Harker Latinists and classicists wrapped up some tough exams and came out shining!
National Latin Exam
More than 154,000 students across America and in 19 foreign countries took this year’s National Latin Exam. As usual, Harker students did a terrific job. Of the 41 upper school students who took the exam, 35 won awards. Special congratulations to Andrew Semenza and Edgar Lin, both grade 10, who earned perfect scores!
Nine gold medals (with summa cum laude certificates): Lin; Semenza; Bobby Bloomquist, grade 9; Peter Connors, grade 10; Alexander Lam, grade 11; Mathew Mammen, grade 9; Nicole Selvaggio, grade 9; Allison Wang, grade 12; and Alexander Young, grade 9.
Fifteen silver medals (with maxima cum laude certificates): Divija Bhimaraju, grade 10; Josh Broweleit, grade 9; Timothy Chang, grade 9; Cameron Jones, grade 9; Sara Min, grade 9; Arthur Oung, grade 9; Ayush Pancholy, grade 9; Akshay Ravoor, grade 9; Ashwin Reddy, grade 9; Kaushik Shivakumar, grade 9; Elisabeth Siegel, grade 12; Alyson Wang, grade 9; Tiffany Wong, grade 9; Peter Wu, grade 11; and Heidi Zhang, grade 9.
Eight magna cum laude certificates: Justin Au, grade 10; Isabelle Gross, grade 12; James He, grade 11; Era Iyer, grade 11; Sarisha Kurup, grade 11; Michael Kwan, grade 10; Winnie Li, grade 11; and Arnav Tandon, grade 11.
Three cum laude certificates: Allison Cartee, grade 9; Clarissa Wang, grade 9; and Tiffany Zhao, grade 9.
National Roman Civilization Exam
Harker students also did well on this year’s National Roman Civilization Exam. More than 1,800 students nationwide took the exam. This year, five students from Harker took the exam and they all won awards!
A total of 675 students nationwide participated at the advanced level, 95 of whom earned gold medals, including two from Harker: Alexander Lam and Venkat Sankar, both grade 11.
A total of 900 students nationwide participated at the intermediate level, 123 of whom earned gold medals. Harker had two gold medalists, Lin and Semenza, as well as a silver medalist, Ravoor.
National Latin Vocabulary Exam
This year over 2,500 students nationwide took the National Latin Vocabulary Exam. Seven Harker students took this year’s exam and all won awards.
Latin 3: 570 students nationwide took the exam; 82 earned gold medals. Ravoor earned a gold medal, while Kaushik Shivakumar, grade 9, earned a silver medal.
Latin 4: 300 students nationwide took the exam. Semenza earned a silver medal.
Latin 5: 115 students nationwide took the exam; 19 earned gold medals. Four Harker students earned awards: Lam earned a silver medal, Sankar earned a gold medal, Allison Wang, earned a gold medal and Wu earned a bronze medal
National Classical Etymology Exam
Over 5,500 students nationwide participated in the National Classical Etymology Exam. Eleven Harker students participated and eight earned awards.
Advanced Level: 1,848 students nationwide participated; 262 gold medals awarded. Li and Nikhil Manglik, grade 11, earned silver medals.
Intermediate Level: 2,317 students nationwide participated; 388 gold medals awarded. Lin, Pancholy, Semenza and Shivakumar all earned gold medals; Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 9 and Ravoor earned silver medals.
Medusa Mythology Exam
Finally, results are in for the Medusa Mythology Exam. Allison Wang and Young each earned a corona laurea (laurel crown/wreath; equivalent to a fourth place award). Rahul Bhethanabotla, grade 10, Manglik, Min and Ravoor each earned a corona olivae (olive crown/wreath; equivalent to a fifth place award).
This article originally appeared in the spring 2016 Harker Quarterly.
A lower school dress drive brought smiles to the faces of at-risk and underprivileged youth at the Starbird Youth Center in San Jose. The clothes were part of a larger donation of more than 500 gifts collected for clients of the center.
“There were about seven bags of boys and girls party clothing donated,” recalled Teré Aceves, Harker’s director of event fundraising.
The gently used clothing was collected during a holiday cookie-decorating event. About 60 parents heeded the call for such items.
Harker parent Erin Vokey (Miles, grade 1) is the youth activities supervisor at the Starbird Youth Center and is in charge of the center’s day-to-day activities, as well as its literacy programs.
