Harbord Collegiate Institute (HCI or Harbord) is a public secondary school located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The school is located in the Palmerston-Little Italy-Annex neighbourhood, situated on the north side of Harbord Street, between Euclid Avenue and Manning Avenue. From the 1920s to the 1950s, about 90 percent of the student body was Jewish, while today the student body largely consists of students of East Asian and Portuguese descent.[1]
History
Knox College, Victoria University, Trinity University, Harbord Street Collegiate Institute 1900-1925
Harbord was opened in 1892 as the Harbord Street Collegiate Institute. Harbord's first centennial was celebrated in 1992 and included the inauguration of the Harbord museum, a repository of Harbord memorabilia. To mark the event, Harbord's alumni group, the Harbord Club, published a 300-page history of the school entitled The Happy Ghosts of Harbord, which traces the history of the school from its opening in 1892 to 1992. The original school building was Jacobethan Revival and replaced with the Collegiate Gothic wing in 1932.
On November 11, 2005, a Remembrance Day ceremony took place at Harbord. With the donations from the W. Garfield Weston Foundation and many other corporate sponsors and individuals, the rededication of the 1921 World War I monument back to its original splendour was held. In May 2007, a second monument created to remember World War II was revealed in another ceremony.[2]
Harbord Club
The Harbord Club has 2600 members. It was established in 1978. The Harbordite, founded in 1979, is the club newsletter that keeps former students of the school in contact with one another and up-to-date on Harbord activities. The Harbord Charitable Foundation was also created at this time, supporting both student scholarships and alumni activities.
Notable alumni
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Comedy duo Wayne and Shuster met as high school students at Harbord
From the 1920s to the 1950s, about 90% of the student body was Jewish. Today, the student body largely consists of students of Korean and Portuguese descent, which is representative of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Many of the clubs at Harbord are reflective of the ethnic groups present. The Harbord language program offers courses in Spanish, French, Portuguese and German.
Harbord has three French programs: Immersion, Extended and Core French. These classes offer students an opportunity to become bilingual in Canada's official languages. Harbord also has a full ESL (English as a Second Language) program which helps students new to Canada to learn English.
Clubs
The Student Activity Council, or SAC, is one of the largest student-run organisation at Harbord Collegiate Institute. TigerTalk is Harbord's official newspaper. It covers topics related to the school as well as a variety of other topics. It has won awards from the Toronto Star's high school newspaper competition.
The Key Club is an international student-led organisation which aims to provide its members with opportunities to provide service, build character and develop leadership."[5]
The Business Club gather at lunch and/or after school to learn about business topics. They participate in business competitions including DECA and JA Titan. The "Tiger Techs" are Harbord's robotics team. They participate as team 919 in the FIRST Robotics Competition.[6]
Sports offered at Harbord are:
Team
Boys
Girls
Co-ed
Badminton
Baseball
Basketball
Cross country
Dragon boat
Team
Boys
Girls
Co-Ed
Ice hockey
Rugby
Soccer
Softball
Swim
Team
Boys
Girls
Co-ed
Table tennis
Tennis
Track and field
Volleyball
Wrestling
Arts
Visual Arts
Harbord offers a visual arts program for each grade exposing students to materials, concepts and skills. Studios offer lessons in drawing, painting, ceramics, printmaking, photography, animation, design, and life drawing. Studies in design allow students to partake in fashion design (an annual fashion show), architectural design and interior design as well as text and graphic design. Art history is woven into the assignments as is theory in aesthetics. Student work can be viewed at the Creative Arts Festival held every year.
The classes range from Grade 9 Beginner Vocal to Senior Vocal. There is a Cantemus Choir at Harbord that sings for events inside and outside of Harbord. The choir has participated in the Kiwanis Festival.
Strings
The classes include the Grade 9 Beginner Strings, the Junior Strings and the Senior Strings. Instruments available for strings at Harbord include: violin, viola, cello and bass. Harbord's String Quartet won First Prize at last year's Kiwanis Festival. The Chamber Orchestra has performed at other venues such as Massey Hall, and George Weston Hall. The Strings Chamber Orchestra plays at school events.
"Onward Harbord"
"Onward Harbord" is Harbord's official song, and is sung along with the school band playing at the same time. It is sung to the tune of the fight song "On, Wisconsin!"; Harbord is one of some 2,500 schools using some variation of this piece as their school song.[7]
