Mark your calendars! PA Giving Day is Wednesday, March 26, 2025!
PA Giving Day represents a critical milestone in our fundraising efforts for the Peabody. Last year we raised 65% of the Peabody’s annual support from 57 donors in just one day. This year our goal is to exceed previous success by engaging even more PA alumni and friends of the Peabody in this collective day of giving.
For those inspired to give early, please visit the PA Giving Day page here! Please be sure to select the “Peabody Institute of Archaeology” under the “designation” section. Any gift made in advance of the event will count toward PA Giving Day totals.
This year we hope to have more match challenges and even more support! Be sure to follow our social media on PA Giving Day for some inspiring posts from students who have been impacted by the Peabody.
A Dialogue Between Director for Advancement Initiatives, Jennifer Pieroni, and former Peabody Institute Work Duty student and current Peabody Advisory Board member, Ben William Burke ’11.
Archaeology isn’t just about uncovering and studying ancient items—at Andover, it’s about shaping a more informed, ethical, and engaged society. By learning archaeology, Andover students gain experiences to understand the world better, think critically, and contribute meaningfully to the future by better understanding the past.
At a recent Peabody Institute meeting, I met Ben William Burke ’11, whose enthusiasm for the Peabody was inspiring. As a new member of the Andover community, I wanted to understand why the Peabody had left such an indelible mark on Ben and why he continues to support it today.
By email, Ben shared: “As a work duty student at The Peabody, I received unparalleled access to its extensive collection and cultural immersion programs. These experiences brought me face to face with — and taught me the value of — perspectives different from mine. In those moments, I was challenged to understand before correcting, to empathize before judging, and to build on the past in a way that respects it.”
Ben Burke ’11 (Back row, third from the right) on the BALAM student trip. This was a multi-week cultural immersion and archaeological adventure through the greater Yucatán Peninsula sponsored by the Peabody Institute.
Today’s Andover students gain the transformational learning opportunity of being a part of an organization that leads in the field of repatriation and reflects Non Sibi by teaching students that archaeology is not just about personal discovery but about responsibility: to the past, to descendant communities, and future generations. Through hands-on study, students engage in meaningful, ethical work prioritizing respect over self-interest.
Ben noted, “There is not an avenue in my life that isn’t positively affected by The Peabody’s lessons in empathy and respect. I support The Peabody because I understand the value in learning to value other’s perspectives – especially when they are different from my own.”
Supporting the Peabody means investing in education that shapes responsible scholars and professionals. By supporting the Peabody with an annual gift, you can help elevate a place where teaching and learning are deeply connected to respect, collaboration, and cultural preservation. Join us in ensuring that the study of archaeology serves our Andover students and also society as a whole.
Well, we did it. After about four years of focused work, the Peabody Institute collections team has finally completed the inventory project.
This project has been a labor of love (and frustration, and tears, and headaches…) over the years. And I am thrilled to share that the last drawer was inventoried last week!
The project was originally designed back in 2016 to gain full physical and intellectual control over the collection. We knew that the Peabody Institute was home to thousands of items that had not yet been cataloged and were therefore inaccessible to researchers, classes, and tribal partners.
Over the course of the project, we more than doubled the catalog records in our internal database, counted just over 500,000 individual items, and rehoused items from over 2,000 wooden drawers into archival boxes.
I considered linking to all the past blog posts about this project, but honestly, that got ridiculous pretty quickly! Instead, I will direct you here to find everything tagged as part of the reboxing project to learn more about our process.
A massive thank you must go out to everyone who was a part of this incredible project. This includes all Peabody Institute staff – including those who have had to move on over the years – our volunteers, and dozens of work duty students.
Our deepest appreciation also goes our financial supporters – the Oak River Foundation, the Abbot Academy Fund, and Les ’68 and Barbara Callahan for their generosity and support of the Peabody’s goal to improve the intellectual and physical control of the Institute’s collections.
Several months ago, I was connected with a PA alum who wished to donate a piece of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican jewelry to the Peabody Institute. It is a gold pendant in the shape of a frog with a slightly unclear origin. It had been passed down within the family and was variably attributed to the Maya, as well as cultures in Panama and Columbia. The owner had the pendant appraised for insurance purposes in the 1960s and again in the 1980s. Each appraisal identified a different culture of origin and left me a little confused.
