We are profiling new members of the HAEd team, including three new co-chairs of our New York City chapter. Stay tuned for more introductions. If you would like to join the leadership team, please see open positions here.
Name: Hetal Jani
Degree/graduating year - Ed.M 2012
Location - New York City
HAEd position - Chapter Co-Chair
Current job - Founding Executive Director of SPEAK Mentorship
3 fun facts - For my 33th birthday, I volunteered to take care of pandas at a rehabilitation center near Chengdu, China. I can speak 6 languages. I'm a trained Indian classical dancer and love dancing to Bollywood music! =)
Why did you join HAEd? I joined HAEd to collaborate with other educators to improve education for all our students. Ensuring our children get a relevant and quality education so they can successfully lead us into our future is so incredibly important. This important work requires a community like HAEd, a community of leaders in education preparing our children for a bright future.
What do you hope to achieve through HAEd? I was looking for a community of dedicated leaders in education driving forward best practices and innovation in education. I know that HAEd will be a community of supportive and inspirational individuals working together to bring the best ideas forward into the world of education. Through the incredible network of HAEd, I know education will be more innovative and work for the students of today.
How did you get involved in education? It was actually a friend who had been tutoring a student when she was a senior in high school that got me involved in education. She passed her job on to me because she was going away to college. I was 16 and my first student, Elizabeth, was going into the fifth grade at the age of 10. What Elizabeth taught me at that age about myself, teaching me patience in explaining concepts, using different approaches to teach so that she better understood the content, and the importance of making learning engaging and relevant for the learner was so incredibly powerful. I fell in love with education and the impact I could have as an educator because of Elizabeth. I'm lucky I get to do work that I love every day.
What is something that inspires you? Children. They just make me happy. I love their curiosity and their bright-eyed view of the world inspires me.
What is the most memorable experience you remember from your time at Harvard? It's hard to pick just one moment because the whole experience was made incredible because of my peers and my professors, building relationships with so many amazing individuals across the entire university. I was constantly inspired, learning, and developing. As a result, I worked hard to make sure I also served as source of support for my peers. For this, I was humbled to receive the HGSE Intellectual Contribution & Faculty Tribute award, which was truly memorable.
What advice do you have for other Harvard alumni? It's incredible what we can accomplish when we work together because of all the resources we have access to from the Harvard network. Collaboration is key and we can really achieve a lot as a connected community.