Tag: near

Humanities Endowments Produce Four Scholars: Papers Cover Charter Schools, Special Forces, Nuclear Policy and Churchill’s Public Relations

This article originally appeared in the summer 2012 Harker Quarterly.

The Mitra Family Endowment, established last year, has borne its first fruit. Sarah Howells, grade 12 and the first Mitra scholar, added her effort to the handcrafted social and historical analyses produced by this year’s three John Near Endowment scholars.

Howells chose a classic and controversial character for her subject and found an angle not fully explored for her paper, “Winston Churchill’s Efforts to Unify Britain From 1940-1941,” a look at his public relations efforts as they affected Britain’s morale in early World War II.

In 2011, Harker parents Samir and Sundari Mitra (Shivani, grade 11) established the Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities, which matches gifts to the annual giving campaign up to a total of $100,000.

“The subject matters taught under humanities such as history, languages, communications and philosophy are critical skills and knowledge that develop well-rounded Harker students,” said Samir Mitra at last year’s reception. “Humanities is the bedrock of a superior education and will enable our students to stand out as recognized contributors in their future professions.”

“I knew I 
wanted to apply
 for the Mitra 
grant because 
I had enjoyed 
world history 
so much in my
 sophomore
 year,” said Howells. “I thought about Britain; my family was affected on two sides by World War II, both in Poland and in Britain.”

Too broad at first, her topic choices “quickly narrowed to Churchill’s remarkable unification of the government and retaining the trust of the people during the war,” said Howells, who will attend Princeton in the fall.

Howells noted, “The most interesting part of writing the paper was transitioning from the researching to the writing. That was the most difficult task for me, since I had a myriad of great resources but no idea how to put them all together.”

Howells took on a subject usually taken for granted – Churchill’s ability to relate to the “everyman” and to the highest in the land (he often personally briefed King George VI on the war’s progress) – and examined its worth in keeping the spirit of resistance alive in beleaguered England. Her writing, worth the read in itself, conveys the passion that Churchill used to inspire fellow politicians and those in the street. Her division of material shows the way for further research on how Churchill handled groups differently.

Like all good researchers, Howells pointed out the weakness in her own paper, the inability to examine the records of Mass Observation and Home Intelligence, a government bureau that monitored the public pulse, due to their volume and her limited access. Howells noted that lacking the confirming information in those records, it was hard to be sure of widespread public approval of Churchill.

“It’s been such a pleasure to work with Sarah,” said history teacher Ruth Meyer, Howells’ mentor through the process. “She is so balanced in her approach to research, she’s so steady in everything that she does, so well organized.”

“Overall, the process of writing the paper was an exciting and challenging opportunity,” said Howells, “and I’m glad I could get a taste of what real humanities research is like before I head off to college.”

At the reception, Howells gave emphatic thanks to her teachers and mentor, saying, “I don’t think I could have done this if you hadn’t suggested to me that I was capable of completing such a long senior thesis.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Sundari Mitra, noting the scholars’ efforts to “inspire us parents. 
We are really honored and proud that with whatever little we could do, the school has utilized it in such a tremendous manner, so thank you Mr. Nikoloff, the faculty, everyone. I’m really touched and inspired.”

The $300,000 John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund, in memory of the 31-year veteran of Harker’s teaching staff who passed away in 2009, was made by his parents James and Patricia Near to, in John Near’s words, “help develop the history department, both through the acquisition of resources and by providing growth opportunities for both faculty and students.” Each year, three students receive grants from the endowment’s proceeds to be used for research.

Near scholar Max Isenberg, grade 12, chose a subject Churchill, as a former First Lord
 of the Admiralty, would have been very interested in: the use of on-station naval power as a worldwide deterrent, something at which the British were old hands.

Isenberg’s paper, “Arleigh Burke’s Submarine-Based Finite Deterrent: Alternative to the Nuclear Triad,” an examination of Admiral Arleigh Burke’s answer to ballooning costs involved
with maintaining a three-point nuclear deterrent (aircraft, missiles and submarines all carrying nuclear devices), was carefully researched and covered the salient points of the argument.

Isenberg, who will attend the University of Pennsylvania for the Jerome Fisher Management and Technology program in the fall in a dual-degree program for business and engineering, noted, “My favorite part of the entire project was looking at the competing theories of nuclear strategy, and how they had consequences not immediately obvious until later in the Cold War.

“The most difficult part of the project
was finding solid first-person sources, especially considering the tight classification of many details from the
Cold War,” he added. “That difficulty
 partly contributed to my eventual focus
on nuclear strategy as many of the major players in the development of the Triad and finite deterrence had published works, while a lot of the nitty-gritty details of submarines remain inaccessible.”

Isenberg is appreciative of the grant, thanking teacher and mentor Ramsey Westgate, Susan Smith, library director, and Donna Gilbert, history department chair, for their help. “I don’t think there are very many schools of any sort that offer such a rare opportunity to do history research specifically and then give the leeway to explore the topic in such a thorough manner,” he said.

