A Harker junior who had traveled to Copenhagen for a world conference on climate change was honored by UNICEF for her dedication to service.
UNICEF named Olivia Zhu, Gr. 11, one of their 128 volunteers to receive the 2010 President’s Volunteer Service Award. Zhu was awarded a gold level standing for dedicating more than 250 hours to working for climate change based on the agenda formed at the Children’s Climate Forum (CCF) in Copenhagen in December 2009.
In Copenhagen, Zhu was one of four students selected by UNICEF USA to attend CCF. She joined others from 40 nations in a weeklong forum to find solutions to global concerns and advance understanding of global issues. During her time there, Zhu visited a Danish school, attended workshops and forged friendships with fellow teenagers who were working toward a common goal.
UNICEF’s President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation established the President’s Volunteer Service Award in 2003. The program honors individuals, families and groups of all ages who have met or exceeded requirements for volunteer service.
[Update] Andrew Zhou, 2010 valedictorian and member of the United States Physics Team, arrived in College Park, Md., this morning with the other 19 members of the team to begin training camp. Five of these students will be selected to represent the U.S. at the International Physics Olympiad this summer in Zagreb, Croatia. The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has posted a press release on their website detailing the team’s welcome ceremony.
May 3, 2010 Harker has another physics Olympian! Senior Andrew Zhou has qualified as a member of the 2010 U.S. Physics Olympics Team, only one of 20 nationwide. Seven Harker students were semifinalists; Zhou is the only one to be selected for the team and this is his second time around.
Zhou was a team member in 2009, but was not selected for the final five; Harker alumnus (then senior)Anand Natarajan’09was one of the five selected for the 2009 international squad and won a gold medal in 2009.
Zhou will first attend physics camp May 22-31, then find out if he will be one of five selected for the 41st International Physics Olympiad to be held from July 17-25, 2010, in Zagreb, Croatia, where more than 400 student scholars from 90 nations will test their knowledge in physics.
The U.S. Physics Olympiad Program was started in 1986 by American Association of Physics Teachers to promote and demonstrate academic excellence. Over the past ten years, every U.S. Physics Team member traveling to the International Physics Olympiad has returned with a medal.
In April, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a nonprofit organization that honors the scholastic achievements of high school students, began releasing the names of winners in the 55th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Harker’s Sarah Teplitsky was on that list.
The second round of winners has just been released. These are scholarships of $2,500 apiece, sponsored by National Merit’s own funds or, in a few cases, underwritten by corporations.
Harker has 21 seniors named in this round, the most in California. The schools with the next highest totals are Torrey Pines (San Diego) with 13 and Gunn (Palo Alto) with nine.
Congratulations to these seniors: Brandon Araki, Virginia Chen, Victor Chen, Jeanette Chin, Nathaniel Edwards, James Feng, Alex Fotland, Alex Han, Kelsey Hilbrich (underwritten by Tomkins Corporation), Sonya Huang, Vishesh Jain, Carissa Jansen (underwritten by UPS Foundation), Rachel Luo, Christina Ma, Arjun Mody, Adam Perelman, Mark Roh, Rashmi Sharma, Haran Sivakumar, Andrew Zhou and Kevin Zhang.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2010 Harker Quarterly.
“If you build it…” The oft-quoted line from the movie “Field of Dreams” has been echoing in the halls of The Harker School the last few years. Nichols Hall, which opened to great celebration in the fall of 2008, has proven to be a spectacular home for science classes, competitive research students, music concerts and lecture series. Davis Field and the Singh Aquatic Center have taken the sports department to new levels of athletic achievement. And the buzz continues. Next on the plan: a performing and visual arts center (PVAC).
Harker’s six-phase capital improvements plan is currently completing phase 3, which was the building of the two new sports venues and Nichols Hall. (Previous phases improved the Bucknall campus and built Shah Hall.) Phase 4 is the long-anticipated PVAC, which will transform the 16-acre Saratoga campus yet again.
