Tag: Faculty

Hospitalized Teacher Rallying, Doctors Pleased

John Near, 30-year veteran faculty member – and much more – of The Harker School, has been moved to intermediate care following an aggressive bacterial infection that required surgery. Near has been battling cancer and has reduced immunity from treatments which allowed the infection to take hold. He checked in to El Camino Hospital Monday and underwent surgery to remove infected tissue in his left leg from hip to knee. Wife Pam Dickinson, Harker’s director of communications, and daughter Casey Near ’06 a student at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., have been with him all along.

Dickinson said, “He has multiple doctors working with him daily – general surgeon, oncologist, orthopedic surgeon, infectious disease doctor – and each, to a person, have found his response and healing to the disease amazing and far above their expectations. I swear it’s the Viking genes.”

At this time, Near cannot have visitors or even flowers. “He’s in a private room in intermediate care now – which is great – so all is going well,” said Dickinson. “Check his Caring Bridge page for the full update, and to post messages. We’ll be posting updates there from now on rather than sending e-mails, and feel free to pass this along to anyone else who might love to check up on him.”

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/johnnear

May 15, 2009Tags: Faculty, Featured Story

Faculty Shoots for Universal Learning

US faculty took to the court on March 25 for a basketball game. Playing for the red team were chemistry teacher Andrew Irvine, history teacher Mai Nguyen, coach Raul Rios, math teacher Evan Barth and biology teacher Matthew Harley. The green team comprised math teacher Victor Adler, history teacher Ramsay Westgate, athletic director Dan Molin, Mandarin and ethics teacher Shaun Jahshan and biology teacher Nicole VanderSal. US division head Butch Keller acted as referee during the game, which came down to the wire, with the red team winning by just one point.

Cheerleading duties were handled by Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs, English teachers Erin Redfern and Jennifer Siraganian and history teacher Carol Zink.

The game was one of several fundraisers held by the National Honor Society that week. Bins for each faculty member were set up just outside the Edge for donations. The 10 faculty members with the most money in their bins were chosen to play, while the runners-up went on to act as cheerleaders.

In addition to the faculty basketball game, the NHS also raised money that week by holding a bake sale and selling teacher appreciation ‘grams, special student-written notes that were delivered to teachers along with a small bundle of chocolate. Funds were donated to a local underprivileged charter school.

May 1, 2009Tags: Faculty, Sports