournament for nearly 150 Houston-area secondary-school Latin students.”
The public is invited to the final rounds of Certamen, a quiz-bowl competition about all things Roman and Latin. “It’s like the final, championship round in a high school debate tournament,” Morrison said. “No other events are scheduled at that time, and all the participants gather in the auditorium to watch the best teams play.”
In mid-November, lower school teacher Jeannette Bhatia had Jan Pitcher, a local artist and author, come to her grade 3 science classes to share her Endangered Animals series, a printed series featuring endangered and extinct animals.
After talking to the class about endangered animals, a presentation that included the importance of recycling, Pitcher had the students do an art project. Following her presentation, students “each began researching an animal of their choice that lives in the United States,” said Bhatia. “Each child writes a summary about his or her animal and will later make a drawing of it. All of the written pieces and artwork are uploaded to Blurb, a website that will put all of the elements into an electronic book. Hard copies will be sent to some of our sister schools, and they will also be available for purchase.“
Pitcher’s impact on the class and their interest in endangered animals can be seen in letters students wrote to her afterwards. “You make me think about how every animal counts, and what we can do to help them,” said Andy Lee. Another student agreed, saying, “I did not realize how dangerous one plastic bag is.”
The students were excited to begin their research, partly, Bhatia thinks, because Pitcher’s presentation “was both inspiring and motivating.”
On Dec. 9, nearly 300 Harker students in grades 4-12 performed at holiday assemblies on all three campuses. Each campus’ show had its own orchestra in the opening slot, followed by dance and vocal groups from all across Harker’s expansive performing arts program. Louis Hoffman directed the lower school orchestra, with Dave Hart directing the orchestra at the middle school performance and Chris Florio at the helm of the upper school orchestra’s performance at the Saratoga campus. In between acts, students performed amusing skits to introduce the next performer.
The Bucknall Choir, directed by Jennifer Cowgill, sang “The 12 Days of Christmas” and “5 Minutes,” and was followed by Showstoppers, the middle school female dance ensemble directed by Rachelle Ellis, who performed an upbeat routine to the holiday classic “Jingle Bells.” Next, Cowgill’s upper school vocal group Bel Canto performed a rendition of “Sing We Fa La La,” and the upper school female vocal group Cantilena, directed by Susan Nace, sang “Carol of the Bells” and the Hebrew song “Shel Shoshanim.”
Other great vocal performances were provided by upper school chamber choir Camerata’s rendition of “Allons,” also directed by Nace, the middle school mixed choir Vivace singing “Danny Boy,” “Zat U Santa Claus,” by the middle school vocal group Harmonics, directed by Roxann Hagemeyer, the grade 6 choir Dynamics performing “Merry Christmas to Me,” directed by Hagemeyer and Monica Colletti, and the upper school show ensemble Downbeat performing “Hamisha Asar” and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” directed by Catherine Snider and Laura Lang-Ree.
The show also featured performances from Harker’s many talented dancers, including the Karl Kuehn-directed middle school boys dance group High Voltage, the upper school’s junior varsity and varsity dance squads, the former directed by Amalia De La Rosa and the latter by De La Rosa and Kuehn, and the lower and middle school group Dance Fusion, directed by Gail Palmer. To close the show, Harmonics, Dance Fusion, Downbeat and Dynamics all took the stage for the finale, wishing the crowd Happy Holidays in raucous fashion. At the lower school campus, the finale included all groups leading the traditional sing-a-long with a very excited young audience.
By Melinda Gonzales
Tandy Aye, parent of Emmett Chung, grade 1, put on a Chinese New Year party for Rita Stone’s homeroom in mid-January. The celebration included decorations, crafts, stories explaining the traditions of Chinese New Year and Chinese snacks including Clementines representing good luck and long life, pineapple cake and sesame crunch. The children also each received a traditional hongbao, or red envelope, containing chocolate coins and candy at the end of the party. “It was perfect, start to finish, and definitely enjoyed by all, including me!” said Stone.
Harker’s annual fashion show is nearly here and one of San Francisco’s top designers is bringing his latest fashions fresh from New York to the runway.
Of the 11 fashion designers being featured at this year’s event – a list that includes Tommy Bahama, Oakley and Eli Thomas – “the highlight might be the young San Francisco designer, Ken Chen, who’ll be providing some very edgy clothes for our senior girls to model,” said Sue Prutton, director of upper school volunteer activities and fashion show liaison. “Just two weeks before our event he will be showing at Fashion Week in New York and will be bringing his designs back for our students to wear on our runway!”
“It certainly is an exciting time for us,” Chen said. “We have had an amazing year presenting our first collection and we hope this new collection will bring about even more possibilities for us and our clients. New York Fashion Week has been a dream of ours from the start so we are pressing ourselves to make it amazing. Luckily, all the prep we’re doing for New York will also make the Harker fashion show an extravagant display as well!”
Chen believes editing a collection is one of the most crucial elements of the show, and at Harker, is looking forward to showing the highlights of the collection. Chen wants the audience to “see the range of different shapes and contours we design. We also want to convey how wearable our line is while retaining boldness and luxury.”
The collection is a combination of Chen’s interest in modern technology and architecture, and how they relate to the natural world. “This collection is an exploration of geometric, minimalist design with touches of luxury and extravagance. We continue to use cashmere/wool blends and leather for structured pieces, but now we’ve added lighter fabrics as well for fluidity and draping. These graceful moments expand our range and complement our signature structural motif,” he said.
Harker’s fashion show also allows Chen a chance to pursue another one of his passions: reaching out to the local fashion community. “We love the Bay Area,” he said. “We were very flattered and honored to be invited to such an exclusive event! We jumped on board knowing we’d have a whole new collection to show.”
The Harker School is proud of our students’ accomplishments not just in the classroom and on campus, but also off of campus, where they pursue their passions.
Avinash Nayak, grade 10, recently participated in the JUIC International Junior and Cadet Championships in table tennis, where he finished as the runner up. Players from several countries participated in the event, held in Milpitas at the India Community Center’s Table Tennis club. In the final, Nayak was down two games but came back to win the third. The fourth game was well fought, but ultimately went to his opponent, Adolfo Torres from Mexico. Stellan Bengtsson, the former World Singles Champion from Sweden, was there to award trophies to the winners.
Kudos also go out to Jerrica Liao, grade 6, who continues her consistent winning pattern in fencing. Liao traveled to Arizona in early December to compete in the Super Youth Ciruit. She placed third for Youth 12 in women’s foil, and as of mid-November, was ranked 12th in the United States, it is expected that after her high placement in Arizona, her current ranking may be higher
Finally, kudos go out to Shannon Richardson, grade 8, who was selected to participate in the Girls Future Selects High Performance Beach volleyball camp in Chula Vista in July, which will take place at the Olympic training site. The term “future Select campers” refers to players who were born from 97-99. Players must attend a high performance beach tryout, and may then attend the camp by invitation only.