Dwight Payne, grade 12, chose a current social topic and, as he was out of town during the reception, delivered his address via video. His work, “Can Charter Schools Close the Achievement Gap?” was mentored by teacher Kelly Horan.

Payne’s closely researched paper delves into the arcane world of evaluating charter school results. He located a number of studies which threw light on a portion
 of the process of evaluation and allowed limited conclusions to be drawn on the efficacy of the charter schools studied. Payne identified some commonalities within the studies and used them for his next step, interviewing charter school administrators and examining the records of their schools.

The schools examined in this portion of the project had a spectrum of student results and, although Payne found and used common criteria for eliminating or at least accounting for bias, the differences between schools, including stability, age of students (one was high school, the others lower and middle schools), location, teaching methods and teacher evaluation and training methods made drawing firm conclusions problematic.

Payne was comfortable, however, generally endorsing charter schools as an option
for helping those desirous of helping themselves, feeling that time will only improve the system as learning processes are refined and expanded.

When it came time to write the paper, “sifting through the breadth of literature was a difficult task,” said Payne, who will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, majoring in business administration with a possible second major in either economics or psychology.

Another hurdle was maintaining objectivity. “It was difficult to swallow
my own biases going into the process
and accept that most of the literature I read presented inconclusive or conflicting data,” Payne said. “From that knowledge, however, it was rewarding to conduct interviews that examined specific examples of successes or challenges that were illuminating despite the difficulty of reaching an overall conclusion regarding the effectiveness of charter schools in closing the achievement gap. I particularly enjoyed meeting with school leaders, and I was very inspired by their dedication. The administrators whom I interviewed were incredibly helpful and eager to share their work; I am immensely grateful to them.”

Senior Cole Manaster, like Howells and Isenberg, chose a military topic with political ramifications. His effort, “The Changing Dynamic of Unconventional Warfare: The U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam and Their Impact on Modern 
War,” traced the development of special operations forces first as trainers of villagers in war zones to strengthen them against enemy efforts, then in their roles as covert, uniformed operators behind enemy lines. Manaster documented the status of special operations forces as, following WWII, they grew from a compound of various forces – Army, Navy, Marine and CIA – to the ultimate acceptance of these forces and their integration in the overall military effort.

Today, we are all familiar with the effort
to capture the “hearts and minds” of non- combatants in military zones, and Manaster illustrated how that effort grew from
early efforts to keep South Vietnamese 
and other indigenous groups in Vietnam from falling, or being coerced, under the influence of North Vietnamese communists, while noting that a special operations forces mandate also puts them in the most dangerous situations a soldier is likely to face, i.e., behind enemy lines.

“I was fascinated by this facet of the war – how special forces were used,” he said, “so I looked at how they were used in the Vietnam War and somewhat how they have been used since.”

Manaster, who will be going to the University of Southern California next year as a business administration major, said he “wanted to be able to use the things I have learned in my history classes and all my classes,” but noted, “the toughest part of writing such an extensive paper was keeping myself on track timewise.”

His topic firm, Manaster found the next step a challenge. “If I could do it all again, I would probably have spent more time solidifying my outline before writing the paper itself. What I had in my outline made the writing process itself immensely easier, but I think I probably could have done even more, looking back on it now.”

“I was really happy to be Cole’s mentor,” said Carol Zink, history teacher. “I’ve seen his intellectual growth and development over the years and it’s always tremendously rewarding for a teacher to get to see that.”

Zink noted one of the challenges Manaster had in pursuing his research is that it is difficult
to find unbiased sources on this topic. “There are a lot of books that are ‘Yay-rah, Green Berets!’” she said, “and then there are other books that say the United States should never have gone into Vietnam in the first place and they (the Green Berets) were the dirty dogs in the deal. It is very difficult to try to walk the middle line, and I know that was a struggle for Cole, but I know he persevered.”

Pam Dickinson, John Near’s widow 
and director of Harker’s Office of Communication, again represented the Near family. “Like last year, I felt very much as though John was channeled with the presentations,” Dickinson said, noting facets of each paper that interested the Near family. “John would be incredibly proud. I’m honored to be here on behalf of his parents, and it is a wonderful thing that the Mitras have done. Congratulations. You all have done a wonderful job.”

Manaster echoed the thanks of the other scholars, adding, “All of us have put in a lot of work and it is exciting to see our papers truly come to fruition and to have this at the close of our senior year, as well. I’m very honored to have been a part of this program, and it is something I’m going to remember for a long time.”

Tags: , ,

Inaugural Grant Winners Complete First Cycle; New Winners and a New Grant Named

This article originally appeared in the summer 2011 Harker Quarterly.

The inaugural John Near Scholar Grant cycle is complete, and the first three reports were filed this spring for public access in the John Near Resource Center. Four new Near Grant winners were named in May, and a new endowment has been established by the Mitra family; the first grant winner from that endowment has also been named.

Harker parents Samir and Sundari Mitra (Shivani, grade 10) have established 
The Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities, which will match gifts for the Annual Giving Campaign up to a total of $100,000.

