Kevin Moss ’14, who will graduate from Trinity University this spring, was awarded the Walter Adams Prize for Excellence in Economics. The prize honors Walter Adams, the Vernon F. Taylor Distinguished Professor of Economics at Trinity University in 1989 and 1992-98. It recognizes “a graduating economics major at Trinity who has achieved great distinction in scholarship and involvement in the life of the university community,” according to a congratulatory letter to Moss. As the winner of the award, Moss will receive a cash prize, an individual plaque and his name on a commemorative plaque that is displayed in the economics department. He will receive the prize at the spring honors convocation. Way to go, Kevin!
Harker earned a gold award in the branding category for its entry, titled “Harker Athletic Branding Program,” in this year’s District VII CASE Awards of Excellence! The silver winners in the category were both universities: the University of California, Davis, for its campus recreation “Come as You Are” branding campaign, and University of California, San Diego, for its “Continue the Nontradition” branding campaign. The fact that Harker beat out two universities for the top award speaks directly to the caliber of work at Harker.
The two-year effort was spearheaded by the Harker Office of Communication’s in-house designer, Becky McCartney. “Becky was especially resolute in finalizing the brand and helping to execute it across all uses, including uniforms, locker rooms and gear,” noted Pam Dickinson, director of the Office of Communication.
Ken Toyama, a graphic designer who has worked extensively with Harker in the past, contributed substantially to the effort, working on illustration and production under McCartney’s direction.
“It was an organized, thorough process in which our Office of Communication listened to our athletic department’s goals and philosophy,” said Dan Molin, upper school athletic director. “From there emerged a wonderful visual brand that our high school athletes and prospective students will recognize as a brand of excellence, as is the case with all Harker programs.”
“Along with the new Athletics Center, the new athletic branding is top notch and demonstrates the level of excellence we are striving to attain,” added Theresa “Smitty” Smith, varsity volleyball coach, and lower and middle school athletic director. “We are proud of the efforts that have gone into the gym and the branding, and the excitement amongst our student-athletes is palpable. They are now even more proud to wear the gear and represent the Harker sports program.”
In their congratulatory letter, CASE judges noted Harker’s “excellent work stood out among the best. One of our objectives is to share best practices among our colleagues, and your efforts will be recognized as an example for others to emulate. Thank you for producing the kind of work that brings respect to our profession.”
As a gold award winner, the entry will now be considered for a grand gold award, “given to the truly ground-breaking work in the category.” Those awards will be announced in March at the Awards of Excellence luncheon in San Francisco.
DECA Direct, the national newsletter for DECA, announced today that the Harker team has won the 2018 Herff Jones Marketing Results Challenge in Houston. The challenge was to create marketing campaigns to increase yearbook awareness and sales on campus. Team members are DECA member Vignesh Panchanatham, grade 12, and Sharon Yan, grade 12, TALON managing editor and Devanshi Mehta, grade 11, TALON seniors editor, who joined DECA to participate in the challenge.
The Harker team prepared a video highlighting methods and results that won over the Herff Jones executives who judged finalists at the 2018 Herff Jones International Sales Conference. The team will receive $5,000 for travel to the DECA International Career Development Conference in Atlanta where it will be recognized on stage.
Team members all gained insights to the world of print production and distribution.
“I’ve been on the yearbook staff for four years since the first day of my freshman year,” said Yan, “and I’ve seen how much the journalism program has grown and changed and all the innovation and improvement that’s happened inside the journalism program with our whole process and staff.
The hardest part of this project was consolidating all of the data and analyzing it in order to present concrete numbers about our program’s growth in sales over the last five years,” Yan added. “We included significant multimedia in our presentation, such as examples of completed articles and videos from our Humans of Harker project as well as other short yearbook videos we displayed at weekly school meetings to be more transparent with the student body. In the formal presentation, we also featured examples of dynamic pages from this year’s book to demonstrate how inclusive and thorough our coverage of school-wide events is and how the yearbook staff is experiencing an upwards trend in writing quality and photographic expertise.”