The groundwork for this next phase began in the fall of 2008 with a series of Head of School Gatherings, casual socials at the homes of Harker parents. At those events, Chris Nikoloff led discussions with interested parents about the future of the school, not only sharing information but gathering feedback about what parents wanted most for their campuses.
In 2009 focus groups were convened to discuss the master site plan in more detail, focusing on the gym and student union (phases 5 and 6). A third focus group narrowed the view on the PVAC. Families, students, alumni, faculty and administrators were invited to complete an online survey, which asked for very detailed opinions about the current performing arts and visual arts facilities, as well as the respondents’ wishes for the future. This information was crucial to the administration and architectural team, and “uncovered all sorts of valuable ideas and highlighted several issues that [David Takamoto, our architect,] has been able to address so that once completed everything works very well from parking, to campus flow to beauty,” said Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, of the survey.
Head of School Gatherings continued in the fall of 2009, when Nikoloff presented parents with a draft of the master site plan, incorporating all the ideas culled from families, alumni and employees from the past year. The next step will be spearheaded by former head of school and current trustee Diana Nichols, who will host a series of meetings in the spring of 2010 to get further input on the developing project and unveil the conceptual design of the master site plan.
All of these gatherings and drawings are leading up to the submission by Takamoto of a conceptual design to the San Jose City Planning Commission. Currently Harker is zoned for residential occupancy; the administration wants to convert that zoning to planned development use, which would maximize the use of buildings on campus and greatly minimize the red tape involved as permits are sought for each new building. Another major benefit of the rezoning is that campus buildings will be permitted to reach 50 feet instead of the current 35, allowing for three-story buildings and a theater with room to install a fly system for moving props and scenery vertically on and off stage.
Other designated areas within the building will include a third floor dedicated to visual arts, allowing for natural lighting and separate rooms for stone carving, painting and ceramics; two theaters – a black box and a full-size space with orchestra pit; costume, prop and set building spaces; music and art classrooms and libraries; practice rooms; gallery space; and dressing rooms and lounge areas.
The visual and performing art staff is understandably excited about the project. Laura Lang-Ree, K-Gr. 12 performing arts chair, points out that, “We are the only high school in a 40-mile radius that does not have a theater. Our lack of facilities is dramatic when contrasted with the level of education we provide and the sheer interest in the program and volume of children that we educate. Both students and teachers deal with this subpar facility issue daily.”
Visual arts chair Jaap Bongers concurs: “Our current space does not allow our students to develop their artistic talents to their fullest extent, partly because they can’t spread out and are working in storage and drying areas. The new building will give us separate spaces for storing completed works, works in progress and active studio space. And a separate gallery will mean we can adequately highlight student and faculty art.
” Mike Bassoni, Harker’s facility manager, who has overseen each of the large construction efforts on all of Harker’s campuses, speaks for many families and teachers who are eager for a space that can match the talents of our students: “The new center will greatly enhance an already well-recognized Harker program. With new, state-of-the- art facilities, the possibilities only become that much greater. We know our programs are great, but a contemporary facility will serve as a picture frame to display that level of perfection for many, many people in the community to enjoy.” Rosenthal wants parents of all grades to “ensure that the legacy of excellence passes to the next generation of Harker students,” and that we “invest in programs that make a difference in the world.”
A small group of parents and faculty are already contributing to the $30-35 million that will be needed to build the PVAC. The architectural and rezoning fees are being paid for by the very generous contributions of a group of current and alumni parents whom Rosenthal calls “seed investors.” These kind donors will be recognized and thanked at this year’s Head of School Reception on April 30.
So will they come “if you build it?” Perhaps a project of this size needs a better tagline than one from a Hollywood film. Virginia Woolf once said that all that women needed to write fiction was money and a room of their own. Artists, too, need financial support and their own space to play, create, dream and exhibit. That space will be coming soon for all to enjoy!
Eight Harker students are among the 500 semifinalists nationwide who are vying to represent the U.S. in the International Biology Olympiad. Congratulations to seniors Jeanette Chin, Alex Han and Vishesh Jain, and juniors Rachel Fang, Ruchika Podury, Jerry Sun, Susan Tu and Jason Young.
