Tag: milestones

Milestones Celebrate Faculty Efforts

This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.

Susan Smith

Susan Smith, Harker’s library director, participated in the California Conference on Library Instruction in April. She and a colleague gave a talk titled “Step Over the Threshold with Us,” addressing six anchoring threshold concepts that frame an academic re- search process. One of those concepts, “Scholarship is a Conversation,” was the crux of their talk. It involves mas- tering disciplinary ways of thinking and communicating including using nuances in syntax, specialized vocabu- lary and subject-appropriate evidence to convey ideas in an appropriate me- dium or genre, shaped for a particular audience and context. Read more here: http://www.cclibinstruction.org/ ccli-2015-speakers-sessions-breakout- session-speakerstopics/

Diane Main

Diane Main, upper school director of learning, innovation and design, received the Gold Disk award from CUE (formerly known as Computer Users in Education). The Gold Disk is CUE’s oldest recognition program. Since 1983, honorees have been recognized for their contributions to CUE and to technology in education. Gold Disks celebrate member contributions of time and talent to CUE, both of which Main has contributed to for two decades! On another note, Main hit the national radar as one of 50 educators to follow on Twitter! Read more here: http://blog.enotes.com/2015/03/25/ teachers-who-tweet-50-educators- you-should-follow/

Jaap Bongers

K-12 visual art department chair Jaap Bongers was one of five featured artists at Artik Art & Architecture’s 20th annual open house. The May show, held at Artik’s offices/art studio in San Jose, is billed as part hoedown and part gallery show. This year, more than 100 pieces were on display from about 90 Bay Area artists.

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Winter 2013: Milestones

This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.

Upper school science department chair Anita Chetty recently received an outstanding educator award from the University of Chicago. Chetty was nominated by David Grossman ’13, who is now a University of Chicago freshman. The award, which has been given for more than 30 years, recognizes inspiring teachers who have helped first-year students in their academic careers through their ability to challenge and spark change within them.

In his nomination letter, Grossman credited Chetty with helping him qualify for a top internship at NASA. Although he had to turn down the offer due to other responsibilities, he expressed much gratitude for Chetty’s strong and sincere advocacy. “Words cannot communicate how much this offer meant,” he said.

Each year, the University of Chicago receives hundreds of nomination letters from students from all 50 states as well as internationally. Chetty has been a key part of Harker science students’ success, fostering in them a love of science and research that has helped earn them excellent results in the Siemens Competition and Intel Science Talent Search for several consecutive years. She was also instrumental in kicking off Harker’s annual research symposium, which attracts respected figures from a wide variety of scientific fields and gives students the chance to present their research to industry professionals.

The most recent previous nominee for this award was upper school English teacher Alexandra Rosenboom, who was nominated in 2011.

Eric Kallbrier, a longtime member of the middle and lower school BEST programs, was recently named the upper school’s club coordinator. In this new position, he hopes to continue “working with our amazing club advisors to continue to provide a level of excellence within our valuable student organizations.” In addition to this work with BEST, Kallbrier also has worked as the director of junior staff and counselors-in-training during Harker’s summer programs. “Through these positions, I have been able to interact with students across a broad range of grade levels,” he said.

Kallbrier has grown fond of the atmosphere provided by the Harker community. “The opportunity to work closely with the advisors, officers and members of the upper school student organizations is really exciting!” he exclaimed.

Jonathan Brusco, grade 7 social studies teacher, was named the Kudos Corner winner in San Jose District One Supervisor Mike Wasserman’s November newsletter. Brusco serves on the Santa Clara County Citizen’s Advisory Commission on Elections. In a letter that was published in Wasserman’s newsletter, Brusco explained why he believes community involvement is so crucial to improving people’s lives. “The media often talks about what is going on in Washington and we often assume that the decisions made there impact our lives most directly; however, this couldn’t be further from the truth,” he wrote. “It is your local leaders who impact your life on a daily basis and as a member of a local board or commission, you can influence their decisions.”

