Sands Challenge

Completed

Lives of Great Purpose Campaign: Sands Challenge Completed!

“Everything you see on this campus is a result of philanthropy”

                                                                                                         – Larry Frye

The Lives of Great Purpose Campaign grew out of Harley’s latest strategic plan, which prioritized improving compensation for our faculty, increasing engagement of alumni, parents, and the Greater Rochester community, as well as improving the school’s financial sustainability through increased philanthropy.

The Sands Challenge

In 2018, The Sands Family Foundation made a $3 million gift to Harley, the largest in school history, earmarked to fully fund the support and development of the school’s faculty through a perpetual endowment dedicated to compensation. 

     “As a trustee emeritus and Harley alumnus, I value the passion and commitment of the Harley faculty,” Rob Sands ’76, CEO of Constellation Brands, said. “These educators provide students with the necessary academic foundation to face the challenges of a rapidly evolving world. This gift will support them in continuing to inspire and prepare students to become the next generation of leaders.”

     At the November 2019 public announcement of the Campaign, The Sands Family Foundation issued a $1 million challenge offering a dollar-for-dollar match if the Harley community raised another $1 million, making the faculty endowment $5 million total.

     Thanks to many donors across the Harley community, we reached the $1 million goal in mid-December 2020 and secured the matching gift from the Sands Family Foundation! Thank you especially to Eva ’33 and Vaughn ’34 Morgan, in our Lower School, and their parents Kevin Morgan and Stacey Klimtzak who made an incredible, surprise donation of $195,000 to enable us to reach the $1 million mark.

     Donors also made three new spaces possible, as part of the largest campaign in the history of The Harley School. They are the Peckham Wellness Center, the Winslow Natural Playground and Outdoor Learning Center, and the Moore/Brown Center for Creative Media.

     We will provide more Lives of Great Purpose Campaign updates in 2021. Don’t forget, donations to the Harley Fund are included in the Campaign!

     Make sure your support is counted in the Lives of Great Purpose Campaign by making your gift today at  harleyschool.org/becoming2021-giving.

Thank you!

Our Upper School is filled with formal and informal opportunities for students to take on leadership roles. Whether following passions or learning new skills, student-driven opportunities take many shapes. 

  • Independent study: one trimester, full year, and multi-year projects have included automating our solar chimneys, coding handmade musical instruments, or developing a class on financial literacy for underserved high school students.
  • Serving on student council: 
  • STEM: Climate curriculum program, biomimicry program, NASA Hunch program

At Harley, our students learn how to evaluate social systems in order to identify complex problems in society through a lens of social justice. They take a hands-on approach to working for a fair, equitable society by researching, exploring and evaluating different perspectives, and offering solutions—both theoretical and practical.

Our faculty integrate social justice into our broader curriculum to assist students in gaining a foundational knowledge about what makes a democracy function. By gaining skills in ideating supportive pathways they become more exposed and experienced to how communities can undergo healing and restorative actions.

Students may create independent studies with supervising teachers throughout their Upper School experience or, during Grade 12, they can design Capstone projects—intensive collaborations with Harley faculty and off-campus mentors—involving rigorous academic study and culminating in public presentations. They are empowered to create their own curriculum, set goals, and work on time management skills in order to accomplish their objectives.

Independent Studies run the gamut from The Psychology of Sports to Furniture Design to The Neuroimaging of Alzheimer’s Disease. Capstones, meanwhile, are as diverse as the students who pursue them: Fictional Rochester, Autobiographical Art, Biomimicry Education, Organic Fuel, and Rochester Refugees. 

Indicative of Upper School curiosity and creativity, pursuits such as these distinguish our graduates in college. Through deep dives of this sort, Harley students master more than speaking, writing, and computing: they learn to communicate, advocate, collaborate, organize, listen, and empathize. 

About

Academics

Key Programming

Enrollment

Letter from the Head of School

Letter from the Editor

Features

Central Work that Matters: DEI

Harley Black Alumni Network

Climate Crisis Curriculum

Citizen Scientists

Joy Moss: Storytelling Roots

In Every Issue

Class Notes

Diane Donniger Award

By the Numbers

From the Archives

What’s (Who’s) New at Harley

Divisional Highlights

Alumni Profile: Vandebroek

Alumni Profiles: Keller

HAC Athletics

2021 Lives of Great Purpose Awards

1000 Words

Commencement 2022

Reunion 2022

In Memoriam

Retirements and Fond Farewells

Letter from the Head of School

Letter from the Editor

Features

Central Work that Matters

Affinity Group Forms

Climate Crisis Curriculum

Citizen Scientists

Joy Moss: Storytelling Roots

In Every Issue

Class Notes

Diane Donniger Award

By the Numbers

From the Archives

What’s (Who’s) New at Harley

Divisional Highlights

Alumni Profile: Vandebroek

Alumni Profiles: Keller

HAC Athletics

2021 Lives of Great Purpose Awards

1000 Words

Commencement 2022

Reunion 2022

In Memoriam

Retirements and Fond Farewells