Late last month, storyteller and frequent Harker guest Jim Cogan made an appearance at the lower school, regaling the students with his upbeat and animated performance style. Cogan told stories at two separate assemblies, one for students in grades K-3 and another for grades 4 and 5. As in years past, several of the tales he shared were from Native American and African cultures, including the Inuit yarn of a boy whose selfishness leads his community to go hungry, and a story from Ghana about a girl who teaches her adoptive family about the importance of compassion.
As always, the audience of students and faculty greatly enjoyed the performances and tales of kindness. “Jim is fantastic at tailoring his stories to the character trait that is the emphasis for all the students,” said lower school librarian Kathy Clark.
The Harker chapter of the National Honor Society inducted a record 50 new members on Oct. 6 during a ceremony held at Nichols Hall auditorium.
“We believe that these (and all) NHS members represent the highest ideals of Harker – avid scholarship, impeccable character, strong leadership and a proven dedication to serving others,” said biology teacher Mike Pistacchi, who serves as Harker’s NHS moderator.
Founded in 1921, the National Honor Society recognizes high school students who demonstrate excellence in a variety of areas, including scholarship, student leadership and service.
This year’s NHS inductees are:
Joyce Zhao, grade 12; Akhil Arun, Anika Banga, Richa Bhattacharya, Rahul Bhethanabotla, Shreyas Chandrashekaran, Jerry Chen, Adrian Chu, Aria Coalson, Shaan Gagneja, Megan Huynh, Anamika Kannan, Linus Li, Millie Lin, Sameep Mangat, Rahul Mehta and Tanvi Singh, all grade 11; and Raymond Banke, Logan Bhamidipaty, Alycia Cary, Timothy Chang, Nicole Chen, Esha Deokar, Rose Guan, Constance Horng, Shafieen Ibrahim, Hannah Lak, Taylor Lam, Enya Lu, Ihita Mandal, Sonal Muthal, Rithvik Panchapakesan, Ayush Pancholy, Brian Park, Ashwin Rammohan, Nishant Ravi, Ashwin Reddy, Anjay Saklecha, Ruhi Sayana, Kelly Shen, Kaushik Shivakumar, Neha Tallapragada, Katherine Tian, Alyson Wang, Cindy Wang, Richard Wang, Shania Wang, Kelsey Wu, Stephanie Xiao and Connie Xu, all grade 10.
Late last month, several middle school Latin students went to work at the campus’ new innovation lab, creating clothing similar to that worn in ancient Rome. Started by Scott Kley-Contini, director of learning, innovation and design at the middle school, the innovation lab provides students and teachers with a large selection of tools and resources for creative projects, “from crafting supplies to 3-D printers,” said Lisa Masoni, middle school Latin teacher. “Using the lab gave them a wealth of resources to produce some item of Roman clothing, either full-size or small, to increase their understanding of this cultural topic.”
In September, Raji Swaminathan’s grade 7 science students used the innovation lab’s resources to craft paper airplanes.
Sanjana Baldwa ’12 is working with a fascinating startup, Go Jane Go, which is developing an app to connect female road warriors in real-time. The company’s motto is “Business women embracing the experience of #TravelingWhileFemale.” Via in-app messaging, women can “connect with each other for activities to make solo business travel a lot more safe, fun and easy,” according to the company’s website, http://www.gojanego.co. Baldwa, who graduated from Carnegie Mellon University this year, where she studied psychology, human-computer interaction and communication design, will be concentrating on her forte, user experience. The website already has garnered some great blog posts by traveling women, and we wish Baldwa the very best as Go Jane Go moves forward!
The 2016 Family & Alumni Picnic: Harvest Festival brought members of the Harker community out in droves for fun and camaraderie on Oct. 9. Harker families and friends — combining for a total of more than 3,000 attendees — braved the unseasonably warm weather to enjoy carnival games, great food, student performances and much more at the 66th annual event. Popular attractions such as the laser tag arena and zip line thrilled attendees all afternoon. Meanwhile, Harker alumni reunited with friends and faculty at the special alumni area.
On Sept. 28, upper school science teachers Jeff Sutton and Kate Schafer, facility coordinator Janet Rohrer and Office of Communication Director Pam Dickinson attended an event hosted by the County of Santa Clara Green Business Program, which recognized organizations certified as Green Businesses by the Bay Area Green Business Program. About half of the nearly 100 businesses recognized were newly certified; the remainder had their certifications renewed.
