“What is a hack-a-thon?” you may be asking yourself. Well, in the descriptive words of Seth O’Bryan found on the promotional poster for the event: Who: This event is free and open to any Harley student in grades 7-12; participants can have anywhere from zero coding knowledge to plenty of...
We were honored to have Meredith Ciaccia, class of ’08, as our November presenter in Harley’s Commons Speaker Series. As Senior Manager of Government Relations & Program Development for Special Olympics in Washington DC, Meredith spoke about her work in creating policy, advocacy, education, and community health support for individuals...
Conversations on Race Conference — by Jocie Kopfman In early November, a group of Upper School students went to the University of Rochester’s “Conversations on Race” conference. We attended two sections: a workshop about publicly-engaged scholarship (see description below) and the key note lecture given by Dr. Derald Wing Sue...
Beyond Soup: by Viccy Tausk, ’17 Beyond Soup is a group composed of upper schoolers dedicated to learning about the hunger issue in Rochester and what students can do to help. Part of this process consists of visiting different organizations currently doing work to help solve...
The Rochester Youth Climate Leaders are back in action! After giving all of the members the chance to settle into their new school year, the eager group started their monthly meetings in October. At this meeting, Ryan McMullan, RIT graduate student and Rochester People’s Climate Coalition intern, shared his current...
From Commons Educator, Jocie Kopfman: World of Inquiry trip: In early October, a group of students from three different clubs, Beyond Soup, the 10th grade Global Youth Leadership Institute (GYLI) team, and the middle school Diversity & Advocacy Round Table flextime club, went to the World of Inquiry school to...
We were honored to host three guest panelists from the Gay Alliance’s LGTBQ Academy and moderator Jeanne Gainsburg at our October Commons Speaker Series presentation. The evening was designed to better familiarize audience members with transgender identities and to offer a comfortable space to ask questions and learn about respectful...
During the week of October 17-21, we were honored to have two visiting experts on campus to discuss the broad topic of gender. This coincided well with the Oct. 19 Commons Speaker Series presentation featuring a panel on transgender identities, but allowed the faculty to engage Milena Novy-Marx and Pamela...
Kicking off this year’s Commons Speaker Series was none other than the community-oriented, artistically-gifted, show-up-and-make-things-happen spokesperson, Shawn Dunwoody. Shawn has connections to Harley that go as far back as working on the Bridges project with Chris Hartman and Horizons graduates and Harley Upper School students (building boats and understanding), as...
We are delighted to welcome three new teachers to the Commons this year: Chris Becker, Kevin Boyd, and Lars Kuelling. These three teachers are weaving their way into the established fabric of the building and the learning opportunities therein, as well as working closely with veteran Commons educators. Chris Becker...
