In late July, eight Harker students joined the California delegation to the 2022 National Junior Classical League Convention, the first in-person JCL event since 2019. Several more attended remotely as long-distance delegates. The California delegates endured quite an odyssey — overcoming plane delays and cancellations, daily thunderstorms and an alligator swamp in the middle of the University of Louisiana, Lafayette campus — to enjoy a week of competitions, workshops and opportunities to bond with Latin students from the state and all over the country.
“A highlight for many was joining forces with [New Hampshire] and [New Jersey] for a spirit battle against the Texas behemoth,” said Lisa Masoni. “In the opinion of the national second VP, the consortium of small-state delegations was definitely more spirited! “
One of the most important events at the convention is the election of national officers to lead the organization for the 2022-23 school year. Senior Rupert Chen was elected first vice president. Harker’s last national officer, Maya Nandakumar ’15, held the same office in her senior year. Chen, fresh off a stint digging at the archaeological site of Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall, will be responsible for promoting membership and publicity during his term of office.
Below are the top 10 awards earned by Harker delegates:
Harker had 56 medalists, including two perfect scores — by eight graders Joy Hu and Ananya Pradhan — in the 2022 National French Contest. More than 100 Harker middle and upper school students took part in the contest, which is held each year by the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF). The contest consists of a written exam taken at various levels. Students and teachers held a special awards ceremony to mark the occasion.
Harker students had another outstanding year taking the National Latin Exam, with 40 students earning awards and two perfect scores (Trisha Iyer, grade 10, and Jonathan Xue, grade 9). In addition, three students (Iyer, Alec Zhang, grade 10, and Nicholas Wei, grade 11) received special book awards in recognition of earning gold medals on the previous four exams. Iyer received an additional special book award for scoring perfectly on the last three exams, a feat achieved by just 26 of 100,000 test takers worldwide.
The full list of awards won by Harker is below.
Intermediate Latin:
Summa Cum Laude/Gold Medal – Kai Hong and Jeremy Peng, both grade 9
Intermediate Latin, Reading Comprehension:
Perfect Exam: Jonathan Xue, grade 9
Summa Cum Laude/Gold Medal: Omkar Govil-Nail, grade 10; Daniel Chen, Felix Chen, Andy Chung, Hima Thota, Lindsey Tuckey and Ethan Wang, all grade 9
Maxima Cum Laude/Silver Medal: Ford Johnson, grade 10; Audrey Cheng, Jason Li, Varun Thvar, grade 9
Magna Cum Laude: Hannah Levanon, grade 9
Cum Laude: Chase White, grade 10
Advanced Latin, Prose:
Summa Cum Laude/Gold Medal: Ainslie Chen, Isabella Lo, Harriss Miller, Rohan Ramkumar, Agastya Ravuri, Jason Shim, Grant Yang, all grade 9
Maxima Cum Laude/Silver Medal: Eric Zhang, Nelson Gou, both grade 9
Magna Cum Laude: Natalie Chen, grade 10; Caleb Tang, grade 9
Cum Laude: Chloe Lee, grade 10
Advanced Latin, Poetry:
Perfect Exam: Trisha Iyer, grade 10
Summa Cum Laude/Gold Medal: Catherine Li, Michelle Wei, Alec Zhang and all grade 10; Alan Jiang, grade 11
Maxima Cum Laude/Silver Medal: Kabir Ramzan and Edward Huang, both grade 10
This story was submitted by middle school Latin teacher Lisa Masoni.
A delegation of 19 middle school Latin students kicked off spring break with the Junior Classical League’s second (and hopefully last) Virtual State Latin Convention. Some students chose to attend virtually together, welcoming a group of upper school students to the library to attend assemblies, workshops and competitions over Zoom. It was the first visit to the Union campus for some of the upper school students.
The middle school delegation took third place in Spirit with seventh grader Megha Unny’s poster and song parody, titled “The Twelve Days of Saturnalia.” Other school awards included first place for Scrapbook (Chelsea Xie, historian, grade 7) and third for T-shirt Design (Raeanne Li, grade 7).
The MS1 certamen (quiz bowl) team of sixth graders Avi Gupta, Rory Hu, Zahra Syed and Lucas Yuan placed first in the state. The MS3 team – eighth graders Aidan Okyar, Kairui Sun and Rahul Sundaresan – placed second in their division, and the MS2 team – seventh graders Ameera Ramzan, Sanjith Senthil, Vera Sorotokin and Chelsea Xie – lost a heartbreaking tie breaker for third place and a seat in the final round, but fourth in the state is nothing to sneeze at!
Several upper school students will serve on the California JCL state board for the 2022-23 school year: sophomore Trisha Iyer as historian and junior Tiffany Chang as Nuntius editor. In addition, junior Rupert Chen was approved by the state to run for national first vice president.
Last but not least, Raeanne Li’s opinion piece for The Eagle Gazette on the need for students to respect each other’s choices for language study won Best School-Affiliated Media in the National Junior Classical League Publicity Contest for the month of March, with the following notification from the NJCL:
“Thank you for your submission for the Publicity Contest. This was a wonderful article, and we were moved by the message.”