Harker was certified as a Green Business in July, following a multiyear effort that included all four campuses. The many initiatives included expanding the use of recycled paper, altering the use and acquisition of food products, and using recycled oil in Harker transportation vehicles.
At the event, Dickinson and Schafer spoke about how the program factored into Harker’s long-term sustainability goals and the process of coordinating the efforts of many different departments.
“There were many possible directions we could have gone, but the certified Green Business Program provided a crucial framework for how we could best proceed,” said Schafer. “It let us set reasonable benchmarks for ourselves across a wide range of topics, some of which we knew little about.”
Sixth graders gathered in the MPR in mid-September to write letters of thanks to servicemen and servicewomen to be included in packages from Operation Gratitude. About 80 students RSVP’d to the event; a half hour in, the tables were full of chattering girls and boys. The letters will be inserted into packages of goodies and sundries, and then forwarded to service personnel who are far from their families during the holidays. The effort was coordinated by the grade level coordinators for grade 6.
The lower school started the school year with a bang-up barbecue in early September, drawing parents from grades K-5, plus siblings, for a wonderful evening gathering. The food – carnitas with all the fixings, cheese quesadillas and churros for dessert – pleased both students and their parents, who didn’t have to cook on the warm Friday evening. As always, the atmosphere was informal, with parents chatting while students played tag, threw Frisbees, hula hooped and generally exhausted themselves. It was a great evening for lower school parents to get acquainted and for children to work off pent up energy and hang out with friends!
A total of 45 Harker seniors, 24 percent of the class of 190, were named semifinalists in the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program, the National Merit Scholarship Corp. (NMSC) announced on Sept. 14. They are among 16,000 semifinalists out 1.6 million students who entered the program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) in their junior year. National Merit semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of U.S. high school students.
Additionally, Harker had 65 students who placed in the top 3 percent of test takers nationwide, whom the NMSC has recognized as Commended Students. This number, combined with the number of semifinalists, brings the number of Harker seniors recognized by National Merit to 110, or 58% of the Class of 2017.
This year’s semifinalists are:
Sana Aladin, Kai-Siang Ang, Steven Cao, Cuebeom Choi, Aditya Dhar, Trisha Dwivedi, Ria Gandhi, Rishab Gargeya, Catherine Huang, Zhuoying Huang, Neymika Jain, Preethi Kandappan, Soham Khan, Angela Kim, Winifred Li, Lauren Liu, Rishi Maheshwari, Sanjana Marce, Colt McNealy, Connie Miao, Anuva Mittal, Kshithija Mulam, Sandip Nirmel, Judy Pan, Srivatsav Pyda, Divya Rajasekharan, Elizabeth Rensin, Alayna Richmond, Andrew Rule, Venkat Sankar, Manan Shah, Vedaad Shakib, Amrita Singh, Scott Song, Meilan Steimle, Arjun Subramaniam, Arnav Tandon, Andrew Tierno, Molly Wancewicz, Peter Wu, Albert Xu, Raymond Xu, Austin Zhang, David Zhu and Tiffany Zhu.
To become finalists, semifinalists must submit a scholarship application that details their academic record, community involvement, leadership qualities and another criteria. Winners of National Merit scholarships will be notified in spring 2017.
In June, Harker students Michael Kwan, Jimmy Lin, Sahana Srinivasan, Justin Xie, Shaya Zarkesh, Randy Zhao and Jerry Chen, now all grade 11, were named the best team in the country at the Test of Engineering, Aptitude, Mathematics and Science (TEAMS) National Conference in Nashville.
TEAMS is a STEM-based competition in which high school students apply their knowledge to solve current and upcoming challenges. Each year, a theme is chosen, and students compete at various regional events before the top-ranking teams meet at the National Conference to vie for the title of Best in Nation. At the state level, teams first submit a thoroughly researched essay. At the competitions, they take a multiple-choice exam and are tasked with completing a design challenge using provided materials.
This year’s theme was space exploration, and at the Nashville event the Harker team gave a presentation on space colonization. Their essay covered the field of optogenetics (controlling cells in living tissue through the use of light), which they studied in preparation for the exam portion of the competition.
“We all researched different topics in our spare time and then gathered once a week over the summer to pool everyone’s research together and discuss our strategy going forward,” Lin told the Winged Post. “Our whole team learned a lot through working together on the group events, and it was definitely exciting to see our hard work pay off when we ultimately came out on top.”