On Aug. 22, the dream of opening a new science and technology center became reality as the Harker Benefactors (families making gifts of $100,000 or more) gathered together to dedicate the five centers that make up this new facility. The five Centers, named after the families who made Visionary gifts of $1,000,000 to help fund these individual Centers, are proudly named: The Jain Technology Center, The Pawlowski Chemistry Center, The Krishnamurthi Physics Center, The Madala Biology Center and The Ringold Research Center.
Over 120 guests attended the gala, which began with Askok Krishnamurthi thanking the teachers for their work with Harker students before making the inaugural swing of the Foucault pendulum in the building’s rotunda, setting it in perpetual motion and signifying the opening of the building. Guests were then invited to tour the building where teachers were happily showing their new classrooms and labs.
The 52,000-square-foot “green” center, which broke ground in May 2007, is designed to be fully LEED certified; the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green Building Rating System.
As guests were summoned to the auditorium, Christopher Nikoloff, head of school, was joined on stage by the Visionary Donors, and thanks were extended for their incredible generosity. “You all can feel really good about what you have helped make possible and this building will have a major
impact for our students, our teachers and our program,” Nikoloff said.
The Jain Technology Center was dedicated first. “Navin and Madhu Jain made the very first Visionary gift to the Cornerstones Campaign approximately nine years ago. Navin and Madhu are involved as volunteers, including serving on our Parent Technology Committee and being a member of the Board of Trustees, and it is with great joy that we dedicate the Jain Technology Center tonight,” Nikoloff said.
The Pawlowski Chemistry Center is named for Visionary Donor Brian Pawlowski, who made his gift when his son Nic was in the upper school. “Brian continues to be a mentor to our 11th grade students and we are very grateful to Brian for his early leadership in the Senior Parent Appreciation Giving
Program,” Nikoloff said, as he thanked Pawlowski and his wife, Aki Ueno.
Gordon and Tanya Ringold were among the first donors to the Cornerstones Campaign when Harker first began the expansion to a K-Gr. 12 school. During Phase III of the campaign, the Ringolds made an additional
commitment to the school, becoming Visionary Donors. The Research Center was dedicated in their honor.
Ashok Krishnamurthi and Deepa Iyengar were next to be recognized for their visionary gift. The Physics Center in the building is named in memory of Krishnamurthi’s father, who passed away a few years ago.
“Ashok has not only been a major benefactor, but he co-chaired this phase of the Capital Campaign along with John and Christine Davis,” Nikoloff noted.
The final center dedication was for the Biology Center. Nikoloff: “Srini and Durga Madala just kept getting more and more excited about what they were seeing happening as Phase III began to come together. They committed to making a gift early in this phase and they kept increasing
the amount of their gift as they became more and more excited about the benefits that it was going to provide to our students and teachers. We are grateful for their visionary commitment and for naming the Biology Center.”
Also being honored for their Visionary gift were Krish and Nina Panu. Much of the success of the record-breaking year in annual giving (bringing in $1.5 million and 80 percent parent participation) is due directly to the Panus, who joined the Madala family in a matching gift challenge that resulted in 153 families making gifts who had not donated the year before, and 418 families increasing their gifts to the campaign.
After this moving ceremony, Nikoloff turned his thanks to the Gold Circle Benefactors, Shirish and Archana Sathaye, and Marcia and Chris Riedel, Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai and Sally Anderson and presented them each with a commemorative book highlighting the process of the construction of the entire Phase III project.
Harker’s long-held commitment to environmental issues informed every decision in the current capital expansion project, and environmentally focused features have been incorporated into the design of the new science and technology center also known as Nichols Hall, which is designed to be LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
According to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Web site, “LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.” LEED certification is based on a point system recognizing performance in the aforementioned five areas. XL Construction Corporation and DES Architects + Engineers, Inc. have designed the building so that it is on target to become LEED silver certified, which ranges from 37 to 43 points.