Based on the two-hour semifinalist exam results, the top 20 students will be invited to the national finals in June. That will entail eight days of intensive practical and theoretical training at Purdue University in Indiana. The students will be taught by leading biologists and teachers, and conduct experiments in laboratories. At the end of the training, four students will be selected as the U.S. representatives to compete in the Olympiad, which will be held in July in Changwon, South Korea. The U.S. team has swept the competition and won gold three straight years.
Jason Martin ’07 continues to stun opponents and wow his coaches. Martin was written up in the San Jose Mercury News by Dennis Knight in his Movin’ on Up column, April 20. “The former Harker standout started his career as a walk-on, but he has developed into the Spartans’ top offensive player as a junior,” said Knight. “The Spartans have dropped three of four to New Mexico State last weekend, but Martin has been hot. In the past four games, the outfielder went 7 for 16 with a double, a home run and four RBI. Batting third in his most recent games, Martin leads the Spartans with a .403 batting average. He has 56 hits, 23 runs, eight doubles, a triple, one home run, 19 RBI and five stolen bases. He has a .462 on-base percentage.” Martin is the first player out of Harker to play Division I baseball. Go, former Eagle!
[Update] The San Jose Mercury News noted the stellar performance of Harker’s boys volleyball team in an April 21 article by Dennis Knight:
“The race for the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League’s De Anza Division title could go down to the wire,” said Knight. “Ranked 15th in the state by Maxpreps, Harker School (20-3, 6-1) has been playing well and is atop the league after a three-game sweep of visiting Los Gatos last week. The Eagles are a senior-laden team led by setter Eugene Huang (Gr. 12) and hitter Chad Gordon (Gr. 12), who averages 4.4 kills a game.”
The article went on to quote Dan Molin, Harker’s athletic director and volleyball coach. “‘He’s only 5-10, but he is one of the most crafty and skilled players I’ve ever had,’ Harker coach Dan Molin said of Gordon. Middle blocker Jacob Chappell, a 6-5 junior, has also been a key contributor,” finished Knight.
April 20, 2010
Upper school athletes continued competing over the spring break. These updates include results from mid-March to the first week of April.
Boys Golf The boys golf team defeated The King’s Academy 190–266 on March 17. The cumulative score of 190 is the lowest ever for a Harker team! Maverick McNealy, Gr. 9, was a medalist with 35; James Feng, Gr. 12 and Kyle Roter, Gr. 9, both scored 36, with Jeremy Whang, Gr. 12, shooting 38 and Vinay Kumar, Gr. 12, shooting 45.
The boys also defeated Crystal Springs 213-239 on March 22 and, on April 5, beat Pinewood 193-208 to improve to 4-2. Feng shot a 36 to lead the way.
Swimming Girls swimming handily defeated Mercy-Burlingame on March 17 with a score of 121-48, but lost March 19 to Gunn 50-120. They performed well April 7 against Mercy-San Francisco, Pinewood and Crystal Springs with scores of 140-16, 132-33 and 140-6, respectively. Boys took down Pinewood 130-20 and Crystal Springs Uplands School 140-4.
Track and Field At the St. Francis Invitational on March 20, track and field members turned in some strong performances. For the frosh/sophs, Ragini Bhattacharya, Gr. 9, was fifth in the mile, Sonya Chalaka, Gr. 10, took fourth in long jump and fifth in triple jump, Sumit Minocha, Gr. 9, came in second in the 400m and 10th in the 100m. Johnny Yet, Gr. 10, was 10th in the long jump.On the varsity team,Isabelle Connell, Gr. 9, was seventh in the 800m while Tiffany Kyi, Gr. 12, was third in the triple jump. Aadithya Prakash, Gr. 12, placed fifth in the 3,000m and Scott Underwood, Gr. 12, took 10th in discus.
