The week of March 14- 18 was upper school multicultural week, a celebration of cultures from around the world. The collective effort of well over a hundred students, guided by members of the Global Empowerment and Outreach (GEO) Club, included a multicultural carnival, assembly and dress-up day.
At the multicultural carnival, upper school students ran booths showcasing different countries. The event was held in the Nichols Hall atrium and accompanying activities included bocce ball games, a jazz combo, henna tattoo art and a plethora of multicultural food. Countries represented included Argentina, Armenia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Romania, Scotland, Sweden, Syria, United States and Wales.
“Although we study about [different cultures] in history classes, getting a hands-on experience is what makes the multicultural carnival special,” commented Muralikrishna Joshi, grade 11. “It is a great way to learn.”
In the multicultural assembly, students and teachers performed a multitude of acts, including an Argentine Tango, several songs in foreign languages, a Korean pop dance medley, two Indian dance numbers, and pieces on the guitar and harp. Julian Wise, grade 12 and Tristan Killeen, grade 11, emceed the assembly.
The week brought rays of sunshine to the campus in a rainy week and students thrived on the varied activities. “I think it was amazing that people were not only proudly displaying their own cultures, but also learning and enjoying others’ cultures,” said Richard Fan, grade 10.
In mid-March, Harker hosted a meeting of approximately 40 student-politicians from Junior States of America (JSA). The one-day JSA convention included thought talks; open-ended discussions on certain questions and topics; debates, which are formal arguments on resolutions; and a keynote address by Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager. The topics discussed included rights of corporations, the Dream Act, Second Amendment interpretation, California districting and many others.
Yeager discussed how politicians are having a real impact on the community, including fighting childhood obesity and exposure to first and second hand smoke in public places.
Govinda Dasu, grade 11, mayor of the Golden Gate Region of Northern California JSA and one of the organizers, said, “It was truly a great experience. Not only did we get greater numbers than expected, but the thought talks and debates went truly in-depth into both the practical and ideological implications of the resolutions. The event exceeded my expectations in both quality and quantity.”
The Triple Helix Online, the online journal of The Triple Helix, Inc., recently published several stories written by Harker students. The Triple Helix, Inc. (TTH), is an international nonprofit organization made up of students from universities worldwide that specializes in journalism in the fields of science, society, business, ethics and law.
Harker is the first and so far only high school chapter of TTH, which has 27 chapters in universities all over the world and receives funding from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The partnership was kick-started by Jennifer Ong ’06, who is TTH’s chief operating officer. Students Naomi So, grade 12, and Pavitra Rengarajan, grade 11, act as the editors-in-chief for the Harker chapter, and collaborate with TTH senior editors to prepare Harker student submissions for publication.
Basu and Tandon had their writings made into posters, which were displayed at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., which took place Feb. 17-21. The two students were in attendance at the meeting as the guests of Triple Helix. They attended a number of workshops and met members of TTH from other universities, as well as attending talks with top researchers.
Anita Chetty, science department chair, who accompanied Basu and Tandon to Washington, said The Triple Helix offers a way for students to parlay their interests in subjects such as science and technology into an avenue for publication. “They like to look at the issues,” she said. “They’re not necessarily interested in research. They want to do more of a commentary.”
The Harker chapter’s print edition of the Triple Helix magazine will be distributed at the Harker Research Symposium on April 23.
The spring 2011 edition of the Harker Quarterly magazine is in the mail and online. This issue features Harker’s upcoming summer program offerings, highlights from our recent fashion show event, and the community conversations on “Race to Nowhere” and student life/work balance. The digital version of the Quarterly can be accessed on our home page at www.harker.org. For more information, contact communications@harker.org.
Published four times a year, the Harker Quarterly showcases some of the top news, leading programs, inspiring people and visionary plans of the greater Harker community.
Accolades from the winter season: in early March, girls basketball player Daniza Rodriguez, grade 10, was named West Bay Athletic League-Skyline Division Most Valuable Player.
Spring Sports
Swimming
Harker varsity swimming had a dominating win over Mercy Burlingame last week, winning all eleven events to post a 129-36 win. The girls team has yet to lose a single event this season and are now 2-0 and in first place in the WBAL. Double event winners were Jessica Khojasteh, grade 12 and Manon Audebert, grade 9.
