Alumni News: Krysta Banke ’93

It’s cool to be smart at Harley.

In May 2022, Krysta Banke ’93 completed her PhD in English Rhetoric and Composition from the University of South Florida. She credits The Harley School’s maturational philosophy, “Become What Thou Art,” and the Montessori style teachings in the Lower School as key reasons for pursing her doctorate.

Krysta joined Harley in kindergarten. She remembers a salient approach to literacy in the Lower School that gave students confidence. The teacher would ask the student to draw a picture and ask about the picture. The student would tell the story and the teacher would transcribe it. This was such a proud and satisfying moment for the illustrator, who would go on to write their short stories over time.

She also enjoyed reading time and the dynamic storytelling of James and the Giant Peach by Pam Kimmet P ’92, ’95 (Lower School, 1970-1989, Head of Lower School, 1989-2007). She credits Jay Stetzer P ’88, ’91, GP ’20, ‘26 (Music 1971-2018) for her love of dancing to music and fondly remembers his “mirror movement class,” a lesson that involved matching your partner’s movements as they moved. Another dance example involved enacting Jay’s costumes and roles assigned to students while performing a specific costumed role. The way Jay taught music and movement together gave her space to be creative and focused. Today, her number one recreational activity as an adult is learning international “connection dances” like Urban Kiz and Sensual Bachata, where she takes the learnings from her Harley Lower School music classes to skillfully read the intention of her dance partner and sense where they have placed their weight and what direction they are moving in.

While she was in Middle School, Mrs. Skavorak taught students logic as part of a lesson on rhetoric, the art of persuasive writing and speaking. The class ended up divided into teams, each of which desperately needed a specific citrus fruit supply to save people’s lives. The trick to this scenario was that the teams did not need the same parts of the fruit and after negotiation realized they could collaborate. Although Krysta left Harley for a short time to attend a Quaker school, in Grades 7 and 8, she appreciated the literary selections of Middle School English teacher Bill Dalton P ’82, ’85, ’87 (English 1971-1998) such as Tuck Everlasting and Flowers for Algernon. She loved when he showed the students how to parse sentences (noticing elements and grammatical parts of speech within the sentence). These experiences were a huge influence on her future disciplinary choice of English Rhetoric and Composition.

As a student, Krysta had a busy school schedule, but she learned early on that it’s healthy to have pursuits outside of school that can be fun, worthwhile, and build life skills. Outside of school, she took lessons in dance, horseback riding, and jewelry making. She attended musicals and theater performances, including some with classmates and English teacher, Michael Lasser (English, 1966-1998). “Mr. Lasser would have us read a play in class, and if it was playing locally, we would all go!” These outside activities really added educational value to the lessons.

As an only child, one of the highlights of Krysta’s Harley experience was the opportunity to interact with students in different grades, especially as an Upper Schooler volunteering in the Lower School. This experience at Harley, combined with her experience attending a Quaker school, influenced her choice to attend Guilford College in Greensboro, NC.

As a new college student, she felt like she was “surviving” as a philosophy major, but a scholarship she received that required her to volunteer made a huge impact on her state of mind. She spent a total of 270 hours volunteering across four years: 10 hours a week during the academic year, over breaks, and over the summer. One of her most adventurous volunteer activities was with Habitat for Humanity in Toronto, where she lived abroad and worked with a homeowner and team to rebuild a house. She found her career path through teaching English to international students and enjoyed learning about their cultures and sharing her own. Through these experiences she learned, “I have a positive impact on people and by volunteering, I found my own career path to teach English to speakers of other languages.”

Krysta now works at the University of South Florida in the honors college where she is an academic advisor for over 400 engineering, fine arts, and humanities majors. In addition to meeting 1:1 with students daily, she coordinates career development events and trains honors peer mentors for new student orientations. Due to her exposure to such a diverse group of students, she says she learns a ton through their experiences and insights.

Looking back, Krysta appreciates Harley’s stable, consistent learning environment and the well-rounded education she received in traditional academic fields. Throughout her time at Harley, she saw the strength in the longevity of the teachers, and the opportunity to learn from teachers who were masters of their craft. She says that Harley teachers are “passionate about life”, particularly Alex DeSantis P ’84 (English, 1971-2009), who wrote her letter of recommendation for college. She is thankful for her education and truly believes that Harley “sets you up to be a lifelong learner.”

Thiago Borges and Krysta Banke ’93