During production, 95 percent of the construction debris generated by demolition and construction were sent to recycling facilities instead of landfills. Additionally, more than 10 percent of the materials – steel, concrete, carpet, casework – used for construction are manufactured from post-consumer and pre-consumer recycled content. Eighty percent of the steel content itself is recycled. All of the paint, adhesives, sealants, carpet and other products used are low VOC and the wood products used have low urea-formaldehyde, earning the building four points for improving the indoor environmental quality. Air quality was also monitored during construction and before occupancy. All the air handlers were cleaned and capped after each day of work to prevent dust collection and no combustion vehicles were allowed on site during construction. Once the construction was done, there was a flush out period to ensure good air quality.
Since the area where Nichols Hall stands was originally a field and no buildings were demolished for the construction of the new science center, the location selected earns the building one point under sustainable site development. Nichols Hall also earns another point for community development, because the school has pedestrian access to residential neighborhoods and shopping centers. The proximity to bus stops, availability of bike racks and locker rooms, limited parking capacity and preferred parking for carpools and low-emitting and fuel efficient vehicles encourage the community to use alternative transportation, giving the building an additional four LEED points.
The building also has bioswales, turf cell paving and a green roof that provide a storm water management system. The bioswales, located around the building and alongside the parking lot, act as a natural earthen filter for the rainwater before it goes to San Tomas Aquinos Creek on its way to the bay. The turf cell paving effectively absorbs rainwater into the ground and minimizes storm water runoff and also preserves the soil from human activity. The green roof has a two-fold purpose; while the vegetation filters rainwater particulates and reduces storm water runoff, the green roof also acts as a natural insulator, keeping the heat in the building during the winter and out during the summer. The green modules as well as the surrounding reflective white coating on the roof help minimize the heat island effect caused by solar absorption of traditional black rooftops.
Nichols Hall also uses targeted exterior lighting and low-contrast yellow lighting to reduce undesirable light and night sky pollution. The interior lighting is designed to maximize brightness throughout the building while minimizing excessive energy use. For example, the recessed lighting used in the atrium decreases glare and also lights up large areas without taking up a lot of space. XL Construction has also installed occupancy sensors in all the rooms to minimize power consumption, improving the indoor environmental quality.
The use of water efficient features allow the building to use 40 percent less water than a typical building of the same size. These features include low-flow sinks, also included in the labs, as well as dual-flush toilets and ultra-low flush urinals, which use only 0.125 gallons per flush.
Additionally, the building operates 27-33 percent more energy efficiently than a baseline building of the same size due to features like the improved air handling system, heating, lighting, photovoltaic cells and building envelope.
The building envelope includes the low-emissivity glass windows used for the atrium and rotunda and the green roof. The polycrystalline solar panels will generate more than 2.5 percent of the energy used, offsetting a significant amount of greenhouse gases. The efficient HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) system will help the building consume $30,000 less in electricity annually with the help of features like the directive/indirect evaporative cooling air handlers that use one-tenth the amount of electricity generated by regular air conditioners that use compressors. Instead of using Freons, the air conditioning system uses enhanced refrigerant made entirely of water, so no ozone-depleting chemicals are used within the building. Also, the HVAC system uses air circulated from outside and has more air changes than required by code, ensuring good air quality indoors. To increase thermal comfort, each room has individual temperature controls to maximize energy efficiency and comfort for building occupants.
Additional points will also be considered for educating the community and going above and beyond the requirements in energy efficiency. With a rolling display of the solar panel energy production as well as displays explaining all the LEED-certified features of the building, students can learn just how “green” the building is.
More than 2.5 percent of the energy used in Nichols Hall, approximately 9000 watts of electricity, comes from onsite renewable sources such as the photovoltaic cells, allowing the green building to operate 27 to 33 percent more efficiently than a baseline building of the same size. Akeena Solar, Inc., the nation’s leading solar power installer, has installed over 3000 systems nationwide and provided Harker with the 54 solar modules sitting on Nichols Hall’s roof. The poly-crystalline panels will produce about 10.3 kilowatts of energy, offsetting 165,000 pounds of carbon dioxide and 152 pounds of nitrous oxide. With Fat Spaniel Technologies’ monitoring system, the community can see the energy production data online and on display in the atrium.
