Newman Students Donate Harkness Table to the School in Memory of Dr. Hal Sheets

The late Dr. Hal Sheets, Newman’s history chair from 1999-2010, strongly believed in discursive teaching, with students sitting in a circle, speaking openly and equally about the history topics his class explored together. One of his dreams was to obtain a Harkness table – a grand, oval wooden table with enough room for each member of a class – and use it to facilitate discussion and debate history. In a gesture of appreciation for their time spent learning with him, the Class of 2011 spent a good portion of their senior year raising the funds to purchase and install a Harkness table in his memory.

 

It was no small feat. The enormous oak table, with room for up to 20 students, cost nearly $6,000, and the students felt that to properly honor Dr. Sheets, they should raise the money themselves. The students mobilized, organized, planned, and executed a succession of fundraisers to generate the money for the table. They found sponsors for Homecoming programs, they baked cookies and cupcakes, barbequed, washed cars, auctioned, and even serenaded a cappella to raise the money for the table. With a little help from friends of the Sheets family, they reached their goal and bought the table, which now sits in Dr. Sheets’ former classroom on the Saratoga Building’s History Hall.

 

Students in History Chair Gary Baldwin’s Capstone class now file in to face each other and exchange ideas about “Energy in the 21^st Century.” It is not enough for Newman seniors to discuss the world’s current use of oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power, and renewable energy; they are asked to project what form of energy we will be using a century from now. Seated around the Harkness table, they deal with complicated issues that few high school seniors (and few adults) ever attempt to tackle.

 

The table, of course, is more than a piece of furniture. It is a fixture in the History Department, it is a tool that generations of students will sit around to discuss the challenges and opportunities that have faced the human race throughout time and into the future, and it is a fitting tribute to a great and beloved teacher.