Mehta was interested in the business process. “I hadn’t fully realized just how much “business” a yearbook comprises,” he said. “Even though the process of creating a book requires writing and photos and design, the path to getting that book into the hands of the community is all about marketing strategy and public relations. I’ve really learned more about how yearbook is both a student publication and a business through this project.”
Panchanatham concurred. “I’ve gained a “behind-the-scenes” view of how the yearbook really comes together, which has made me more aware of the work and care that the staff puts into the yearbook each year,” he noted.
Be sure to congratulate the team members! Check out the DECA press release! and here’s a link to the winners’ video.
Dec. 15, 2017
DECA members Devanshi Mehta, grade 11 and Sharon Yan, grade 12, TALON yearbook staff members, and Vignesh Panchanatham, grade 12, DECA member, are finalists in the 2017 Herff Jones Marketing Results Challenge. Herff Jones produces class rings, yearbooks and other academic memorabilia. DECA and Harker’s upper school Talon team are collaborating in the contest, focusing on business aspects of the yearbook.
Herff Jones will fly the finalists to Houston to present their analysis, methodology and results to Herff Jones executives. After the presentations, Herff Jones will choose a single winning team and will award a $5,000 travel prize to help cover that team’s expenses to the International Career Development Conference in Atlanta for general-session recognition.
“They are implementing this project to help increase sales and yearbook participation across campus,” said Juston Glass, business and entrepreneurship teacher and DECA advisor. “It’s been a great study/analysis on what journalism can do, with the partnership of DECA consulting/advising to meet their revenue and sales targets.”
This is a national competition and the first round was judged via video submissions. The second round, in Houston, will be in January. Both Glass and Ellen Austin, director of journalism and advisor to TALON, will accompany the team. The International Career Development Conference will be in late April.
“I’m so pleased that Harker is one of the two national finalists,” said Austin. “This is exciting, and it’s the first direct collaboration opportunity between these two Harker programs – great to see the result. Congrats to DECA and journalism on this joint inter-curricular venture!”
Harker’s middle school DECA Idea Challenge team is a global finalist!
The team, named Insulator Warrior Inc., is a finalist in the elementary/middle school category. Members of the team are Markus Zhang, Rohan Bhowmik, Arjun Barrett and Gordon Chen, all grade 7.
The annual Idea Challenge, held during Global Entrepreneurship Week, invites students to pitch an innovative new product that uses a mystery item. This year’s item was a rubber band; teams had to generate a new use for this traditional product. Check out their video showing a really innovative use of the humble rubber band! There were 2,255 submissions from teams around the world. Other finalist teams are from Bermuda, Canada, The United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. The global winners will be announced Jan. 23.
Enya Lu, grade 11, was elected 2017-18 Silicon Valley DECA district president. This is very exciting news, as only one other Harker student has held such a prestigious position in DECA.
Lu will be working with California state legislators, prominent business leaders and school administrators to promote the DECA organization and represent thousands of DECA student members as emerging leaders and entrepreneurs.
This video catches the moment Harker students heard Lu’s name announced as president. It is great to see Harker students coming together and showing such great enthusiasm for each other’s accomplishments! Congrats and good luck, Enya!
The American Mathematical Society today announced that Ashvin Swaminathan ’13 was awarded the 2018 AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student! Swaminathan received the award for exceptional research in algebraic geometry, number theory and combinatorics. His work has appeared in numerous well-regarded professional level journals.
Swaminathan also has been awarded Princeton’s Centennial Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and the David B. Mumford Prize (for most promising mathematics concentrator at Harvard). Some of his research has been in the University of Minnesota Duluth Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program and the Emory University REU program.
For more information on this award and Swaminathan, see the AMS press release.
Over the winter break, senior Swapnil Garg and junior Katherine Tian were covered by the San Jose Mercury News for their performance in the 2017 Siemens Competition, which earned them a trip to the national finals in December.
Nov. 6, 2017:
Swapnil Garg, grade 12, and Katherine Tian, grade 11, are off to the Siemens Competition national finals! Their project – titled “Automated Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma Grade Classification with Prognostic Significance” – was selected as one of six team projects that will be considered for top honors at the final stage of the competition, held Dec. 4-5 in Washington, D.C. There, the two students will be eligible to win up to $100,000 in scholarship prizes, split evenly between them. As finalists, the pair are guaranteed a minimum $25,000 prize.
