WhereTheresaWill – The Peabody

Contributed by Lainie Schultz

In January of this year, Peabody Institute staff were kicked out of the Peabody Institute building as the start of renovations loomed near. Fortunately, construction elsewhere at Phillips Academy meant that the Dean of Students moved into new digs, leaving available their suite in the basement of George Washington Hall to claim as our temporary-own. A Goldilocks fit, the space had five desks available for five Peabody folk, plus a bonus meeting room for meetings.

Or – could it be a meeting room for classes? Lore tells of Peabody staff moving into the School Room on the Abbot Academy campus for the first phase of building renovations. To continue teaching classes, staff valiantly packed up boxes of collections, carrying them from classroom to classroom along with all their teaching supplies: gloves, ethafoam, trays, and, goodness help them, laptops.

I wasn’t at the Peabody yet, so I have only heard the tale. It sounded very impressive and intrepid and like quite the adventure, and every lazy bone in my body knew I wanted nothing to do with it. And so, with my colleagues, I began carefully planning every piece of furniture we would bring over to our GW bonus room, with every permutation of every collections activity thought out. We measured twice and cut once, determined to make this suite available for teaching.

There is nothing more satisfying than a carefully considered plan that actually goes exactly as intended. Is it sometimes maybe slightly cramped? Yes. Does it always work? Yes. Am I a little smug? Oh, heck, yes.