Now, admittedly, I know relatively little about Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican jewelry and was out of my depth to evaluate this potential donation. Thank goodness for networking!
My first step was to reach out to a couple members of the Peabody Advisory Committee who have expertise in Mesoamerica and Peru. Even if they could not identify the cultural origin of the pendant, I knew they could point me in the right direction. In collaboration with the Peabody’s director, Ryan Wheeler, it was decided that I should reach out to a professor emeritus, Dr. John Scott, at the University of Florida for evaluation. That was a solid plan.
Lots of photos were taken of every part of the frog pendant.
The final piece of the puzzle was to determine if the frog was actually made of gold. Again, that is outside of my expertise and I needed to find some help. Fortunately, Andover is home to several amazing jewelry stores. The wonderfully helpful Vice President of Service at Royal Jewelers, Dina, came to my rescue. She hooked me up with a jeweler who had technology to identify the metallurgic components of the pendant without causing any damage. Technology is great!
The result is that the frog is a mixture of gold and copper that is typical of tumbaga. Tumbaga is the name for a non-specific alloy of gold and copper that is very common in Lower Central American manufacture. The frog is 1,200-500 years old and probably originated in the Central Highlands or Atlantic Slope of Costa Rica.
The next step is to present all this information to the Peabody Collections Oversight Committee (PCOC) in October. The PCOC will then vote on whether or not to formally accept it into the collection. Hopefully, this frog will be making an appearance in a classroom soon!
Note – if you would like to learn more about Latin American art, check out some of Dr. Scott’s publications:
Before COVID-19, the Peabody Institute kept our social media presence to Facebook and Twitter. But this seemed like the perfect time to expand to Youtube. This is definitely a new medium for me and I was puzzled for a few days as to how I could contribute to this platform. And then inspiration struck.
Phillips Academy is home to two cultural institutions – the Robert S. Peabody Institute and the Addison Gallery of American Art. Our friends at the Addison created a delightful short stop-motion video about the work of a registrar and shared it on Facebook. I thought it was fabulous. And I also thought, I can do that!
Well, that started a project that took about a week of evening shoots after the kids went to bed, and an additional couple weeks of sound design (maybe I shouldn’t admit that it took that long…). I wrote a short script and then cannibalized my boys’ Legos to recreate the Peabody staff and create sets. I regret not taking a picture of the carnage to our play room to share, but I am relieved that it is all cleaned up now.
Framing and filming the stop-motion required a level of patience and detailed focus that was challenging for me at times but necessary to make the film work. It is hard to remember to account for everyone and everything in the scene, but not to move it too much to ensure it was fluid. It was pretty fun to hide details in the background too.
Adding the voices and music was a whole separate task. I fully credit my husband with the patience to become my sound engineer. He took all the lines, including those contributed by our 5 year old, and music and ensured that everything synced with the video – and made sure we weren’t breaking any copyright laws with the music use…
I think the end result is pretty great. Viewers learn about what the Peabody does every day, from my perspective, and get to escape for about 3 minutes.
Have you ever heard of the Abbot Academy Fund? (if you said “yes” from one of our earlier blog posts – Gold Star!) If not, please allow me to introduce them.
One of the first educational institutions in New England founded for girls and women, Abbot Academy opened its doors in 1829 and flourished until Abbot Academy and Phillips Academy merged on June 28, 1973. At that point, the Abbot Academy Fund (AAF) was established with $1 million from the Academy’s unrestricted funds. The fund operates as an internal foundation with its own board of directors. Its goal is to preserve the history, standards, tradition, and name of Abbot Academy by funding new educational ventures at the combined school.
The Abbot Academy Fund has been a foundational supporter of the Peabody Institute, especially in recent years. With grants going back to 1990, the AAF has given the Peabody over $250,000! I was recently reminded of this incredible generosity when the AAF once again provided support to complete the transcription of the Peabody’s original accession ledgers.