At the first WBAL track and field meet, held March 24 at Sacred Heart Prep, both boys and girls performed well. The boys had an outstanding showing in the throwing events, with Underwood taking first place in the discus and Thomas Enzminger, Gr. 12, throwing for second place in both discus and shot put. Prakash had a stellar run in the 3,200m, placing first; he took second in the 1,600m run. For the girls, Kyi took first in the high jump, triple jump and long jump. Tara Hansen, Gr. 12, captured second in the 300m hurdles, and Bhattacharya placed first in both the 1,600m and 3,200m. She also took third in the 800m run. Connell came in first in the 800m, and was a close second in the 200m. Adrienne Mendel, Gr. 9, placed third in the 3,200m. The girls finished the meet with an incredible 4x400m relay as Tanya Rai, Gr. 11, Hansen, Shivani Bigler, Gr. 10 and Connell earned first place.
The team also had a strong showing at the Gilroy meet on April 3, where Connell placed fifth in the varsity 800, and Minocha took second in the frosh/soph 400 and fourth in the frosh/soph 200. Enzminger, Connell, Minocha, Rai and Tyler Yeats, Gr. 9, all had personal records in their events.
Boys Volleyball The boys volleyball team defeated Monta Vista on March 17, with Chad Gordon, Gr. 12, on fire with 21 kills that evening. They suffered their first league loss March 26 to Mountain View, losing 16-14 in the fifth game of the match. The next day the boys went 3-1 in the Leland Tournament and took the silver division championship, or fifth place out of 12. They continued their winning ways by defeating Saratoga on April 7 and Monta Vista on April 9 to improve to 18-3 overall and 4-1 in league play. Kevin Fu, Gr. 12, had seven kills against Saratoga, Gordon had 11 and Jacob Chappell, Gr. 11, had 10 against Monta Vista.
Boys Tennis After losing a tough one to a strong Monta Vista team March 17, the boys tennis team rebounded March 18 with a 7-0 defeat of Pinewood. They returned to action April 5 with a 4-3 victory over Cupertino, another CCS-bound team. The match was even closer than the score indicated, as all three of Harker’s losses were decided in final set tiebreakers. Number 1 singles Karthik Dhore, Gr. 11, #1 doubles Tim Weng, Gr. 11 and Sachin Jain, Gr. 10, and #3 doubles Sanjeev Datta/Samir Datta, both Gr. 12, all won in straight sets and quickly gave Harker a 3-0 lead. Cupertino fought back, winning the next three matches for a 3-3 tie. Simar Mangat, Gr. 9, a doubles specialist, played #4 singles for the first time, filling in the singles lineup for an injured Derek Tzeng, Gr. 10. Mangat played superbly and, in a dramatic performance with both teams watching from the sidelines, won in straight sets 6-3, 6-3, clinching Harker’s 10th victory. The boys also beat Homestead 6-1 on April 7. Harker is now 11-2.
Softball The girls hung tough for five innings March 19 against The King’s Academy before King’s started to wear Harker down in the final innings. The girls lost, 2-10. On March 26, Alison Rugar, Gr. 9, pitched an impressive 13 strikeouts and Ashley Del Alto, Gr. 9, had a triple play against Notre Dame, but the girls lost 1-9. They also lost a close non-league game, 3-5, against Gunderson on April 9. Tracey Chan, Gr. 11, had two hits in the contest.
Baseball Stefan Eckhardt, Gr. 12, pitched six strong innings March 13 in a 2-0 loss to Irvington in the Dougherty Valley Tournament. Kevin Cali, Gr. 9, Alex Ringold, Gr. 12, Jacob Hoffman, Gr. 9 and Eckhardt each had hits for the Eagles. The boys beat Monta Vista on March 23, but lost to Gunn on March 27. Over the break, the team defeated Saratoga High 9-3 and lost to Lynbrook 7-6. Against Saratoga, Greg Plauck, Gr. 12, had four RBI and a home run while Eckhardt went 3 for 4. The boys defeated Cupertino 3-2 on April 10 to improve to 6-8-1 overall.
