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New Faces on Campus
11 teachers and 3 staff members join the Upper School this year. Melissa Wantz: Communications
New Staff at the Adam Levine: English Upper School By Danielle Spitz Anne Pyle Originally from eastern Washington, Anne Pyle started her first year at the Alumni Office Aug. 3. Pyle previously worked as the assistant to the Director of Institutional Advancement at St. James School in Los Angeles. As director, she helped with alumni relations, annual giving and fundraising events. Pyle earned her bachelor’s degree studying communications, graphic design and business administration at Seattle Pacific University. Her new job at the Alumni Office is more focused on answering questions and keeping their records updated. Pyle is enjoying working at the Upper School. “I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone, and learning new things from everybody,” Pyle said. “There are so many wonderful people here, and I really want to get to know each and every one of them.” —Claire Dennis
Ari Engelberg ’89 Ari Engelberg ’89 (Jacob ’12) will replace Jill Shaw as Director of Communications on an interim basis, where he will focus on strategically planning the school’s communications and marketing approach as well as fulfilling the job’s daily responsibilities, President Rick Commons said in an email to the school community. Engelberg will temporarily hold the position while the administration seeks a permanent replacement. Engelberg worked as an entrepreneur and executive director of Bright Star Schools, a collection of five charter secondary schools in Los Angeles. He is also a former Harvard-Westlake history teacher and assistant basketball coach. —Jesse Nadel
Greg Hilliard Greg Hilliard, former head of the basketball program, has held the position of Director of Alumni Athletics since last spring and will be working to organize events to reconnect alumni athletes. Hilliard has coached the boys’ basketball team for 30 years and has led them to nine CIF championships and two state championships. Hilliard’s main duty in his new position is to create a nationwide network of alumni athletes who are more involved in the student community. “The main thing that I hope will happen is [the network of alumni], since I’ve been here for 30 years and gotten to know so many athletes,” Hilliard said. Hilliard also hopes current student athletes can benefit from talking to the alumni. “I just feel lucky to be able to continue my association with the school for so long, and I hope that I can contribute in a positive way to a whole new area,” Hilliard said. —Ellis Becker
Former squash and football coach and English teacher Adam Levine will teach English II and English III: Living America. At the Kent School in Connecticut, Levine taught electives such as detective fiction, music and literature and sophomore, junior and senior English classes. Levine also coached the squash and football teams. Levine is interested in theater and music, particularly jazz music, he said. He plans
By Liz Yount
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to incorporate music into his lessons. “It seems like a really warm and welcoming community, and I am excited about contributing, but also about being a part of that community in many ways,” Levine said.
Max Tash: Yearbook, Broadcast By Katie Plotkin
After two years of working part-time livestreaming athletic events through HWTV alongside the athletic department, Max Tash will teach yearbook journalism courses and build a broadcast journalism program. “The HW Broadcast Journalism program, in conjunction with the Chronicle, will be a signature program that high schools throughout the world will want to emulate,” Tash said. Tash will teach yearbook classes on both campuses. “As for Vox Populi, we are planning on creating a year-
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digital bootcamp for the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, where she is also a judge for their national competitions and serves as board president. “We want to transition the way the Chronicle publishes to become more digital first,” Wantz said. “When news breaks, it gets immediately released to the public because it’s all about serving your primary audience.”
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book that comes alive,” Tash said. “That’s all I’ll say.” Tash has worked in communications at Milken Community School in Los Angeles for the past decade. He designed and developed the visual storytelling and broadcast journalism programs at Milken.
By Carmen Levine
With more than 10 years of experience in marine and environmental biology, Nadine Eisenkolb joins the Upper School as a new AP Environmental Science teacher. Eisenkolb grew up in a landlocked portion of Germany and became interested in marine and environmental biology during a scuba-diving trip to the Canary Islands. Eisenkolb attended school at the Hilo Marine Science Program, which is often referred to as a “marine biology heaven.” She then became a research assistant at the Scripps Institute for Oceanography and earned her master’s in marine and environmental biology from the University of
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Southern California. Eisenkolb is most excited to join the school because of the students, she said. “Especially with HarvardWestlake, they are so well known for their students wanting to learn and wanting to thrive in their subject areas, so I’m definitely really looking forward to that,” Eisenkolb said.
