CHAMPIONSHIP-LEVEL EDUCATION
LEANING IN Dr. Rosemary Allen and Georgetown College faculty embrace change to bring certainty in uncertain times
I
n January 2020, Dr. Rosemary Allen, longtime professor of English and provost and dean of the College, began the spring semester teaching her Renaissance literature students about Shakespeare. She couldn’t have imagined that the world she and her students lived in would soon parallel Shakespeare’s world of 400 years ago. “One of the things that one has to deal with when talking about Shakespeare is the degree to which he was living in a really uncertain world,” Dr. Allen said. That world, of course, was a pandemic — the bubonic plague, to be exact. The pandemic would shut down theaters on a regular basis, cutting off Shakespeare’s primary income stream. This forced Shakespeare to find different ways of achieving his goals. He took his plays on tour, or he focused on writing plays rather than producing them.
GC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2021 21
In other words, Shakespeare had to pivot. In late February and early March 2020, Dr. Allen had learned enough about the ongoing developments with COVID-19 that she began encouraging Georgetown College faculty to pivot, just as Shakespeare had. “I was already suggesting to faculty that if they had some time over spring break, they should start looking at what it would take to transition their classes online,” she said. “But honestly, I did not anticipate what happened during that spring break week. We were fully expecting to resume classes in 10 days.”
ONE WEEK TO RECREATE SIX WEEKS OF CLASSES
Most can pinpoint that moment in early 2020 when the world shifted and routines changed. For Dr. Allen, it was the moment Georgetown College
“I WAS ALREADY SUGGESTING TO FACULTY THAT IF THEY HAD SOME TIME OVER SPRING BREAK, THEY SHOULD START LOOKING AT WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO TRANSITION THEIR CLASSES ONLINE.” — DR. ROSEMARY ALLEN
