The Character Education Committee chose 10 posters as winners in a competition held in Civitalks groups Oct. 9 that asked participants to draw representations of what has colored their school experiences, such as academics, the arts, friendships, athletics and stress.
Darby Caso ’14, Jared Eisner ’16, Kennedy Long’16, Animaan Pathak ’15 and Jessica Spitz ’15 from group 1 was selected as one of the top five creative and representative of Harvard-Westlake, as were group 3’s Riya Garg ’15, Brandon Kuwada ’16, Dora Schoenberg ’16 and Tyler Urbach ’14. Brian Adler ’15, Ari Berman ’15, Arin Schwimmer ’15, Emily Segal ’14 and Matt Ursin-Smith ’16 from group 5, Aaron Anderson ’14, Yoko Everard ’16, Victoria Huynh ’15, Juliet Nguyen ’16 and Jason Vranek ’14 from group 17 and Nina Dubovitsky ’15, Justin Kang ’15, Eugenia Ko ’16, Mia Ray ’14 and Natalie Wiegand ’16 from group 40 were also among the top five.
Group 29’s Hunter Brookman ’16, Mintis Hankerson ’14, Alexis McCarthy ’14 and Benny Weisman ’15 won for best three-dimensional poster. Group 45, including Caroline Bell, Eli Caplan, Annelise Colvin ’14, James Edwards ’16, Daniel Furman ’16, Dominque Gordon ’15, Lucas Hernandez ’14, Irene Kao ’14, Melanie Krassel ’15, Andy Liu’ 14, Astrid Montanez-Garay ’15, Noah Redlich ’16, Skylar Reiff ’15, Aria Sarnoff ’16, Lauren Song ’16, Josephine Treadwell ’16, Jake Zimmer ’16 and Sean Zoka ’15, was chosen best overall group.
“The best overall group was determined when the posters were unrolled and all four of the posters were very creative and good representations of Harvard-Westlake,” Assistant to the Head of Upper School Michelle Bracken said. “This did not happen with any other groups of posters.”
“We had some help from Community Council students in sorting through the original 180 plus posters and narrowing that down to a smaller number that the Character Ed Committee then voted on,” upper school dean and Character Education Committee chair Pete Silberman said.
The winning posters are being displayed outside of Chalmers, and the winners will receive prizes at Civitalks Nov. 13, when groups will discuss the importance of the depicted themes and brainstorm ways to improve the school, Assistant to the Head of Upper School Michelle Bracken said in a school-wide email.
“We hope this activity will be a springboard into future Civitalks discussions,” Silberman said.
“Though I can’t even draw a straight line, it was fun to be a part of such a creative and artistic group where we all listened to and appreciated everyone’s ideas,” Adler said. “I think that element of respect is one we’re all so used to here, and looking back, I wish we had included that on our poster.”