“We are an after-school program that works with at-risk and under-privileged youth. We help them by providing food, homework help and a safe place to go after school. We also do a program called The Good Choices, which is a basic moral guide that teaches them the right choices to make to lead a better life,” she said.
Around the time of the dress drive, the center also had partnered with the Family Giving Tree to distribute gifts to clients and their families, Vokey explained. “We set up a room where children picked out clothing from the dress drive. This is the second year we have had the dresses there and it was a huge success. Fellow Harker parent Julie Carr (Aiden Harshman, grade 1) and her family volunteered to hand out all of the dresses to the youth in our community. It was an extremely heartwarming event,” recalled Vokey.
Another Harker parent, Stephanie Black (Chloe, grade 1), is the program director at the Starbird Youth Center. “Without her none of this would have been possible,” added Vokey.
Carr and her son agreed that it was wonderful to see the joy on the kids’ faces when they got a beautiful dress, jacket or new shirt. “Stephanie, Erin and the entire staff at the center made it so easy for us to come in and volunteer. We are very grateful for the work they do and proud that we got to represent Harker’s philanthropy,” said Carr.
Of his experience volunteering, Carr’s son, Aiden, reported that it was “really cool.” He said that there were lots of games to play with at the center and that he enjoyed seeing the kids get toys. “It made me feel good in my heart.”
Harker students initiate and participate in outreach activities all year round. Visit Harker News and search “outreach,” or go to https://staging.news.harker.org/tag/outreach, for all the Greater Good stories!
In early March, Judge John Owens ’85 came to campus to speak to upper school students at a morning assembly on “Honors and Ethics,” sponsored by the Honor Council.
Owens said that his time at Harker remains “the most significant professional and personal influence on me.” He went on to say that Harker provided him with the study skills necessary to succeed in school, and more important, the ethics and values to succeed in life.
Owens started out as a Harker student in 1979, graduated from grade 8 in 1985, and worked as a summer camp counselor/coach at the school from 1985 until 1991. Today, he remains active with the school in his capacity as a member of Harker’s distinguished board of fellows.
He was previously featured in Harker News when he was appointed to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the nation’s largest appeals court.
Prior to his talk at the upper school, Owens had returned to Harker’s lower school to talk with third graders about his life as a judge.
Remi Edvalson, grade 7, recently competed in the weeklong USA Diving Synchronized National Championships, held in San Antonio, Texas. Representing the Stanford Diving Club, she and her partner, Francesca Noviello, won both the girls 13-and-under platform and 3-meter events.
“I love the excitement of competition!” said Edvalson.
Over spring break, a group of 16 Harker history students in grades 9 and 10 took an amazing trip through Italy and Greece, absorbing the rich history and culture of both countries. The journey gave the students the rare opportunity to see many historical sites in person and hear the fascinating stories behind them.
The students, accompanied by upper school world history teacher Andrea Milius and upper school dance teacher Karl Kuehn, arrived in Rome after a 12-hour flight. They checked into their hotel, then headed off to dinner, which included authentic Italian pizza and fried mozzarella. The next day they ventured to the famous Trevi Fountain and Piazza Venezia before heading to Piazza Navona for gelato. After trekking through the city and sampling more local food, they headed to the Spanish Steps for a bit of shopping, then to the Piazza Del Popolo to take in some local scenery.
A highlight of the day was a trip to Vatican City, where the group toured the lovely gardens and a museum filled with papal carriages that had been used in the last several centuries to protect the pope on international visits.
While visiting the Vatican’s renowned art galleries, the students viewed works such as the sculpture of “Laocoon and His Sons.” They also got an up-close look at the many paintings adorning the walls and ceilings of the Sistine Chapel, including the famous works of Michelangelo and Botticelli, and took a stroll through St. Peter’s Basilica, which houses Michelangelo’s sculpture of “Pieta.”
Following lunch at St. Peter’s Square, they explored the Domitilla Catacombs, which Milius observed “were comprised solely of volcanic ash, which we could scrape off with our fingernails.”
Day three started with an extensive guided tour of the Colosseum, followed by a walk past the Arch of Titus, the Temple of Vesta, the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the Senate House and more.
Their hike through Rome continued with stops at the Castel Sant’Angelo (the burial site of Hadrian, one of the “Five Good Emperors”), the Palazzo delle Esposizioni museum and Via del Corso. The day was capped off by another delicious meal.
