On Friday, May 18, 2012, a ceremony was held to honor Hill students who received exceptional scores on Classics and Humanities exams that they took in February.  Henry Bender, Ph.D., the Elizabeth Blossom Chair of Humanities, was also honored at the ceremony.  Dr. Bender will be retiring from the School in June after 14 years spent at The Hill and a total of 45 years in education.

 

"To be a student of Dr. Bender’s is not to learn from some technician of dead languages, from a man who has just mastered - although he has - the facts of civilizations that are now long gone," said Patrick Lake, Ph.D., in his tribute to Dr. Bender.  "Like the mythical singer Orpheus, whose music was so beautiful that he could animate wood and rock, Dr. Bender makes what is dead come alive." Read Dr. Lake's full remarks. 

 

Sixty-two Hill students earned awards for their proficiency in Latin after taking the National Latin Exam (NLE) in February. The NLE Committee acknowledges students for their efforts with certain certificates of achievement which correspond to the scores. The highest award consists of a gold medal and a certificate of achievement entitled Summa Cum Laude, which is given to students with either perfect scores or a maximum of two errors. The second highest award is a silver medal with a Maxima Cum Laude certificate of achievement. Additional awards include Magna Cum Laude and Cum Laude certificates. Impressively, 11 of the awards received by Hill students were Summa Cum Laude, while 22 were Maxima Cum Laude; 53 percent of the total awards received were in the two highest categories. 

 

Approximately 50 percent of Latin I students received awards:

Maxima Cum Laude

William Garrett '15 (Yarmouth, Maine)

Paula Noller '15 (Audubon, Pa.)

Timothy Rutt '15 (Prospect, Conn.)

Garrison Smith '15 (Royersford, Pa.)

Preston Tietjen '15 (Pottstown, Pa.)

 

Magna Cum Laude

Stephanie Barron '14 (London, England)

Liam Eadie '15 (Highland Park, Ill.)

Mark Forrest '15 (Douglassville, Pa.)

Konstantin Golobokov '15 (Moscow, Russia)

Autumn Lafferty '15 (Cochranville, Pa.)

Mary McArdle '15 (Reading, Pa.)

Sam Norton '15 (Collegeville, Pa.)

Jonathan Young '15 (Center Valley, Pa.)

 

Cum Laude 

James Gould '13 (Glen Ellyn, Ill.)

Chalie Preletz '15 (Collegeville, Pa.)

Lauren Selwyn '15 (Fleetwood, Pa.)

Alexandria Shirey '15 (Birdsboro, Pa.)

 

Seventy percent of students received awards in the Latin II exam: 

 

Summa Cum Laude

John Carson '14 (Northfield, Minn.)

Braden Cordivari '14 (Elverson, Pa.)

Robert A. Kerr, III '12 (Sullivan's Island, S.C.)

My Linh Luu '14 (Hanoi, Vietnam)

Joey Stephens '13 (Boyertown, Pa.)

Jordan Trout '14 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Berenger Wegman '15 (Reading, Pa.)

Maxima Cum Laude

Luke Andersen '14 (Gilbertsville, Pa.)

Julia Donald '14 (Kimberton, Pa.)

Elizabeth Gudas '14 (Binghampton, N.Y.)

Ivan Katyshev '13 (Moscow, Russia)

Schuyler Metzger '14 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Abigail Mortimer '12 (Pine, Colo.)

Nana Owusu '14 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Sanobar Shaikh '14 (Reading, Pa.)

Magna Cum Laude 

Kyle Gawel '14 (Pottstown, Pa.) 

Rosa Volpe '14 (Leonia, N.J.)

Cum Laude

Taylor Hendrickson '14 (Phoenixville, Pa.)

Alexandra Lange '14 (Collegeville, Pa.)

Colin Spencer '14 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Cynthia Teinowitz '14 (Palm Beach, Fla.)

 

Seventy-nine percent of students received awards in the Latin III/IV exam:

 

Charles Buschmann '13 (New York, N.Y.)