Looking back over all the successful grants, the AAF has supported a real variety of projects at the Peabody – everything from exhibition support to object conservation to equipment purchase to expeditionary learning trips. However, the largest portion of their patronage has gone to support cataloging and rehousing the collection. They provided funds to purchase a server in 2014 to allow for an online catalog. And again in 2016-2018 to acquire the boxes needed to rehouse the artifacts and gain physical control over the collection. All told, the AAF has awarded us over $100,000 in the last ten years!
Basically, the Peabody Institute would not look or operate the way it does now without the incredible support from the Abbot Academy Fund. I can’t thank them enough!
So much work at the Peabody is brought to you bya grant from the Abbot Academy Fund, continuing Abbot’s tradition of boldness, innovation, and caring.
I am thrilled to share that we have officially inventoried half of the collection!
As of mid-June, the collections team has inventoried 1,079 artifact drawers – half of the 2,159 that hold our collection. Those drawers translate to 243,967 individual artifacts that have been counted and rehoused in the process!
A massive “thank you” goes out to all of the staff and volunteers who have contributed to the inventory so far: Rachel Manning, John Bergman-McCool, Emma Cook, Annie Greco, Alex Hagler, Quinn Rosefsky, and dozens of work duty students.
With excitement and deep gratitude, we also announce that funding has been secured to complete the inventory by our target deadline of December 31, 2020.
The Oak River Foundation of Peoria, Illinois has renewed its support for a temporary inventory specialist for another two years. Our deepest appreciation goes to the Oak River Foundation for its continued generosity and commitment to the Peabody’s goal of improving the intellectual and physical control of the museum’s collections.
But that is not all!
Barbara and Les Callahan have agreed to provide critical funding to extend the appointment of our current inventory specialist – John Bergman-McCool. Les graduated from Phillips Academy in 1968 and is an active volunteer on campus. Barbara has served on the Peabody Advisory Committee since 2013. Both have been steadfast advocates and supporters of our mission and we cannot thank them enough for providing this deeply meaningful gift.
We hope these acts will inspire others to support our work to better catalog, document, and make accessible the Peabody’s world-class collections of objects, photographs and archival materials. If you would like information on how you can help, please contact Peabody director Ryan Wheeler at rwheeler@andover.edu or 978 749 4493.
We are delighted to share that we reached our goal of matching Peter Hetzler’s (Class of 1972) generous $10,000 challenge during PA Giving Day 2019!
Jenny Elkus (Class of 1992) also successfully challenged her class to match gifts up to $1,000 to fund a Peabody Institute Adopt A Drawer!
The final dollar figures and donor counts are not in yet, but this was a big milestone for us, and contributes significantly to our current use fundraising.
Many thanks for all the support received and an extra special thank you to Peter and Jenny for the challenges!
The overall day netted $2,348,896 from 3,624 donors for Andover financial aid, academics, the arts, and outreach programs.
Mark your calendars! The third PA Giving Day is Wednesday, March 27, 2019! Last year the Peabody Institute garnered 60 gifts, nearly doubling PA Giving Day gifts in 2017! This year we hope to have more challenges, more social media posts, and even more support!
When I last shared an update in December of 2016, we had boxed only 52 drawers in our quest to gain full physical control of our collection. With the diligent work of students, volunteers, and inventory specialist Rachel Manning, we have now inventoried and boxed over 400 drawers! More than 75,000 individual artifacts have been counted and documented – including projectile points, bone awls, ceramic sherds, and delicately crafted beads.
At the end of the month, our team will grow again with another Temporary Inventory Specialist – Annie Greco. Annie’s position is generously funded by Barbara and Les Callahan. Les is Phillips Academy Class of 1968 and Barbara is a member of the Peabody Advisory Committee; both have been active advocates and supporters of our mission. I hope that our next update includes even better news!
Our deepest appreciation goes to the Oak River Foundation for their continued generosity and support of the Peabody’s goal to improve the intellectual and physical control of the museum’s collections.
We hope this gift will inspire others to support our work to better catalog, document, and make accessible the Peabody’s world-class collections of objects, photographs and archival materials. If you would like information on how you can help please contact Peabody director Ryan Wheeler at rwheeler@andover.edu or 978 749 4493.
The Peabody 