Noble Brigham ’20
Episcopal prides itself on being a community with a deep history and tradition. Our school’s story can be seen in historic photographs and artifacts around campus that connect students and faculty to those who came before, but that link is in grave danger of being broken with the departure of Cassandra Keith and the lack of a replacement archivist two years after her retirement.
Keith, in a recent interview, says that members of the administration brushed off concerns about the current arrangement at the end of the 2017-18 year. She remembers, “What I was told was that the archives were going to be a ‘team effort.’ If a member of the team was going to include someone who had experience in an archives, then that would be a good starting point, but if no one that was being hired to be part of the new [library] staffing had any of that type of training or experience, then it was a big question mark what was going to happen.”
The way the hiring process turned out, none of the current Annenberg librarians have archival experience as Keith did and, in my opinion, that “big question mark” remains unresolved.
The current situation, in my judgement, has had an adverse effect on the archives. The last time I was in the archives room, tables were covered with yearbooks, letters, and archival boxes that had been taken out and not put back as well as donations from alumni over the past year. Packages were unopened, and nothing received last year was processed. Exhibits, like the ones Keith organized about Inter-Ac teams that drew alums and students together, have slowed.
This neglect is not because the librarians don’t care about the archives, but because they are overtaxed. They are extremely knowledgeable, do wonderful work with students, and have become fully engaged in this community, but are unfairly expected to do two jobs at once. Most of the work has fallen on Director of the Library, Lorie Harding, who has many other responsibilities, rather than on an associate as Keith was.
Some of the issue is likely related to a lack of understanding by those outside the world of professional librarians. For example, Paul Sanders, Assistant Head of School, didn’t see any problem with hiring someone without archival experience who would be responsible for the archives. He says, “I understood that Lawrenceville [Harding’s former school] had done some very interesting things with their archives.”
Harding says, “I knew how to search an archive and I know how to use an archive, but I am not classically trained as an archivist.”
Keith says archival training is essential. She states, “There are a lot of legal issues you need to be aware of, and they can often change, so staying abreast of the field is important. You also get a sense, by taking courses and going through training, about the type of materials you’re collecting, the proper conditions under which they need to be kept, the materials that you need to have for preserving them.”
Harding is also concerned about the situation. She notes, “There may be other things that an archivist here could work on in terms of records management for the school, or because so much is done virtually we’re not doing a very good job capturing the posts the school puts out. We’re not keeping an archival copy.”
Keith says, “What Episcopal has is basically a secure closet space and they don’t really have any place for a researcher to sit. There’s not any place for classes to be sitting in there and to be involved.”
Tim Wood, the archivist at Germantown Friends School, says an archivist position is vital because “it’s important for a school to understand how it got where it is now.”
Wood is part time, working three days a week with a collection of similar size and scope to EA and has put together a photographic history of GFS. He also introduces classes to the archives through the lenses of primary historical documents and philosophies about collecting.
If Episcopal were to hire a dedicated archivist, our collective past could continue to be interpreted and shared more broadly through well-curated exhibits around the school, interpretive labelling of artifacts, and an oral history project featuring longtime faculty and distinguished alums. An archivist could work with history classes, finding ways to integrate the collection into curriculum and could engage with students by giving context for the current EA experience and traditions. If administrators had a stronger feel for the institutional memory of Episcopal, it would be beneficial for them when making major decisions.
Despite the merits of such a position, the administration is noncommittal at best. Sanders says, “I think it’s an interesting idea, I really do. Like any idea at a school, particularly ones that come with hiring, a dollar spent on that is a dollar not spent on something else. If we pursued every good idea, we wouldn’t be able to keep up with tuition.”
What our school leaders do not seem to understand is that even if EA puts the history of our school low in the list of priorities, alumni love to reflect on our school’s history and will donate to facilitate it. A good story can motivate and inspire philanthropy. Look at the success of the squash history project. Such projects increase engagement and sense of connection, but require an archivist to be done well.
Lauren Maloney ’10, Director of Alumni Engagement, appreciated Keith’s assistance on the squash history project and says, “I feel like our alums just want to see that their history is honored. Our experiences are made better because of the experiences that they had and there’s so much history wrapped up in that. Each alum has their anchor point.”
Van Kalbach ‘69 would like to see the archives become more active and states, “I would suggest that oral history can be a kind of taking the temperature of the school at the present time but also very much so be a lens on things that happened earlier and potentially even reflections of people who were involved with the school as they look at what’s going on with the school now.”
One step towards an increased valuing of EA’s institutional history would be the student-generated historical oversight committee suggested in the recent editorial, “A modest proposal for reform at EA.” This group could help to organize exhibits and aid the archivist. Another idea would be reigniting a small program, discontinued several years ago, that allowed students to help with the archives in lieu of sports, but what EA really needs is an experienced archivist to preserve and interpret the school’s rich history.
The story of an institution with the pedigree we have could be a valuable resource in the context of our national, state, and local history both for outside historians and the community. Right now, we often refer to our long and illustrious history as a beneficial thing, but other than trumpeting the date 1785, the majority of the EA community pays little attention to the past.