The display, located outside of the Jain Technology Center, shows the current and historical production, the amount of greenhouse gases avoided by the use of this solar energy, and a technical tour of how solar electricity is generated. In addition, environmental equivalencies place the energy production into perspective and offers educational awareness by calculating the amount of homes that can be powered by the energy generated and also the amount of car emissions avoided. Fat Spaniel has provided about 2,500 monitoring and reporting systems worldwide, of which roughly 25 percent have been for schools, but only a handful of these schools have installed displays, according to Richard Eckman, director of operations at Fat Spaniel. All data is made available to teachers and students,” Eckman said. The production data “becomes a teaching aid for how solar panels work.”
Harvard professor, author and leading scholar of “Positive Psychology,” Tal Ben Shahar, Ph.D. presented a lecture titled “Learning to Be Happy: The Science of Happiness” at Nichols Hall on Oct. 16. Shahar’s appearance was part of the Common Ground Speaker Series, organized by a coalition of Bay Area schools to provide communities the opportunity to hear opinions from experts in the fields of education and parenting.
Shahar segmented his talk into four topics. The first, “Giving Ourselves Permission to be Human,” discussed how people are expected to be happy, and that happiness is equated to not having negative or painful feelings. Suppressing negative feelings, he said, also suppresses a person’s ability to have positive feelings. Feelings both positive and negative must be accepted in order to have more control and feel happier.
He then talked about how people can deal with the stress, saying that people are often stressed from trying to accomplish too much. To deal with stress, Shahar recommended taking breaks, of which there are three kinds: “micro breaks” lasting a few minutes to a few hours per day, “mezzo breaks” that include getting the right amount of sleep per night and taking the occasional day off, and “macro breaks” that consist of a week or more of time off.
Shahar championed the value of exercise, citing studies that indicate exercise could help the formation of new neurons in the brain, and improve memory and creativity. He also advocated the practice of meditation – focusing on a single thing to keep the mind from wandering, while breathing deeply and regularly. Studies have shown that “professional mediators” such as Buddhist monks are better able to deal with negative experiences.
The final part of Shahar’s lecture, “Focusing on the Positive,” dealt with how people can learn to recognize the positive aspects of their lives. He offered the idea of making a “gratitude journal” in which people would write down five things that they are grateful for each day. A podcast of Shahar’s presentation is posted on the Harker Parent Portal.
Members of Harker’s Junior State of America organization spent the afternoon of Oct. 11 getting out the vote at the Valley Fair mall in anticipation for the Nov. 4 general elections. The JSA registered a total of 42 new voters in about four hours.
The idea to hold the drive in a more public place was introduced at last year’s drive, also held at Valley Fair. “The main problem is that there aren’t enough students who meet the age requirement at a single time,” said JSA member Mahum Jamal, Gr. 12. “So we decided to expand our focus by holding the drive in a fairly public community.”
In addition to voter drives, the JSA also holds weekly meetings and miniconventions, where students have debates, discuss politics, feature guest speakers and hold an occasional workshop. On Nov. 4, the JSA held a “Pizza and Politics” event, where students enjoyed pizza while watching coverage of the general election. During commercial breaks, students discussed the ongoing events. This year, the JSA also plans to stage screenings of politically-oriented films and hold discussions afterward.
JSA stayed busy during the summer as well, holding a fundraising car wash and sending members to attend the Democratic and Republican conventions (see HN Oct. issue). For the 2007-08 school year, the Harker JSA was named Chapter of the Year for the Northern California region. Jamal said that although politics affect everyone in some way, high school students remain uninterested in the political process. “JSA attempts to bring politics to high school students in ways that students can relate to and enjoy,” she said. “We try and find a more comprehensive way for students to understand [the] U.S. today.” Jamal said she chose to get involved with the JSA because she wanted to bring information on governmental matters “to a generation soon to make the decisions of the world. As a cliché goes, we are the future leaders of America.”