Other event winners were Rachelle Koch, Lucy Cheng, Katie Siegel and Tiffany Wong, all grade 11, as well as all three relays: Harker had 1-2-3 sweeps in the 50 freestyle, the 500 freestyle, and the 100 breaststroke. Cheng had her first CCS qualifying swim of the year in the 200 IM. Of special note from the boys’ scrimmage: Kevin Khojasteh, grade 11, had a spectacular swim in the 200 freestyle, breaking now-junior Daryl Neubieser’s school record, set last May, by .11 of a second, going 1:46.79.
Golf
Our boys golfers opened league play in early March with a victory over King’s Academy 207-237 at Los Lagos. Co-medalist honors went to sophomores Kyle Roter and Maverick McNealy, shooting 2 over par at 36. In mid-March, linksmen defeated Pinewood and lost to SHP. McNealy earned medalist honors against Prep.
Track and Field
The track and field team had an outstanding display at the Willow Glen Invitational in early March. Isabelle Connell, grade 10, placed first in both the 200m and 400m races, and Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 10, took fourth in both the 1600m and 3200m races. On the boys team, Charles Levine, grade 10, placed eighth in the 800m, Krish Chandani, grade 9, finished eighth for the freshman-sophomore (FS) boys 400m. Matthew Giammona, grade 10, threw to place fifth in the boys FS discus, while classmate Michael Chen finished seventh.
In their first league meet, in mid-March, track and field had some notable moments. Individual highlights include Claudia Tischler, grade 9, who took first place in both the mile (1600m) and the 2 mile (3200m), running a 5:39 and 12:34, respectively. Connell took first place in both the 400 meter and the 200 meter dashes, running a 1:01.48 and a 26.95, respectively. Sonya Chalaka, grade 11, took first place in the triple jump, jumping 29 feet and 9 and one half inches, and second place in the long jump, jumping 13 feet and 8 inches.
For the boys, Jonny Yet, grade 11, ran the 100 meter dash in 12.71 seconds, placing second. Giammona took second place in the discus, throwing 88 feet and 5 inches, and Chen took third place in both the shot put and the discus, throwing 37 feet and one half inches and 87 feet and six inches, respectively.
Softball
Softball started the season 1-1 in early March, defeating San Jose High 14-1 in their opener and losing to Independence High the week before. Against San Jose, Ashley Del Alto, grade 10, had a triple with three RBIs, Tracey Chan, grade 12, hit a home run, and Alison Rugar, grade 10, pitched eight strikeouts. The following week the team defeated Yerba Buena 18-3 and Alma Heights 7-3. Against Alma Heights, Del Alto pitched 15 strikeouts, Rugar hit a triple and we had hits from Chan, Victoria Liang, Aileen Wen and Trisha Basu, all seniors, and Sonia Gupta, grade 10.
Baseball
Varsity baseball started the season 0-3. The junior varsity team lost 6-5 in early March in 10 innings against Santa Clara. Noah Levy, grade 11, had three hits, Drew Goldstein, grade 10, had a hit, and Kevin Cali, grade 10, pitched 13 strikeouts.
Volleyball
Boys volleyball went 4-1 at the Aptos Tournament in early March, placing second behind Mt. Madonna. In mid-March, they lost first to St. Ignatius and then a nail-biter to Mt. Madonna last week to drop to 5-5 on the season. Jacob Chappell, grade 12, had 22 kills against Mt. Madonna.
Tennis
Boys tennis started out 2-0 after victories over Piedmont Hills and Priory. Against Priory, Derek Tzeng, grade 11, played #1 singles and didn’t drop a game, winning 6-0, 6-0. Sophmore Chris Chang played #2 singles and was almost as impressive, winning 6-0, 6-1. Senior Nick Parth won a tiebreaker at #3, 8-7. Nikhil Narayen, grade 10, played his first singles match, winning at #4, 6-1, 6-2. In doubles, the #1 team of Adarsh Ranganathan, grade 12 and freshman Killian Burke won 6-1, 6-1. Also impressive was #2 doubles team of Sachin Jain, grade 11 and Justin Yang, grade 10, who also won 6-1, 6-1. Finally, Revanth Kosaraju, grade 11 and Simar Mangat, grade 10, won 6-2, 6-3 at #3 doubles. In mid-March the boys defeated Crystal Springs but lost to Cupertino and Sacred Heart Prep. The boys take their 5-2 record against national power Menlo and Monte Vista this week.