David Jacob Eckhart '13 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Nabil Shaikh '13 (Reading, Pa.)

Robert Young '12 (Center Valley, Pa.)

Michelle Adjangba '13 (Charlotte, N.C.)

Christian Argenti '13 (Hellertown, Pa.)

Kara Beckman '13 (Glenmoore, Pa.)

Katherine Ferrara '12 (Spring City, Pa.)

Lindsey Hassinger '12 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Ronuk Modi '12 (Sinking Spring, Pa.)

Nathaniel Smith-Ide '13 (Pottstown, Pa.) 

Carson Stephens '13 (Lakewood, Wash.)

William Worrilow '13 (Fogelsville, Pa.)

Magna Cum Laude 

Adam Beards '13 (Limekiln, Pa.)

Madeline Finaly '13 (Chadds Ford, Pa.) 

Monica Patel '12 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Theodore Poatsy '13 (Salfordville, Pa.)

Mala Sharma '12 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Hollyn Taylor '12 (New Hope, Pa.)

Amy Amuquandoh '12 (Millstone Township, N.J.)

Blair Bellis '12 (Bedminster, N.J.)

Kimberly Breeding '13 (Collegeville, Pa.)

Dominic Lucchesi '13 (Lansdale, Pa.)

 

The National Latin Examination Committee, whose membership consists of university professors and secondary school teachers of Latin, composes the tests annually with the intention of measuring a student’s command of Latin grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. With some questions on Roman culture, architecture and history, each test consists of forty multiple choice questions inclusive of a Latin passage on which questions explore the student’s ability to comprehend and translate.

 

Thirty-seven students took various levels of the National Greek Exam in February. Nineteen students took the beginning Greek exam, and 18 students took the intermediate Greek exam. Approximately 57 percent of Hill students taking the various exams earned awards for their excellent performances.

 

Award winners for the Intermediate Attic Greek Examination include:

 

Vivek Venkatesh '12 (Conshohocken, Pa.)

 

Michelle Adjangba '13 (Charlotte, N.C.)

Ronuk Modi '12 (Sinking Spring, Pa.)

Anita Venkatesh '12 (Conshohocken, Pa.)

 

Certificates of Merit were awarded to the following students for their scores in Intermediate Greek:

Christian Argenti '13 (Hellertown, Pa.)

Adam Beards '13 (Limekiln, Pa.)

Blair Bellis '12 (Bedminster, N.J.)

Charles Buschmann '13 (New York, N.Y.) 

David Jacob Eckert '13 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Theodore Poatsy '13 (Salfordville, Pa.)

Nabil Shaikh '13 (Reading, Pa.)

Nathaniel Smith-Ide '13 (Pottstown, Pa.)

William Worrilow '13 (Fogelsville, Pa.)

 

Certificates of Merit were awarded to the following students for their scores in Beginning Greek:

 

For the second time, Hill students competed in the National Classical Etymological Exam, which measures the ability of students to determine the meaning of complex English words by recognizing the Greek and Latin roots from which the word derives. Seventeen fifth form students from the Humanities 3 Advanced Placement Classes competed, with sixteen receiving awards.

 

Michelle Adjangba '13 (Charlotte, N.C.)

Kara Beckman '13 (Glenmoore, Pa.)

Frances Fitzgerald '13 (Haverford, Pa.)

Ji Hyon Hwang '13 (Seoul, Korea)

Hadley Knapp '13 (Plantation, Fla.)

Yujin Koh '13 (Busan, Korea)

Zheyuan Liu '13 (Shenzhen, China)

Theodore Poatsy '13 (Salfordville, Pa.)

Nabil Shaikh '13 (Reading, Pa.)

Sierra Stratton '13 (Pottstown, Pa.)

 

Charles Buschmann '13 (New York, N.Y.)

David Jacob Eckhart '13 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Sara Graham '13 (Pottstown, Pa.)

Justin Kuyper '13 (Los Angeles, Calif.)

William Worrilow '13 (Fogelsville, Pa.)

 

Molly Esbenshade '13 (Vienna, W.Va.)