Nine Harker Near and Mitra scholars were honored at an annual reception today in the Nichols Auditorium, where they presented their final works to their mentors, faculty members and parents.

The students first gave a three-minute speech about their writing process and honored important aides, such as parents or assigned mentors, in helping them compose their works. Next, the students’ mentors talked about their experiences working with the student and praised their accomplishments. At the end of the event, the students were allowed to sign their completed works at the center of the stage with their mentors at their side.

Aditya Dhar (12), one of the five Near scholars, reflected on the memorable experience of displaying his final paper to the friends, teachers and family that helped him along the way.

“I really had fun at the banquet,” Aditya said. “I just thought it was nice to get the chance to acknowledge a few people, present my work and check out the work of the other scholars.”

The students began work on their papers last summer and were assigned teachers in the history department as mentors to guide them through the writing and sourcing process. The topics the students chose to write their papers on were strictly based upon a topic of interest related to the humanities, but the chosen essay prompts varied widely. Near scholars researched a subject related to U.S. history, while Mitra scholars investigated an issue tied to the international world.

Although the students are now done with their essays, Near scholar Andrew Rule (12) feels that there is no limit for the passion he has for his chosen topic on Native American literature and plans to continue researching this topic beyond completing the essay.

“Now that the paper is over, I’m really proud, but I’m definitely not done because there’s so much more to know about my topic,” Andrew said.

Upper school librarian Lauri Vaughan, who mentored four of this year’s nine scholars, said that the great success the scholars had this year was partly because of improvements to the application system, changes to which allowed students to refine unclear topics instead of rejecting them outright.

“I think we saw some of our best papers ever this year, which is always exciting, and I think that it’s due in part to the refinement of the program,” Vaughan said.

Applications to be a Near or Mitra scholar for the 2017-2018 school year opened via the Harker library portal on March 27 and closed last Friday.