On the fourth day of the trip, the students traveled by bus to Naples, where a spectacular view of the Mediterranean Sea awaited them. The group took a boat to the nearby island of Capri, where they admired its amazing rock formations and learned about its history as a popular vacation spot for Roman emperors and home to authors such as Norman Douglas, Friedrich Alfred Krupp and Axel Munthe.
At Capri Village, the group explored the various shops and purchased products made from lemons, a fruit for which Capri is particularly famous. They then boarded a boat bound for Sorrento, where they stayed the night. After unloading their luggage, they enjoyed dinner and a sampling of Sorrento’s nightlife.
“It was awesome,” reported Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 9, “We bought many different things, like ties, tea cups, leather gloves, sunglasses and clothes for great prices. We even saw a mini puppet show!”
The next day, everyone traveled by bus to Pompeii, the city famous for being buried under ash and rock during the 79 A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The students viewed casts of some of the bodies discovered by archaeologists. Their tour guide gave them a look into Pompeiian daily life and commerce. Later, in Bari, the group boarded a ferry to Greece to begin the second stage of their trip.
On their first day in Greece, the group took a lengthy trip to Delphi, where they explored the narrow streets and local shops, and purchased food to feed the stray dogs they encountered. After dinner, they retired to bed to prepare for the full day ahead.
The next day they saw more of Delphi’s historical sites, including the Temple of Apollo, and learned that Delphi was originally more of a religious center than a city. It was unique in that it was administered primarily by priestesses, who received divinations by inhaling gases and then shared their insights with visiting diplomats and rulers. The group also explored the ruins of the stadium, which was the site for many Olympic games.
En route to Athens, the group admired the Greek countryside and stopped a local restaurant for lunch. Upon arriving, they enjoyed a short walk through the town square and briefly explored the city. Following dinner, they took a guided tour of the legendary Greek Orthodox church, the Metropolis.
While in Athens, the group toured numerous landmarks, including the statues of important Greek Civil War-era politicians and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. At the Acropolis, known first as a citadel for Athens and later as a place of religious significance, the students saw many statues and other sculptures that once sat in the structure.
“While many of the statues were damaged in some shape or form, we were able to see how careful the sculptors were in constructing them,” observed Brian Park, grade 9.
It was a busy week for the Harker track team as it competed in two meets. Early in the week, the Eagles faced off with their WBAL rivals and had one of their best-ever meets, achieving 38 personal bests. Kevin Wang, grade 12, won both the shot put and discus; Demonte Aleem, grade 9, set two freshman school records on his way to two second place finishes in the 100m and shot put; Anthony Contreras, grade 10, took first in the 400m, and is now the sophomore school record holder in the 100m, 200m and 400m; Davis Dunaway, grade 11, won the 300m hurdles and was second in the high jump; and Niki Iyer, grade 11, won the 1600m with her season-best time of 5:04.
Later in the week, the Eagles traveled to San Mateo for the Bearcat Invitational. Highlights included Aleem placing fourth in the varsity 100m, which was also the top frosh-soph time of the day. Contreras ran personal bests in the 200m and 400m, placing third in the 400m; Dunaway medaled in the pole vault with a jump of 11’0”; and Rohan Daran, grade 12, Grace Koonmen, grade 10, Ananya Krishnan, grade 10, Lev Sepetov, grade 12, and Norman Garcia, grade 11, each set personal bests at the meet. The Eagles will compete at the St. Francis Invitational on Saturday.
Boys Tennis
The boys tennis team dominated last week, defeating Pinewood, Priory and Evergreen Valley all 7-0. They have another busy week as they face Crystal Springs Uplands on Wednesday, Sacred Heart Prep on Thursday and Evergreen Valley on Friday.
Swimming
Harker hosted its largest WBAL meet of the season last week, welcoming Notre Dame San Jose, Priory, Sacred Heart Prep and Mercy Burlingame. Highlights included wins in the girls 200 medley relay with Taylor Kohlmann, grade 10, Grace Guan, grade 12, Vivian Wang, grade 10, and Angela Li, grade 9; first place for Wang in the girls 200 IM and 100 free; first place for Ihita Mandal, grade 9, in the girls 500 free; a win for Alex Yu, grade 9, in the boys 200 IM; Michael Auld, grade 11, winning the boys 500 free; Jack Farnham, grade 11, taking the boys 100 back; and a win for the boys 400 free relay team of Farnham, Auld, Yu and Justin Culpepper, grade 11. Up next for the Eagles is an April 27 meet with King’s Academy at Singh Aquatic Center.
