Milestones from Harker Quarterly Summer 2016

This article originally appeared in the summer 2016 Harker Quarterly.

Harker library director Sue Smith and upper school librarians Lauri Vaughan and Meredith Cranston contributed an article on information literacy to the May/June issue of Knowledge Quest, the journal of the American Association of School Librarians. In the article, titled “An Argument for Disciplinary Information Literacy,” they discuss the importance of teaching information literacy to students in a manner appropriate for each discipline.

In April, Daniel Hudkins, Harker’s director of learning, innovation and design (LID), attended the Associated Technology Leaders in Independent Schools (ATLIS) Conference in Atlanta. He co-presented with Jamie Britto, CIO of the Collegiate School in Richmond, Va., on the topics of security and data privacy, sharing a recent occurrence of ransomware appearing on Harker’s network. The conference also provided Hudkins with valuable lessons.

“Among the most important were the importance of having and maintaining planned responses to emergency situations, and that the role of information technology in independent schools is continuing to grow not only as it applies to student learning, but also as it is used as a better way of analyzing data and enhancing productivity,” he said.

Upper school art teacher Pilar Agüero-Esparza was recognized as an artist laureate by SVCreates for her contribution to the arts and culture of Silicon Valley. SVCreates, which identifies itself as “a network of leaders” whose goal is to “ignite investment and engagement in our creative culture,” recognizes five artist laureates each year, awarding them with a cash prize to help them continue their work in the arts. In addition to her work as an arts educator, Agüero-Esparza has been active as an artist and arts administrator throughout the Bay Area. Her work has appeared at the San Jose Museum of Art, Triton Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Santa Cruz Museum, among others.

Please welcome Whendy Carter as Harker’s new preschool director! Carter comes to Harker from New York City, where she served as an educational coach for the NYC Department of Education and Bank Street College of Education. Her previous experience also includes directing the Montclare Children’s School and the Church of the Epiphany Day School and several years as a preschool teacher. As a preschool advisor to The Parents League of New York, she led workshops on early childhood education, and as adjunct professor at Hunter College’s School of Education, she taught a graduate course in early childhood creative arts.