Lacrosse
Girls lacrosse lost their home opener in early March and the team has been fighting for their first win. They get two more chances before spring break, with home games against Mercy and Stevenson March 23 and 24 at 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., respectively.
Harker’s MathCounts team, Celine Liang, grade 7 and eighth graders Matthew Huang, Cindy Liu and Andrew Zhang, placed first at the State MathCounts competition held at Stanford in mid-March. The Harker team was declared California State Champion, beating even the Cupertino Middle School team, the Santa Clara Chapter champion at the competition held on Feb. 12. David Lin, grade 8, participated as an independent qualifier and also did a fine job, said Vandana Kadam, MathCounts coach and middle school mathematics department chair.
Liang placed third following the countdown round of the competition, missing first place by a single point. There are only four students from the entire state who make the team which represents California at the national competition to be held May 5-8 in Washington, D.C., and Liang is one of the four students on this prestigious team. Three of the four top finishers came from the same chapter as Harker (Santa Clara Chapter).
Out of 155 students participating, Liang was third, Huang placed sixth, Liu placed 11th, Lin placed 12th and Zhang placed 28th. Kennedy, Redwood and Miller schools fielded extremely strong teams and Harker beat defending state champion William Hopkins School from Fremont, and also past champions Miller and Redwood, to clinch the number one spot.
Fourteen different chapters from Northern California participated and a similar number of students from 12 Southern California chapters participated in the same contest held simultaneously at University of California, Irvine. The top 10 students were recognized at each of these venues.
After the main event, two students each tied with 46 points (perfect score) and 45 points, so runoffs were held for each of the top four slots. Liang had to go head to head with her competitor to gain the number three spot; her competitor dropped to fourth place. Harker’s Huang barely missed making the team with his sixth place finish. The top four finishers will go to nationals, held in May. Kadam will be there, too, as California State Coach.
“The title of California State Champions is well deserved for each one of them. This is an incredible achievement for the students and for the school,” said Tim McCarthy, coordinator of the Santa Clara Chapter and the Northern California competition.
Harker sent 28 instrumentalists to the California Association for Music Education (CMEA) Solo and Ensemble Festival in mid-March and earned more Command Performance and Superior ratings at Saturday’s festival than any other school participating!
Harker was well represented with standout performances by Cole Manaster, Dylan Qian and Cindy Tay, all grade 11; Patricia Huang and Katherine Woodruff, both grade 10; Dennis Moon and Daniel Pak, both grade 9, all of whom earned Superior ratings.
Superior/Command Performance ratings, the highest given at the festival, were earned by Arthur Oung, grade 4, Jeffrey Kwong and Andrew Lee, both grade 11; Albert Chen and Nayeon Kim, both grade 10; and Krishan Kumar, grade 9.
Other participants included seniors Jasmine Nee, Catherine Stiles and Jason Young; juniors Vivian Li, Nandita Krishna, Dwight Payne, Gene Wong and Evan Yao; sophomores Rohan Chandra and Lydia Werthen; and freshmen Meena Chetty, Nathan Dhablania, Sahithya Prakash, Renu Singh and Andrew Wang.
A dozen schools sent students to Harker in mid-March for the California Regional Certamen, the qualifying certamen (quiz bowl) event for the California Junior Classical League (CJCL) State Convention.
The event, held in Dobbins, the gym and Main hall, went well and five Harker teams, three middle school and two upper school, teams competed. All three middle school teams (MS1, MS2, MS3) amassed the most points in their divisions and thus each seeded first for the semifinal rounds to be held in April at the state convention. MS1 comprised Sean Costello, Aditya Dhar, Alexander Lam, Venkat Sankar, Arjun Subramaniam, Austin Tuan, all grade 6; MS2 was Rishabh Chandra, Kaushik Sankar, Elisabeth Siegel, Allison Wang, all grade 7; MS3 was Zabin Bashar, Aadyot Bhatnagar, Maya Nandakumar, Rasika Raghavan, all grade 8.
