Snyder Center was filled with carnival-type sights such as magicians, spin art, and student performances for the culmination of a year-long celebration of the merger between Abbot Academy and Andover. The Abbot Bazaar started with an Early Eats & Career Beats Breakfast where students could talk to alumnae with a variety of interests, an Alumnae Panel Presentation titled “Professional Pathways Beyond Andover,” followed by the remarks from Head of School Raynard Kington, concluding with food and performances.
The celebration was organized by multiple groups across campus which focused on female empowerment, including LeadHer, the Brace Center for Gender Studies, the Intersectional Feminist Forum (IFFo), Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA), Asian Women Empowerment (AWE), Women in Stem (W-Stem), as well as the Alumni Office. Chloe Song ’26, co-head of LeadHer, a club dedicated to empowering female leadership, spoke on the process of organizing the event and the goals the coalition had in mind relating to the initial Bazaar celebrating the merger.
“We started planning this in December, so in five months we put together the Bazaar. The Bazaar is also a part two to a previous anniversary for the merger…We coordinated using old archives that she found for us to kind of recreate the same vibes as the previous Abbot Bazaar that the school hosted,” said Song.
The Panel Presentation featured alumni from both Phillips Academy as well as Abbot Academy. The panelists included Eileen Christelow Ahrenholz AA’61, Rosalina Felciano ’81, Sherita D. Gaskins-Tillett ’90, Mary F. McCabe AA’71, Tamara Elliott Rogers AA’70, and Christine M. Yu ’94. Sahana Manikandan ’26, an attendee of the panel, commented on the realizations she gained from listening to the panel.
“[The panel] opened my eyes to how many alumni we have. We also talked about how we will become a part of the alumni body, and obviously there’s thousands of us across all of time. You never really meet people who are alumni as a student, so it was great to get to know them,” said Manikandan.
Jacob Kaiser ’24, was part of the performance groups “Repercussions” and “Keynotes” who provided entertainment for the Bazaar, reflected on student attendance and engagement at the gathering.
“The performance turned out well. I think that it’s always difficult with big events that take place on Sundays because the general consensus across students is that Sundays are for studying and getting work done. I think that this one, despite that, was pretty successful. A lot of people made it out to Snyder. It seems like people enjoyed our music and people had a good time,” said Kaiser.
The Bazaar also included stands with presentations by student groups. Alina Chen ’27, a member of LeadHer and one of the presenters, completed a project which detailed student experiences within Abbot Academy before and after the merger. Chen detailed the process of working on the project and the unique Abbot philosophies that she uncovered.
“I’ve just been looking through old student publications, photos, letters, etc. from Abbot, and piecing together its legacy. I noticed that there was this very distinctly Abbot philosophy of individuality and creativity, and just this promotion of open discussion, which was very progressive for the time. I felt like that may have influenced the similar culture in Andover of valuing diversity, and open discussion, and the pursuits of passion,” said Chen.
Chen continued, recounting some conclusions she drew about her project after being a part of a stand at the Bazaar. She expressed that speaking to alumni at her stand gave her more perspective into the future of her project.
“We actually had a lot of Abbot alums come by. It was really nice to talk to them about their experience as well. I feel like this kind of research project is something that the more you dig into, the more questions you have and the less you feel like you know about the topic just because it’s such a great history. In some cases there is no amount of documents, letters, and pictures that can truly capture what the experience was like at the time,” said Chen
Kaiser shared one of his favorite parts of the overall celebration activities, which was seeing an alumna win a pie-eating contest. He emphasized that this part of the celebration incited laughs.
“The pie-eating contest was hilarious. I stayed for the last one, and the winner ended up being an alumna named Misty [Muscatel Davis]. She recently was the speaker at the Senior Dinner. It was just so funny to see the same person that I had just seen giving a speech in front of all the Seniors in Snyder just absolutely devouring, wolfing through a pie without her hands,” said Kaiser.
Scott Hoenig, Instructor in Math and attendee of the celebration, also shared similar thoughts. Hoenig shared his experience as one of the participants of the many pie-eating contests.
“The food was delicious, the student performers were fantastic, and the pie-eating contest really gave me a stomach ache. I wanted to thank my fellow competitors, who really pushed me on, just a lot of credit, a lot of respect for my opponents in the pie-eating contest,” said Hoenig.