Girls Lacrosse
The girls lacrosse team dropped two games last week, 8-6 to Carlmont and 9-4 to Aragon, despite playing very well. Next up the Eagles host Woodside on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.
Boys Golf
Last week the boys golf team suffered only their second head-to-head loss of the season as they fell to Palo Alto by just one stroke, 179-178. Leading the way for the Eagles was Avi Khemani, grade 11, who shot an even 33. It’s another busy week for the Eagles as they compete in the Aptos Tournament on Monday, take on Valley Christian on Tuesday and face off with Crystal Springs Uplands on Friday.
Softball
The softball team went 0-2 last week, falling to Mercy Burlingame and Pinewood. In the 9-4 loss to Mercy, Anika Rajamani, grade 9, drove in two runs. In the 14-5 loss to Pinewood, Grace Park, grade 11, had two hits and two RBIs. The girls host Castilleja on Tuesday and Yerba Buena on Friday, both at 4 p.m.
Boys Volleyball
Last week, the boys varsity volleyball team lost its matchup with Pacific Collegiate in four games, but rebounded with a three-game win against King’s Academy. The boys volleyball team is 6-9 on the year, but it sits in first place in the SCVAL El Camino League with a 4-0 league record. The Eagles travel to Wilcox on Wednesday and host Fremont on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
Baseball
The varsity baseball team lost two games to a tough San Mateo team last week, 10-2 and 9-1. This week the Eagles face Jefferson on Tuesday at Blackford at 4 p.m., then travel to Jefferson on Thursday, and host Lincoln San Francisco on Saturday at 11 a.m..
This article originally appeared in the spring 2016 Harker Quarterly.
As the Harker Research Symposium enters its second decade, a day of exciting talks, speakers and activities awaits the Harker community!
Throughout the day, Harker students will be giving talks about their own research via breakout sessions held in various rooms at Nichols Hall. Middle school students will be giving poster presentations in the upper school gym, encouraging attendees to inquire about their research.
Exhibitors such as Google, IBM, Lockheed Martin and Nvidia, and the ever-popular chemistry magic show, will dazzle the lunchtime audience.
In addition to the great exhibits and breakout sessions by Harker students, this year’s Harker Research Symposium promises another fascinating array of keynote speakers.
Omer Artun, the first morning keynote speaker, is the CEO and founder of AgilOne, a predictive marketing cloud designed to help retailers use analytical data and marketing campaigns to increase profitability. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Co. as a consultant, was VP of strategic marketing at CDW/Micro Warehouse and served as senior director of B2B marketing for Best Buy’s For Business division.
Brienne Ghafourifar, another morning keynote speaker, is the co-founder of Entefy, a Palo Alto-based startup that Ghafourifar hopes will one day fundamentally change the way people use technology to interact. Its pre-market release valuation has reached $50 million. At 17, she became the youngest college graduate to raise $1 million in venture funding.
This year’s afternoon keynote will be given by Jeffrey Rothschild (Jackiel, grade 12; Isaac ’14), who spent a decade at Facebook as its VIP of infrastructure engineering.
He is now an investor and entrepreneurial mentor, and sits on the board of directors of Primary Data, Interana and Lytmus. Additionally,he is a part of Accel Partners’ venture development team and is on Vanderbilt University’s Board of Trust. As a philanthropist, he has worked with the Kisii Eye Care Institute, which provides restorative eye surgery to western Kenyans, and the Dairy Farmers of Cherangany, another Kenya-based organization.
Alen Malek ’05, currently a Ph.D. candidate at University of California, Berkeley, will be this year’s alumni keynote speaker.
A founding member of Harker’s robotics team, he later attended Stanford University, earning a B.S. in mathematics and an M.S. in electrical engineering. At Berkeley, he is working on his Ph.D. in computer science, performing research on sequential decision-making.
This event is open to all members of the Harker community and promises to be filled with fun and discovery. For more information, please visit www.harker.org/symposium.
Over spring break, upper school history teacher Katy Rees and 12 of her U.S. history students traveled to New York City for a historical trip through the storied metropolis. “It was such fun to see how being in the places where history occurred helped them to connect with what they’d learned and enriched their understanding,” Rees reported.