Laurie Levenson: Criminal Law By Sarah Lee
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her husband and two trilingual children. Tannenbaum said she hopes to help her students become comfortable speaking in Spanish. “I want to empower my students and give them the confidence to speak in a foreign language,” Tannenbaum said. She also wants to educate her students about the diversity of Latin American culture.
Gustavo Godoy: Visual Arts By Hannah Cho Gustavo Godoy, a prominent sculptor whose art has been displayed in galleries and exhibitions nationally and internationally, will teach 3-D Art and Ceramics at the Upper School this year. As a kid, Godoy said he enjoyed using his hands, whether it was fixing bikes or building forts. With the skills he acquired when he was younger, Godoy was able to draw inspiration for his art. “I wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty and use tools, and the basic skills I learned as a kid perfectly complimented my desire to make art,” Godoy said. “With sculpture, I got to
Melissa Wantz will make the commute from Ventura County to Harvard-Westlake each day to lead the upper school communications department, serve as the Chronicle and Big Red adviser and teach journalism classes. She graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and received her master’s in English literature from CSUN. Wantz previously taught at Balboa Middle School for eight years and later began teaching at Foothill Technology High School where she advised the Foothill Dragon Press website, taught an English class and oversaw technology and communications. She developed a
Nadine Eisenkolb: Science
Sofia Tannenbaum: Spanish New Spanish teacher Sofia Tannenbaum hopes to inspire students with her diverse Jewish and Argentinian culture this year when she joins the World Languages Department, she said. Born in Bariloche, Argentina, Tannenbaum began her teaching career 20 years ago as an English teacher in Buenos Aires. When she moved to the U.S., Tannebaum continued her career by tutoring students privately and was inspired to work with teenagers once she saw the relationships she developed with them. “I want to have a great relationship with my students,” Tannenbaum said. “I want them to find someone they can trust in me and keep that relationship.” When she is not teaching her students, Tannenbaum enjoys cooking Argentinian food and spending time with
Sept. 1, 2015
Laurie Levenson (Dani ’17, Havi ’08, Solly ’06) will be teaching Criminal Law and Advocacy in the Kutler Center this year. Levenson teaches at the UCLA School of Law, where she received her law degree, and Loyola Law School. She has also been a legal commentator for several news networks and has worked on some major criminal cases. “Of course, teaching at a high school is different from teaching at a law school, but I plan to treat the students as the professionals that I know they will be,” Levenson said. Levenson says she looks
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forward to working with the students at Harvard-Westlake. “My goal is to make sure the students understand the criminal justice system and get engaged in the challenges facing it,” Levenson said. “They will learn how to try cases, plea bargain, argue sentences, help people who have been wrongfully convicted and make changes in the law.”
Andy Stout: Math By Connor Reese
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be a problem solver and take advantage of my ability to make things.” Godoy had been interested in Harvard-Westlake for many years. Godoy took the job after browsing the Harvard-Westlake website and finding out that the school was looking for someone to teach sculpture and ceramics.
After working as a software engineer for several years, Andy Stout has joined the upper school math department as a computer science teacher. An alumnus of Pasadena Polytechnic, Yale and University of California, San Diego, Stout always wanted to come back to Southern California. Stout has taught courses at college and high school levels. For the past four years, he has been working as a software engineer at Teradata in San Diego. He will be teaching Design
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and Data Structures along with Advanced Topics in Computer Science. “For my first year here, I am going to stick to Mr. Fieldman’s syllabus,” Stout said, “But after this year I’ll build upon it.”