In 1882, ten years after the founding of the Arnold Arboretum, Founding Director Charles Sprague Sargent and pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted brokered a partnership between Harvard and the City of Boston to safeguard this unique landscape for research use and public enjoyment for 1,000 years (through the year 2882), with an option to renew for an additional 1,000 years (3882). As an organization designed to inform and inspire humankind for centuries to come, the Arnold Arboretum has created a new award to recognize contributions and achievements that have an enduring impact on our mission now and well into the future.
Granted solely by discretion of the director of the Arnold Arboretum, the 3882 Award was created in 2025 to give public recognition to bold actions, trailblazing scholarship, transformational philanthropy, or other significant accomplishments that single out the recipient as a transformative steward of the Arboretum and its institutional values. The award is to be given during the Arboretum’s annual Autumn Dinner or at another appropriate time by mutual agreement between the director and the recipient.
The inaugural 3882 Award will be presented to RoAnn Costin at the 2025 Autumn Dinner, in recognition of her emphatic embrace of the Arnold Arboretum’s vision for the 21st century, her steadfast encouragement of the director to “think even bigger,” and her philanthropic leadership to launch the Arboretum’s Entrance Improvement Project with the catalytic restoration of the Poplar Gate entrance. RoAnn Costin is a venture capitalist and philanthropist, graduate of the Harvard/Radcliffe College Class of 1974, and passionate supporter of Olmsted-designed parks since she was a child enjoying the Lynn Woods with her family.
To support the granting of this inaugural 3882 Award, please consider sponsorship of the Arnold Arboretum’s Autumn Dinner.