Individual awards for the middle school delegates are listed below:
MS1/Grade 6:
Avi Gupta: Second in Daily Life, third in Derivatives, second in Pentathlon
Rory Hu: First in Derivatives, first in Reading Comprehension, first in Vocabulary, third in Dramatic Interpretation
Charlene Li: Fourth in Grammar, third in Mythology
Zahra Syed: First in Geography, second in Derivatives, first in Mythology
Lucas Yuan: Second in Geography, first in Grammar, first in Pentathlon, second in Reading Comprehension
MS2/Grade 7:
Shamik Khowala: Second in Daily Life, fourth in Mottoes; third in Reading Comprehension, first in Vocabulary, third in Dramatic Interpretation, second in Sight Reading
Lily Peng: Second in Classical Art, third in Geography, fourth in Daily Life, third in Grammar
Ameera Ramzan: Third in E-lympika Sit-ups, third in Daily Life, second in Grammar, second in Roman History, second in Reading Comprehension, third in Vocabulary, second in Latin Oratory
Vera Sorotokin: First in Vocabulary, first in Mottoes
Abby Wang: First in Daily Life, third in Derivatives, fourth in Reading Comprehension
Chelsea Xie: Third in Derivatives, third in Reading Comprehension, second in Dramatic Interpretation
Demi Zheng: Fourth in Derivatives
MS3/Grade 8:
Marisa Masoni: Third in Mythology, first in Painting, first in Mosaic
Aidan Okyar: First in Classical Art, first in Roman History, first in Mottoes, second in Mythology
Kairui Sun: First in Derivatives, first in Grammar, first in Reading Comprehension
Rahul Sundaresan: Second in Roman History, first in Mythology
Jonathan Szeto: First in Geography, second in Reading Comprehension
Two upper school students recently took second and third place in the French Poetry Recitation contest, held by the American Association of Teachers of French. Ella Swan and Tanya Karpinchyk, both grade 10, placed second and third, respectively, at the French 3 level. Each participant was tasked with memorizing one of a selection of poems and submit a video of them reciting it. To celebrate, students enjoyed a game of pétanque out on the upper school quad.
Last weekend, senior Erica Cai gave a presentation about colorism in Japan at an event held by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE). During the spring 2021 semester, Cai became an honoree of the 2021 Reischauer Scholars Program along with fellow seniors Kailash Ranganathan and Daniel Wu. The Reischauer Scholars Program selects 25 to 30 high school students each year to embark on an intensive study of a topic related to Japan. The program was named in honor Edwin O. Reischauer, a former ambassador to Japan.
Last month, two Harker students were recognized in a New Year’s greeting card contest held by the Japan Information and Cultural Center at the office of the Consulate-General of Japan in San Francisco. Third grader Momo Matsui-Disini received the Judges’ Award in the elementary division and sixth grader Jaden Chyan earned the Creative Award in the middle and high school division. These and the other New Year’s cards (“nengajo”) submitted for the contest – more than 540 in all – will be viewable through Feb. 20 at the Japan Information and Cultural Center at 275 Battery St., Suite 2100, in San Francisco.
Late last month, the Japan Information and Cultural Center at the office of the Consulate-General of Japan in San Francisco recognized three Harker students in its annual New Year’s greeting card contest. In the middle school division, seventh grader Shareen Chahal received special recognition and Jessica Wang, grade 6, was awarded an honorable mention. Momo Matsui-Disini, grade 2, received an honorable mention in the elementary school division.
This contest invites local students to participate in the Japanese tradition of sending New Year’s cards (“nengajo”) to their loved ones. These and other greeting cards that Northern California students submitted for the contest (more than 640 in all) will be on display until Feb. 21 at the Japan Information and Cultural Center, located at 275 Battery St., Ste. 2100, San Francisco.
In mid-April, middle school French teacher Carol Parris and her French 2M students visited the Left Bank restaurant at Santana Row for a taste of French food and culture. “We had a leisurely meal in the les Amis room, a lovely private dining room,” Parris said. Students enjoyed appetizers of French bread and fries while waiting for their orders to arrive. “I believe that the most popular luncheon was the croque monsieur, a French grilled ham and cheese sandwich, served with a salad, but the chicken and vegetarian pasta received a thumbs up as well,” Parris said. Not surprisingly, the dessert of two profiteroles (pastry shells with a vanilla ice cream filling and chocolate sauce topping) proved to be the most popular menu item among students.
At the California Junior Classical League Convention, held on April 13 and 14 at Menlo School, Harker upper school Latin students were successful in a large number of events, with Harker taking first place overall in its division.
Two students won awards for the best academic performance at their respective levels. Freshman Akshay Manglik won in level 3, competing against 223 other students, and sophomore Jeffrey Fung was the winner at the advanced level, in which 236 other students competed.
Fung was also the top scorer in the academic pentathlon and grammar II tests. Other top test scorers were senior Edgar Lin in derivatives and Andrew Semenza in reading comprehension III.
Several more Harker students earned top spots in other competitions, including Elliot Kampmeier, grade 9, who placed second in level 1 sight reading.
In the level 3 events, Manglik took first place in pentathlon and dramatic interpretation, second place in grammar II and third in derivatives. Anna Vazhaeparambil, grade 9, placed third in pentathlon, dramatic interpretation and cartoons. Sara Yen, grade 9, took second place in dramatic interpretation and grammar II, and junior Ben Yuan finished in second place for both reading comprehension III and sight reading, with a third place finish in Latin oratory.
At the advanced level, Jai Bahri, grade 10, placed second in sight reading (poetry), and Arohee Bhoja, grade 9, took second in dramatic interpretation. Junior Timothy Chang placed first in essay, third in classical art and third in daily life. In addition to his other wins, Fung also took first place in sight reading (poetry), third place in ancient geography and third place in sight reading (prose). Sophomore Avi Gulati placed first in grammar II, pentathlon and sight reading (poetry), as well as third in ancient geography and sight reading (poetry). Semenza took top spots in three events, placing first in reading comprehension III, second in derivatives and third in vocabulary. Sophomore Kyle Li had third place finishes in both mythology and pentathlon, and Lin took second place in pentathlon in addition to his win in derivatives. Finally, Sara Min, grade 11, placed third in mythology, Ayush Pancholy, also grade 11, finished third in reading comprehension III and sophomore Jack Hansen took third in reading comprehension III.