Girls Lacrosse Girls lacrosse earned their first victory of the year March 25 by defeating Mercy-Burlingame 9-7. Michelle Douglas, Gr. 9, had four goals, while Julia Shim, Gr. 12 and Elaine Song, Gr. 12, each scored twice and Monisha Appalaraju, Gr. 11, made one goal and had four assists. Ruhi Kumbhani, Gr. 11, had 11 saves in goal. After defeating Woodside 15-7 on April 9, the girls improved to 2-0 in league play. Goals were scored by Shim, Song, Appalaraju, Douglas and Samantha Walker, Gr. 10.
Updates on fall and winter athletes Congratulations to Ryan Cali, Gr. 12, for being named All Mercury News Honorable Mention for boys basketball!
Rohan Shah, Gr. 12, has been selected to participate in the 36th Annual Silicon Valley Youth Classic High School Football All Star Game on July 21 at Spartan Stadium. Congratulations!
Aadithya Prakash, Gr. 12, competed in the Golden Gate Headlands Marathon and placed first in his age group and seventh overall with a time of 3:49.01. Track and cross country coach Paul Nangle advised and assisted Prakash during his training prior to the event. Congratulations on this remarkable accomplishment!
The upper school orchestra has been named the top scoring orchestra of the Los Angeles Festival of Gold. The orchestra is in southern California today – April 19 — and has the honor of performing in Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in the Orange County Performing Arts Center tonight for the entire group of festival participants and families. The judges and festival director requested the orchestra play the Elgar Cello Concerto, featuring Julia Shim, Gr. 12, for the encore performance. “The kids are thrilled, as this is greatest honor our young orchestra has ever achieved,” said Chris Florio, orchestra director.
Sustainable site development? Check. Water savings? Check. Energy efficiency and materials selection? Check and check. How about indoor environmental quality? Also check. With attention paid to these criteria established by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines, plus an extra push by Harker students, Nichols Hall earned its gold LEED certification in July 2009.
Originally designed for silver certification, the building was put over the top by the initiative of students in Jeff Sutton’s AP Environmental Science classes. Eight groups of students designed displays for each of the eight LEED categories, and the two additional LEED points for displays and the education of visitors put the building in the gold category.
Not only is Harker the first school in Santa Clara County to earn gold LEED certification, but the building was named a runner-up at the 2009 Structures Awards held by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, making it one of only two finalists in the Green Project of the Year – Private category.
“[Sustainability on campus] instills a sense of stewardship in the students who are going to inherit this planet,” said Mike Bassoni, facility manager, when asked about Harker’s green commitment. “We’re hoping to instill a sense of preservation in our students, so we practice what we preach and teach these kids firsthand what it means to be sustainable, and hopefully that will carry … throughout their lives ….”
Nichols Hall is only the latest in a long history of greening efforts at Harker. In the late 1980s, Howard and Diana Nichols (former president and head of school, respectively) had an electric car built, which Diana Nichols’ environmental science classes studied and rode in. “We were told that we wouldn’t get enough charge from the sun to use it for mileage….They were wrong. We drove it to school every day for about three or four years,” said Nichols.
She said they got about 12 miles a day on sunshine, the car went 65- 70 mph, was silent and required no maintenance except battery water. Nichols, who directed Harker’s efforts at the City of San Jose’s Earth Day Celebration in the early 1990s, displayed the car at several functions and was eager to disseminate the idea of solar energy for cars.
Diana Nichols’ green efforts also led to the initiation of the Our Trees Project, the goal of which “was to have students from different parts of the world work on the same problems,” said Nichols. Nichols wrote the program with then-technology director Sharon Meyers and brought in five public schools and the Tamagawa Gakuen school in Japan, Harker’s sister school to this day.
In time the project involved just Harker and Tamagawa until 2002, when the Neerja Modi School in Jaipur, India, joined in. “We wanted to model a new kind of education using the Internet to connect people in different locations and socioeconomic brackets …. We wanted to … increase our students’ understanding of environmental problems and empower them to face those problems,” Nichols said of the initiative. Today the Our Trees Project is going strong, taught as part of the Gr. 6 environmental science and computer science curricula.
