Coach Alec Lai `09 Leads MS Academic Challenge Team to Victory

Are you smarter than a middle schooler? Take the Middle School Academic Team challenge by answering this question: "It is the third person, singular, perfect, indicative form of the Latin verb meaning +óGé¼-£to declare an oath.` What is this legal term for a written statement of fact, made voluntarily, and confirmed by an oath?" If you can`t answer it, you are not alone. But then again, you may not be as smart as the middle school students who are fortunate enough to have been coached by Hawken senior Alec Lai. There are those who use their great skills and abilities only to further their own ambitions. Alec is clearly not one of them. He has been volunteering at the Middle School teaching physics and math after school to students who want to learn more. Moreover, as a junior, he began creating a new Cleveland area Academic Challenge League specifically for younger students. While many states already have leagues for the Middle School age, Ohio does not currently have such an organization. With Alec`s leadership, this is now available for Cleveland area students. Nearly every Friday after school, Alec takes the trip from the Hawken Upper School campus to the Middle School campus to coach the Academic Challenge teams. Alec is clearly qualified to coach - at any level, it seems. He was on a team that won First Place in the nationals of the Knowledge Master competition as a sixth grader and moved on to be awarded many other accolades. As an eighth grader, Alec won the prestigious Exploravision science competition with a teammate for the project, "Visible Light Photocatalysis" and was flown to Washington to accept his $10,000 prize. As a junior, Alec was a member of the Hawken Academic Challenge team that won the televised tournament. Finally, Alec recently won the Science and Engineering Fair for the area and will be going to the International competition for this most prestigious science award - where he will be judged by Nobel prize winning scientists from around the world. Alec proved his prowess as a coach on April 25th, 2009, when the Cleveland Middle School Academic Challenge League held their local area tournament at Hawken Middle School. Eleven teams from four schools participated in this event, answering questions both as teams and individual members of their team. After five rounds consisting of 4 quarters, the winners received ribbons and certificates to celebrate their achievements. The Hawken Middle School teams did extremely well in the three divisions. In the Red Division, the Hawken A team came in 1st place with Cleveland Heights Monticello Team A winning the 2nd place position. The Gray Division was won by Hawken B team and Mentor Memorial A taking 2nd place. In the Green Division, Cleveland Heights Monticello B was in 1st place with the Richmond Heights A team achieving the 2nd place. For the overall competition among all teams, the Hawken A team won 1st place, the Hawken B team secured 2nd place, and the Cleveland Heights Monticello B team won 3 rd place. These teams all worked extremely well to achieve these results. Congratulations to Team A members Jared Berg, Russell Cohen, Justin Faulhaber, and Alex Kaufman; Team B members Shang-Shang Chen, Anna Du, Sindhura Vallabhaneni, and Jack Weisman; and other Hawken team members including Michael Holstein, Kush Khosla, Katelyn Long, Sam Rao, and Max Schachere. (These are students who, incidentally, know that the Latin word that answers the questions posed eariler is affidavit.) Many of these students will be traveling to Arlington, Virginia in June to compete in the National Middle School Academic Challenge. They were invited based on their strengths in both the Knowledge Master competition and on Hawken`s having placed 5th in the Nationals last year. Good luck to all, and a big thank you to Alec Lai for leading them to great success!