Pam Jackson ’62 is grateful for her family – more on that in a moment. Among many things, her gratitude also includes Buckingham School, where she was a lifer, and BB&N. “I’m so glad that I can be proud of the school now,” she comments, “as I was an appreciative student then…it was a wonderful place for young women in the Sixties.” How was it wonderful? Pam’s class had only 20 students, and, as 10th graders, they studied the literature and history of Japan, Russia, China, and India in a curriculum ahead of its time.
Pam praises today’s BB&N for maintaining Buckingham’s educational legacy. The school “is so well regarded now that it makes me very proud to be an alumna,” she says. Given everything Buckingham (now BB&N) has meant to her over the decades, including lifelong friends made in a deeply caring community, Pam recently added BB&N to her will. In keeping with BB&N gift crediting policies, this counts at 100% face value for the Class of 1962’s 60th reunion gift.
Pam was also motivated to include BB&N in her will because she knew from professional experience that examples matter. Completing a highly-distinguished development career (at the Fessenden School, Harvard University, and Brigham & Women’s Hospital), she retired as the Museum of Science’s Director of Leadership and Planned Gifts. An institution’s integer-generational excellence requires long-term commitments, and Pam, a development professional, knows “how important it is to secure testamentary gifts as well as capital and annual fund gifts.”
Connecting and storytelling are akin to breathing for Pam, meaning automatic and continuous. That made her a natural member of the Buckingham Five – five alumnae leaders who supported BB&N’s Opening Minds Campaign between 2007 and 2011. Pam’s stories illustrate her strong emotional attachment to Buckingham. She fondly recalls, for instance, that Marian Vaillant, Head of School, and French teachers Miss Patton and Mlle. Herzog organized the costumes for the theater productions, including doing the adjusting and sewing.
Pam also remembers Miss Vaillant summarizing the New York Times Week in Review at Monday morning assembly. In March of 2022, BB&N students at a Vaillant assembly would have learned about the historic Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Pam’s daughter-in-law, Kentanji Brown Jackson. And they might have heard how much Pam’s son Patrick, and her granddaughters, Leila and Talia, supported Justice Jackson at the hearings.
Buckingham was Pam’s home away from home, and, though classmates are now near and far, they meet monthly on Zoom. At Buckingham, Pam met a Groton student who eventually became her husband. That husband, Gardener Jackson, works at Howland Capital and sits on the board of Vincent Memorial Hospital, where he served as chairman.
"Gardner thought that Buckingham was such an important part of my life, as do I,” Pam says, “that BB&N was worthy of” inclusion along with family in their estate plans. When all is said and done, they count BB&N as one of their top philanthropic priorities. That makes the school very grateful and proud.