“The subject matters taught under humanities such as history, languages, communications and philosophy are critical skills and knowledge that develop well-rounded Harker students,” said Samir Mitra. “Humanities is the bedrock of a superior education and will enable our students to stand out as recognized contributors in their future professions.”

“The Mitra family’s endowment offer, and every matching gift from others, will benefit our students every year, for years and years to come,” said Melinda Gonzales, director of development.

Justine Liu, Tyler Koteskey and
 Olivia Zhu, all 2011 graduates, were celebrated in the Near Center in Shah Hall by mentors, administrators, parents, history department members, Samir and Sundari Mitra and by Near’s wife, Pam Dickinson, director of the Office of Communication. The center reflects the late teacher’s love of American history. Near taught at Harker’s middle and upper schools for 31 years prior to his passing in 2009, and his legacy includes many hundreds of students left with a love of learning and history.

The John Near U.S. History Endowment, established by Near’s parents, Jim and Pat Near, was the first of its kind at Harker and funds grants to students or teachers each year for research on history projects and history-related databases for the school, as Near wished.

Liu first got interested in her topic, “The China Card versus the China Trade: Sino-American Economic Relations, 1972-1989,” covering the relationship between China and the U.S. from President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, while reading about it in class. In a different class Liu was writing a paper on the currency devaluation in modern China and mentally began tracing the historical line between the two events, focusing on the economic aspects.

“What I was really interested in was why Nixon thought that it was in the interest of U.S. foreign policy for Kissinger to make a secret visit to China,” said Liu. “I was interested in the economic background of that decision.”

Liu, who will attend Harvard in the fall, used grant funds to go to the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, Calif. “I was able to go into the archives room to read and handle the original documents, letters and memos relating and leading up to his 1972 trip to the PRC,” she said. “I think without the grant I would not have had the incentive to go out there and really write a comprehensive paper. That was the first time I got to be that close to documents that were that important to history, so that is something that I really valued that I couldn’t have done without the grant.”

Koteskey’s project, 
“High Water Mark: 
Discussing the Impacts of 
National Power on Confederate 
Military Strategy through the Lens of 
the Gettysburg Campaign,” analyzes the elements of national power as they applied to the Confederate States of America in 1863.

“It was the middle of the Civil War, and a crucial moment for the South,” Koteskey said. “They could reinforce the western half of the country,” but decided to make an offensive move against the North instead to try to force a call for peace. Koteskey used his grant to travel to the Gettysburg region.

“What I think was most valuable to me in this project was going to Pennsylvania last summer to do the research,” Koteskey said. “I was able to visit Harper’s Ferry and the Antietam and Gettysburg battlefields which, apart from being really awesome for a history buff, helped me form a better appreciation of some of the geographical factors constraining Civil War generals in their campaign planning,” said Koteskey, noting that he probably wouldn’t have done the research without the grant.

“My most defining memory, though, was probably my interview with Dr. Richard J. Sommers, the senior historian at the U.S.
 Army Military Heritage and Education
Center in Carlisle. He embraced his time
with me, turning our ‘interview’ into a Socratic discussion on Civil War strategy;
it completely changed my mind, and the ultimate course of my paper, on many of the preconceived notions I had about General Lee’s best strategic option in the summer of 1863.” Koteskey, who will attend UCLA in the fall, noted the whole package, winning the grant and doing the research, “was really a rewarding experience.”

Zhu’s paper, “The UCMJ and Insubordination: Suitability of Military Judicial Responses during the Vietnam War,” was perhaps an outgrowth of her work on the school’s honor council but grew to explore the history of military justice. “I decided, ultimately, to settle on insubordination during the Vietnam War and how the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) addressed insubordination among soldiers,” Zhu said.

“I really enjoyed this entire research process – it’s been so much fun,” she added. “I
think the most important part of this grant was coming to realize that all my teachers helped me so much. It was just very much a community effort going into this paper.” Zhu, who will also attend Harvard in the fall, noted, “Without the grant there is not that impetus to pursue (a topic), and there is not the support system.”

Five more students will walk the path of discovery next year. Sarah Howells, grade 11, is the first Mitra Family Scholar and will join the four Near Grant recipients, Max Isenberg, Cole Manaster, Dwight Payne and Laura Yau, also all rising seniors, in pursuing a chosen historical topic they are passionate about.

“We had 11 applicants this year, and it was not an easy decision to choose from them — we were so impressed with the quality and variety of applications,” said Donna Gilbert, chair of the history and social science department.

As the ceremony wrapped up at the Near Center reception, the students received resounding applause for their presentations. “You three – and your work – perfectly embody what Mr. Near intended with this grant,” commented Dickinson. “He would be so incredibly proud of all of you.”

Read the full story of the Near Grant reception at news.harker.org. Search on “Near Grant.” Those interested in contributing to either endowment can contact Melinda Gonzales, director of development, at melindag@harker.org.

Tags: , ,