Oct. 18, 2017:
Congratulations to senior Swapnil Garg and junior Katherine Tian, who were just named two of the 101 regional finalists in this year’s Siemens Competition! They each will receive a $1,000 scholarship prize and are eligible to compete at the regional finals for the opportunity to advance to the National Finals in Washington, D.C. Best of luck!
Oct. 17, 2017:
Today, the Siemens Foundation named 10 Harker students regional semifinalists in the 2017 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, the most from any California school. Each year, individual and team research projects from six regions are selected to be semifinalists.
Harker’s semifinalists in the 2017 competition are Cynthia Chen and Jin Tuan, grade 10; Erin Liu, Ashwin Rammohan, Katherine Tian, Laura Wu and Katherine Zhang, grade 11; and Amy Dunphy, Swapnil Garg and Amy Jin, grade 12.
These 10 students are among the 491 semifinalists nationwide chosen from more than 1,860 projects submitted. Each of the semifinalists’ projects will be evaluated to determine which students will be named regional finalists, who in November will enter into six regional competitions. Winners from the regional finals events are eligible to attend in the National Finals, held at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where finalists will compete for $500,000 in scholarships.
The finalists announcement is set to take place tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Every year, student news publications from CSPA-member schools are selected to be Crown Finalists after a “head-to-head comparison,” the CSPA website states. Criteria considered in judging include design, writing, photography and coverage. Every Crown Finalist will be awarded either a Gold Crown or Silver Crown at the CSPA ceremonies, to be held in New York City in March.
In-depth news/feature story: “Behind the Statistics: Student Stories of Survival in Silicon Valley,” by Kaitlin Hsu, grade 12, Kshithija Mulam ‘17 and Meilam Steimle ‘17
First-person experience: “Stripping ‘Quiet’ of Its Negative Connotations,” by Sahana Srinivasan, grade 12
Cultural feature: “Top Binge-Worthy Shows to Watch During Spring Break,” by Sahana Srinivasan, grade 12
Photo story: “At the Pools,” by Kaitlin Hsu, grade 12
Photography/Portfolio of work: Ashley Jiang, grade 12
Informational graphics/Portfolio of work: Kaitlin Hsu, grade 12
Single-subject news or feature package, double-truck: “Science of Sleep,” by Sahana Srinivasan, grade 12
At the National Economics Challenge finals in New York City, Harker’s team took fourth place overall in the Adam Smith division, narrowly missing the top two and a chance to appear on CNBC. Nevertheless, the students performed admirably to place in the top four nationwide. Congratulations!
Update May 1, 2017:
Harker’s National Economics Challenge team received word on Friday that it had qualified for the 2017 National Finals, set to take place in New York City May 20-22. The team – made up of Arindam Ghosh, Sumer Kohli, Adriano Hernandez and Praveen Batra, all grade 11 — previously won the state-level competition, placing it among the top four teams in the country. More than 10,500 students participate in the competition each year.
The final competition will consist of three multiple choice exam rounds, a case study presentation and a quiz bowl round.
April 4, 2017
Harker has qualified two teams for the national semifinals of the 2017 National Economics Challenge, which tests students’ knowledge of economics using real-world scenarios. Following qualification, competitions are held at the state, national semifinal and national final levels for high school students in two divisions: the Adam Smith Division for advanced placement, international baccalaureate and honors students; and the David Ricardo Division for semester general economics students. Harker competes in the Adam Smith Division.
After qualifying the maximum of two teams per school via the initial online test, both Harker teams qualified at state finals for the next round, the national semifinals. Harker teams finished first and second at state finals, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on April 3. The first place teamcomprised Praveen Batra, Adriano Hernandez and Sumer Kohli. Arindam Ghosh is also on the team but missed this round due to the flu. All are grade 11.
The second place team is Alex Lam, grade 12; and Eric Jeong, Derek Kuo and Alex Wang, all grade 11. The national semifinals are a proctored exam held at each team’s school on April 25. Scores will be tallied nationwide and the four top-scoring teams will then meet in New York City on an all-expenses-paid trip to compete for the championship.