Bassoni was well aware of Harker’s green history when Nichols Hall was begun. “Harker has had a strong support of environmental awareness and green thinking, so from day one … it was always our intent to design a building that supported our philosophy and had the potential to be LEED-certified,” he said.
Current students have joined the movement as well, and the school has accomplished phenomenal feats with its young activists leading the way. Inspired by a visit from photographer/environmentalist Rick Smolan, middle school students formed Blue Planet Group to raise money for clean drinking water awareness.
Population Studies and computer science classes have woven the cause into their curricula. The students’ efforts reached the ears of the nonprofit organization charity: water, whose founder, Scott Harrison, came to Harker to thank the students personally. In November of this year the upper school raised $10,000 for charity: water to build two wells in African villages with no clean water source.
Olivia Zhu, Gr. 11, was one of four students selected by UNICEF USA to participate in the first-ever Children’s Climate Forum, held together with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in early December. Zhu’s application emphasized incentivizing investment in sustainable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal power, and modernizing electricity grids worldwide. “It’s important to get as much information about climate change policy out there as possible, as it has a major impact now and will have an even bigger one on future generations,” said Zhu.
Priya Bhikha, Gr. 12, and a team of upper school students are preparing a segment for Harker’s 2010 fashion show, with clothes made out of recycled materials. Bhikha has put out a call to all three campuses to help supply her with plastic bags, soda can tabs, paper clips, coffee filters, CDs, drinking straws and more to make her recycled fashions.
Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both Gr.10, took it upon themselves to apply for a grant to improve Harker’s energy efficiency. The girls, with the help of Valence Energy, successfully earned a $5,500 environmental grant, allowing Valance to install smart meters, devices for monitoring energy use, at the lower school campus. They also hope to apply some of the grant money towards an organic garden and window-insulating film at the upper school, and plans are underway to install smart meters at that campus, as well.
This fall the pair attended the Governors’ Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles as two of 25 climate youth leaders; they presented their findings to the assembly and enjoyed an audience with Gov. Schwarzenegger. UNICEF picked up on the girls’ story from there, and sent a camera crew from New York in October to interview them for a documentary on youth activism.
“If we don’t do anything about [global warming] now, we’ll really regret it in the future and history will label us as the generation who sat back and watched the world go up in flames. People will either be part of the problem or part of the solution, and it will take an extremely grueling period of effort by a lot of people to come up with even a fraction of a solution, but every contribution counts. We know the work is hard, and it does seem rather intimidating, but we’re just taking it one baby step at a time,” said Lapidous.
A gold, green building? Students ready to effect change? A strong history of environmental awareness that will continue long into the future? Check.
This article was originally published in the December 2009 issue of Harker Quarterly
Harker received several mentions in notable publications over the holidays and into the new year. Stay tuned for future “In the News” updates to see more of Harker in the headlines!
San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 24: In the “Varsity Extra” section, senior basketball player Ryan Cali is mentioned in the “Highlight Reel” for scoring 24 points in Harker’s victory over Pinewood.
India West, Feb. 5: Namrata Anand, Gr. 12, is mentioned in an article about Indian-American high school students nationwide who were named finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search.
World Journal, Jan. 14: In the Chinese language newspaper, Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists Namrata Anand, Vishesh Jain, Kevin Zhang and Andrew Zhou, all Gr. 12, are featured in a story on their achievements.
Gentry Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2010 edition: A story titled “Chic & Unique” previews this year’s Harker Fashion Show and briefly summarizes its history. On the same page, a sidebar includes a short piece on the Harker Speaker Series.
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, Dec. 25: Nichols Hall is named one of Silicon Valley’s top 25 LEED-certified spaces. In the same issue, Harker is listed as the top private school in Silicon Valley.
The New York Times, Dec. 10: Harker alum Alexander Wang MS ’98 is featured as the top story in NYT’s “Thursday Styles” section.