vacation: booked
the road ahead
Check out recommendations for pleasure reading from English teachers and Harvard-Westlake community book groups.
The Class of 2011 is headed to 89 colleges in the fall.
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the
hronicle C May 25, 2011
Harvard-Westlake School Los Angeles, CA Volume XX Issue IX chronicle.hw.com
Pipe project to slow traffic on Coldwater By Daniel Rothberg
printed wtih permission of Annelise Hansson
triple crown: Cami Chapus ’12 runs the 1600-meter race at CIF Finals on May 21. Chapus’ performance propelled the girls’ track and field team to its first CIF Championship in school history. Chapus won this race in 4:49 and claimed first place in two others, the 3200-meter and the 4x400-meter relay. see C1 for further coverage
INdepth
Growing pains
As it graduates its 20th co-educational class, the school has achieved excellence in almost every field, but not without cost. By Alice Phillips and Daniel Rothberg “She did not see it as a merger or even as an offensive takeover but rather as a rape.” When then-Headmaster of Harvard School Thomas C. Hudnut went to the North Faring Road campus to discuss the merger of Harvard and Westlake schools, he was met with a hostile crowd. A Westlake mother marched up and down the aisles of the Marshall Center carrying a sign that bore one word: rape. “Actually that embarrassed many in the audience to move them from hostility to indifference,” Hudnut said. Yet despite the initial outrage and a lawsuit against both Harvard and Westlake schools for violating their charters by merging, fewer than 10 students from both schools left before HarvardWestlake opened its doors in the fall of 1991, Hudnut said. But Harvard-Westlake’s challenges weren’t all thrown out in the chambers of Superior Court Judge Miriam Vogel.
71 students had not completed their community service by May 18 despite the published May 2 deadline.
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“What if half the faculty quit?” Hudnut said. “What if we couldn’t afford it? What if? What if?” Merging Harvard and Westlake meant reconciling differences in tuition ($8,350 at Harvard vs. $7,750 at Westlake), in facilities and in pedagogy. “There was some skepticism,” Chief Financial Officer Rob Levin said. “Are the girls just going to get steamrollered?” However, for those entrenched in merger drama, concerns and challenges like these were nothing more than a distraction from what the marriage could and would eventually achieve. “It was very clear at the time of the merger that they were trying really hard to prove themselves,” Chief Advancement Officer Ed Hu said. “As someone on the outside, I knew the quality of Harvard and I knew the quality of Westlake. I had a good sense that once the schools merged it created this see then and now, A8
INSIDE healing: Homeopathic medicine and Chinese herbal remedies serve as health supplements for some students.
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balancing act: Students who participate in arts and athletics must juggle their commitments when practices and rehearsals conflict.
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Construction to replace aging pipes on Coldwater Canyon Avenue will leave a 1,360-foot open trench on the street until Dec. 8, the Sherman Oaks Patch said. The construction, which will span from Ventura Boulevard to Avenida Del Sol Drive, is the first phase in a 1.3-mile project that was expected to begin next week and continue through May 2015. A recently-installed sign near the South gate alerts drivers about expect traffic delays beginning on May 30. “What we see as the remedy would be [to] give yourself an extra 15 to 20 minutes [to arrive at school],” Salamandra said Salamandra said that construction will immediately affect the Coldwater parking that is adjacent to the field. Construction may also affect pick-up and turning left into the school’s entrances since there is discussion of eliminating the middle turning lane, Salamandra said. The school will post information and updates during the construction in a tab on its website. “To keep the entire Harvard-Westlake community apprised of project developments, including potential lane closures and modifications to student pick-up [and] drop-off patterns, we will create a “construction update” tab on the school’s website,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said in an email to faculty. The project aims to replace a trunk line that was built in 1914, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said on their website. “This is all part of the 10-year Capital Improvement Program that is for replacing aging water infrastructure,” Department of Water and Power’s construction engineering supervisor Todd P. Le said to the Sherman Oaks Patch. “We are trying to make this the least disruptive as possible.” “They have guaranteed us that the access in and out of both driveways will not be restricted,” Salamandra said. “They may dig a trench across the driveway but what they can do is put plates over it so we can get in and out.”
Musician to give valedictory speech By Megan Kawasaki Jordan Bryan ’11, a varsity wrestler and jazz musician, was selected to present the Class of 2011’s valedictory address at commencement on June 10. Bryan was chosen from among the top-ranked stunathanson ’s/chronicle dents of the senior class by Jordan Bryan ’11 faculty vote. His selection was formally announced during the Cum Laude ceremony. “I do my best work during [wrestling] season,” he said. “When you do more, you do everything better.” Bryan was informed of his selection several weeks ago by Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts. Emily Kennedy, Executive Assistant to the Head of School, sent him an email asking him to meet with Huybrechts concerning graduation announcements, but the appointment was a decoy see bryan, D2