Among the many highlights of the trip was a visit to an authentic turn-of-the-century tenement building, where an actress portraying a 14-year-old girl talked about the experiences of immigrants during that period. They also visited a food historian, who treated them to a seven-course meal consisting of food made by various immigrant cultures.
Later, the group headed to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to examine several primary source documents, including the report written by Christopher Columbus in 1492 about his trek through the Americas, a copy of the Declaration of Independence and, as Rees put it, “a supremely awkward letter penned by Abraham Lincoln as he tried to brush off an intended fiancee.”
The students participated in a scavenger hunt in Central Park that taught many interesting facts about the park and its landmarks, and received guided tours of the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights and lower Manhattan.
The highlight of the trip for many was attending the Broadway musical “Hamilton.” “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see the original cast perform in what was most definitely not an overhyped event,” Rees said.
The Harker community came together on Saturday, April 9, for the 2016 Harker Research Symposium, which both celebrated the achievements of Harker’s research program and gave visitors a look into what scientific research has made and will make possible for future generations.
More than 700 people attended this year’s symposium, sitting in on breakout sessions by Harker student researchers and listening to talks by the illustrious keynote speakers. The first morning keynote speaker was Omer Artun, the founder and CEO of AgilOne Predictive Marketing Cloud, who discussed the ways predictive analytics are used in the formation and implementation of personalized marketing strategies. He also spoke about how to improve customer acquisition and growth through the use of machine-learning technologies.
Entrepreneur Brienne Ghafourifar, who at 17 was the youngest college graduate ever to raise $1 million in venture funding, was the second morning keynote speaker. She shared her thoughts on how people’s digital connection to one another is now an essential part of our lives rather than a luxury enjoyed only by a fortunate segment of the population. Data, she said, not only connects us with each other but with the world around us. She talked about what she called the “intelligence of things” and how it will result in huge market value creation. Prior to her talk, Ghafourifar engaged in a Q-and-A session with students from Harker’s Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (WiSTEM) club and several middle school girls.
Shortly after lunch, attendees gathered in the Nichols Hall auditorium to hear a talk by Alan Malek ’05, the 2016 alumnus keynote speaker. Malek, who received a B.S. in mathematics and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University, is now working on his Ph.D. in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He discussed some of the challenges presented by the immensity of the data being produced by increased connectivity. He also offered some insight into his life as a Ph.D. student, as well as what students can look forward to in graduate school.
The afternoon keynote speaker was Jeffrey Rothschild, longtime serial entrepreneur and VP of infrastructure engineering at Facebook from 2005-2015, who now sits on the board of directors at Primary Data, Interana and Lytmus. Rothschild talked about the influence of “big data” and how it can be leveraged to assist in better, faster decision-making without the need to compare subjective opinions. He explained how this could have a significant impact on the cost of delivering quality health care, including improving hospital care and clinical decisions.
Throughout the day, attendees stopped by the Nichols Hall atrium to take a peek at the many exhibits brought to the symposium by this year’s corporate exhibitors, including Google, Lockheed Martin, Nvidia and more.
One of the more popular attractions was Google’s cardboard virtual reality platform. Using smartphones encased in cardboard as makeshift VR headsets, attendees gained first-person looks at various spots throughout the world, while a Google representative marked spots on the virtual environment to guide users where to look.
In the Nichols Hall rotunda, STEM buddies activities brought younger and older students together. Lower school students marveled at the heat signatures created by their handprints and bracelets that changed color when exposed to ultraviolet light.
Although threatened by inclement weather, the afternoon drone demonstration had visitors looking skyward as the machines soared over the upper school campus.
Over at the upper school gymnasium, middle and upper school students gave poster presentations of research they’d conducted. Many were heard excitedly going through the details of their work to the attendees who’d stopped to listen.
Last month, upper school science teacher Kate Schafer’s food science class took a field trip to Hidden Villa, located in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, to “learn about the connection between food and agriculture by visiting a working farm,” Schafer said. The students had the opportunity to sample food crops and also participated in some agricultural activities, such as grinding wheat berries to make flour, collecting eggs laid by chickens and making butter, all of which culminated in making muffins with the ingredients they collected.
“I think that a big highlight for the students was getting to see and interact with the farm animals, especially the lambs,” said Schafer. “It also sparked a lot of good conversations about our food systems and our disconnect from food production in the U.S.” Students also discussed how food factors into cultural identities, particularly with regard to family celebrations.