Over the summer, the World Awareness Committee (WAC), which recently became Global Empowerment and Outreach (GEO), donated a grand total of $7,400 to the Aid to Children Without Parents (ACWP) charity. The money will be put toward a new school for disadvantaged children in Cambodia.
Neha Sabharwal, Gr. 12, who served as WAC co-vice president last year, said the organization chose to donate to ACWP “not only because it was like the ‘underdog’ group but also because its mission and aims are so fundamentally concrete. This program is all about making lasting, tangible solutions.”
“We were really moved by the ACWP cause,” said Niti Shah, Gr. 11, who was WAC co-vice president last year, and currently serves as vice president of GEO. The organization sprang into action after watching an NBC news special on child sex trafficking. “Many of us didn’t know that it was going on and scarring the lives of girls by the thousands.”
The ACWP purchased the future school’s property, formerly the location of a brothel. When finished, it will provide a basic education to children residing in nearby villages. “[The ACWP was] extremely grateful for the donation,” said Shah.
To raise the money, WAC held a number of events, such as visits by ACWP representatives, a benefit concert, a dance and a student auction. Throughout the year, WAC also sold buttons, T-shirts and CDs containing music made by Harker students. WAC managed to raise about $6,000 on their own, and the amount was bumped to $7,400 after a number of anonymous donations.
GEO will hold its first fundraising and education week Nov. 10-14. The theme for the week will be the hunger and extreme poverty, which is first on the list of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. GEO will also begin fundraising for Free the Children, an organization based on youth empowerment and providing alternative sources of income for individuals worldwide.
Jason Martin ’07, was mentioned in the online recap of the San Jose State University baseball team vs. Spartan Alumni game, November 2. The story noted, “Offensively, sophomore centerfielder Jason Martin reached base in all five of his plate appearances from the leadoff position, finishing 2-for-3 with two hit-by-pitches, his trademark. He also reached (base) on one of six Alumni errors, in the third inning. The San Jose native scored three times and (drove) in a pair. His final hit was a two-run triple in the big eighth inning, with Martin coming all the way around to score on a throwing miscue.” For the whole story, http://www.sjsuspartans.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=34974&SPID=2729&DB_OEM_ID=5600&ATCLID=1616526
The upper school Orchestra is going to New York! The group, led by director Chris Florio, will travel in April to compete in the National Orchestra Cup at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. The hall just completed a $100 million renovation and is considered one of the top performance halls in the country.
“I have wanted to take the orchestra to New York for a couple of years,” said Florio. “Through research, I found out about the National Orchestra Cup and decided that competing in a newly renovated space like Alice Tully Hall would be a great opportunity.”
The group had to apply and pass a review before being green-lighted for the competition, said Florio. “There are several schools entered this year that I am familiar with, and their programs are going to be very challenging to compete against,” he noted.
Although the orchestra traveled to Eastern Europe in 2005 with a score of students, and to Paris in 2006 with almost twice that number, “this will be the first orchestra competition for Harker,” said Florio. “We will be taking 68 students to perform. We have had chamber groups participate in competitions in the past but those were with only a handful of students.”
One of those 68 students will be violinist Sonya Huang, Gr. 11. She started playing at Harker eight years ago. “I started off learning under Toni Woodruff, a Bucknall strings coach at Harker,” said Huang. “About a year later, I switched to an outside private teacher, and I’m currently studying under Li Lin, a teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory.”
Huang has been in first the middle school, then the upper school orchestras since Gr. 4. She made the Eastern European tour, seeing Prague, Vienna and Budapest with the upper school Orchestra while she was still in Gr. 7 and went on the Paris tour in Gr. 9.