His current position is not his first. He has held a position in the local library’s culture and arts commission. He also was elected to Gavilan College’s Board of Trustees. “While the roles and responsibilities of various boards and commissions vary, in my two years on the Elections Commission, we have dealt with countless significant issues that have benefited the voters of this county,” he said. “The newly designed and more intuitive sample ballots, policy changes regarding signature verification, and funding recommendations for voter outreach, were a result of our efforts.”

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Computer Science Teacher Active in Outreach

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

Abigail Joseph, middle school computer science teacher, has been very busy! In mid-May, she attended the Making Possibilities Workshop, held at Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara. The event was geared toward helping public educators and those working with low-income youth, and covered various formal and informal approaches to teaching on a variety of topics. She also spent several weeks working with Harker students for this year’s Technovation Challenge, a competition for young women in technology.

Joseph also traveled to Nashville in March for the national conference of the National Society of Black Engineers. There, she worked with the Bay Area, New York and Memphis chapters of Black Girls Code, an organization dedicated to fostering coding skills in young women of color. Joseph teamed up with Black Girls Code to deliver mobile app development workshops for nearly 200 middle and high school students. She also worked with a company called Hidden Level Games to hold a game jam workshop.

That same month, she headed to southern Texas to train a team of Latina middle school girls to develop an app idea that was a winner in this year’s Verizon App Innovation Challenge.

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Art Teacher’s Latest Work Featured in Oakland Gallery

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

“ImmersionVapor,” the latest work from upper school art teacher Joshua Martinez, was featured at Oakland’s Backstock Gallery through June 16. Using photographs as its medium, the exhibition invoked the feelings of being overcome and surrounded, with the obscuring nature of fog being a central element. The exhibit also explored the nature of memory and how original sensory experiences fade with time.

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Art Teacher’s Latest Work Featured in Oakland Gallery

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

“ImmersionVapor,” the latest work from upper school art teacher Joshua Martinez, was featured at Oakland’s Backstock Gallery through June 16. Using photographs as its medium, the exhibition invoked the feelings of being overcome and surrounded, with the obscuring nature of fog being a central element. The exhibit also explored the nature of memory and how original sensory experiences fade with time.

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Art Teacher’s Latest Work Featured in Oakland Gallery

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

“ImmersionVapor,” the latest work from upper school art teacher Joshua Martinez, was featured at Oakland’s Backstock Gallery through June 16. Using photographs as its medium, the exhibition invoked the feelings of being overcome and surrounded, with the obscuring nature of fog being a central element. The exhibit also explored the nature of memory and how original sensory experiences fade with time.

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Math Chair Receives Inspirational Teacher Award from MIT

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

Bradley Stoll, mathematics department chair, received an Inspirational Teacher Award from MIT in late March. Lorraine Wong ’13 nominated Stoll for the award, saying, “I am immensely grateful that you believed in me in math, and more importantly, in life, and that you are not afraid to share your belief that being a kind human is more important than getting the best grades in a class.”

Stoll expressed gratitude at being nominated and said he was honored by Wong’s sentiments. “Lorraine’s nomination will be a constant reminder to me that I need to see and treat each student as an individual and not compartmentalize them by their grades, that I need to be compassionate, that sometimes I need to be their teacher, [and] sometimes I need to be their friend.”

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College Counselor Presents on Project-Based Learning at Beijing Conference

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

Martin Walsh, college counselor, flew to Beijing in May for a global education conference, during which he gave a presentation on the correlation between project-based learning and college admissions. He was invited to present by University of Oregon education professor Yong Zhao. During his presentation, Walsh discussed student involvement in robotics, Harker’s research program, Intel Science Talent Search finalists and semifinalists, the class Student-Directed Showcase, the journalism program and other facets of Harker’s programs that produce wellrounded students.

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Journalism Teacher Receives Highest Honor from Columbia Scholastic Press Association

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

In March, the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) recognized upper school journalism teacher Ellen Austin with a Gold Key Award for excellence in journalism at the CSPA conference, held at Columbia University in New York City. The Gold Key, which dates back to 1929, is the CSPA’s highest honor. “The joy in watching a developing young journalist find his or her voice and being a part of helping him or her find a stance in the world is an incredible experience,” said Austin upon receiving the award.

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