In upper school results, Harker’s HSAdv (advanced) team finished first in its level and our HS3 team finished third in its level, both qualifying for the state level with high seeds. HSAdv comprised Jessica Lin, Alex Hsu, both grade 11; Richard Fan, Nik Datuashvili and Pranav Sharma, all grade 10. HS3 was sophomore Ram Menon and freshmen Kevin Duraiswamy and Nikhil Dilip. The top nine students in each level will compete in a semifinal round at the CJCL Convention April 8-9 at Miramonte High School in Orinda. The final round will consist of the top three remaining of those nine.
Ben Tien, grade 12, is working towards becoming the next YouTube/Internet sensation with some great music videos he and family members have been posting. His videos have over 1 million views and he has 5,400+ subscribers. Tien is a member of the Upper School Jazz Band, a member of the 2010 homecoming court and, obviously, loves the limelight. Check out one of his latest efforts, a sweet rendition of Colbie Caillat’s “I Do.” In this outing, Tien draws in brother Josh, grade 10; sister Sarah, grade 6; and their mom, Joyce, and adds piquant comments in pop ups. Just plain fun!
In mid-February the 19th annual U.S. Open Music Competition (USOMC) was held in Oakland. The USOMC, with over 900 participants (mostly pianists), is one of the largest music competitions in the country. Students traveled from as far as China to compete in different levels and categories. Several students from Harker participated, winning a number of accolades. Unless noted, all categories are for the piano.
Bobby Bloomquist, grade 4, third place, treasury of romantic – junior (ruby), “Waltz in A Minor, Op. 124, #4,” by Schumann; Andy Semenza, grade 5, first place, showcase piano duet & ensemble – intermediate, sketches: “Musketeers and Toreadors,” by Gavrillin. Semenza and his partner, Andy Sheng (who does not attend Harker) were selected as one of the outstanding gold medalists of 2011 at the Prize Winners’ Concert. Semenza also won first place, treasury of contemporary – pre-senior (diamond), “Prelude #24, Op. 34,” by Shostakovich. Marcus Chen, grade 5, fourth place, treasury of romantic – junior (diamond), “Andante con moto (untitled) in F Major #26, Op. 68,” by Schumann.
Jonathan Dai, grade 7, third place, showcase piano duet & ensemble – intermediate, “Slavonic Dance #2 in E Minor, Op. 72,” by Dvorak.
Helen Wu, grade 8, second place, showcase violin concerto (ruby), “Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, third movement,” by Mendelssohn; Andrew Jin, grade 8, third place treasury of contemporary – pre-senior (diamond), “Prelude #10, Op. 34,” by Shostakovich. Billy Bloomquist, grade 8, fourth place, open solo 5B, “Sonata in G Major Hob XVI:27 Presto, third movement,” by Haydn.
Vikram Sundar, grade 9, second place, showcase piano solo – intermediate (opal), “Impromptu #1 in Ab Major, Op. 29,” by Chopin and “Sonata #2 in F Major (Allegro), Op.10,” by Beethoven. Sundar also took third place in open concerto – intermediate, “Concerto #12 K.414 in A Major (Allegro),” by Mozart. Paulomi Bhattacharya, grade 10, second place, treasury of classical – advanced, “Sonata in C, Op.13, Grave-molto allegro – first movement,” by Beethoven.
Albert Wu, grade 11, second place, showcase piano solo – senior (sapphire), “Sonata #23 in F Minor, Op. 57, first movement,” by Beethoven and “Prelude in C Major, BWV870″ by J.S. Bach. Wu also took second place in treasury of romantic – advanced (diamond), “Polonaise in Ab Major, Op.53,” by Chopin.
The list of Harker participants was provided to us by a generous parent. Winners are not listed on the USOMC site by school and we apologize if anyone has been left off this list. If your child participated in the 2011 USOMC, please send information to news@harker.org and we will gladly add it to the article.