“I’m looking forward to attending its third-ever tour,” said Huang. “We attend the CMEA (California Music Educators’ Association) orchestra competition every year, but that is a relatively small-scale competition. I’ve never par ticipated in a large orchestra competition before, and I think that this will be a great experience for all Harker orchestra members. It’s really such an honor that Harker has been chosen to participate in the National Orchestra Cup this year.”
Huang noted it won’t be all work. “We’ve scheduled many fun activities to do in New York, ranging from watching a performance by the New York Philharmonic, to touring New York landmarks, to shopping on Fifth Avenue,” she said. Then there is the event. “It’s going to be really thrilling to play in that famous venue, as many famous orchestras and musicians have played on that very stage. I’m especially looking forward to the competition because it’s a great chance to showcase our orchestra’s talent and hard work from the entire year.
“We’ll be playing some Copland, as well as a piece I originally recommended to Mr. Florio, Smetana’s “Ma Vlast.” To me, the latter is an especially beautiful work, and I love everything about the piece, from the flowing melody in the first violin sections to the dance-like motifs later on in the piece. So performing “Ma Vlast” on stage will definitely be one of the highlights of the competition for me! Of course, it would be great to win a trophy, but regardless of whether we win any awards, I believe that we’ll all gain extremely valuable performance experience, and of course, cherished tour memories,” Huang added.
It’s early days, and the group hasn’t felt the pinch of time yet. “There hasn’t been that much added pressure,” said Huang. “Sure, we’ve had our fair share of bad rehearsals, but we’ve also had many, many successful rehearsals as well. Mr. Florio hasn’t star ted tearing out his hair yet at our intonation, so I’d say we’re on the right track!”
The orchestra will have 25 minutes to perform and Florio selected Bedrich Smetena’s “The Moldau” from “Ma Vlast” and Aaron Copland’s “Saturday Night Waltz” and “Hoe Down” from “Rodeo” for their program, and “the toughest par t is definitely in the preparation of all the pieces,” said Huang. “When working on orchestral masterworks such as the Smetana, it’s difficult, with so many members of the orchestra, to convey the single unified idea that the conductor wants. Everyone has a slightly different interpretation of the piece at first, but we try our best to match up to the conductor’s interpretation of the music. And of course, sight-reading and learning the notes is difficult when we first receive the music, but eventually, with lots of hard practice, we’ll have the pieces down.”
Florio is intent on challenging his students. “I believe that Harker students work best when they have a competitive drive (so) I am anxious to see how far we can push ourselves, and how we stack up against other groups around the country.” Watch for updates on this adventure!
Students got an early look at Nichols Hall’s multimedia room in September. When finished, the room will be used to film video presentations and record live audio.
The room currently features a large green screen that can be used to display images behind subjects being filmed. It also contains two high-definition cameras for filming at multiple angles.
Fred Triefenbach, US assistant director of instructional technology, said a wooden floor would eventually be added so that dance students can use the room to film routines. A high-end computer containing the video editing software Final Cut Pro and the industry-standard recording suite ProTools is also on its way. Drapes will be added to absorb sound and cut down on reverberation, and equipment such as high-quality microphones, boom stands and an audio board have already arrived. The room will also be fitted with a new lighting array to reduce heat production. Triefenbach is currently researching different lighting solutions to determine what will best suit the room’s needs. A window has been installed between the multimedia room and the adjacent classroom, which will serve as a control room when recording equipment arrives and is properly configured.
After providing a brief summary of his plans for the room, Triefenbach had US music teacher Susan Nace direct her ensembles Cantilena and Camerata in renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and Pierre Passereau’s “Il est bel et bon” to test out the acoustics.
Nichols Hall’s numerous green features have garnered attention from the San Jose Business Journal, which printed an article in the Oct. 3 edition of the newspaper.
The article, titled “Harker LEEDs by Design,” details some of Nichols Hall’s many environmentally-sound features and includes interviews with facilities manager Mike Bassoni and project manager Casper Wagner of XL Construction Corp.