A Note from the Magazine Editor: On Using the Past to Contextualize the Present
By Phoebe Doscher, Magazine Editor Those of us living, studying, and teaching on Gettysburg’s historic campus know full well that the past is constantly aligned with the present moment. Every step we take on Stine Lake, every time we enter Penn Hall, and each visit to the battlefield allows us to confront the past in real time. We centered this edition of the magazine around just that: What does the past mean? How do we use it to...
April Fools: College Faculty Dread Return to In-Person Learning
By Phoebe Doscher, Magazine Editor At a recent faculty meeting, Gettysburg College professors reflected on the past year of remote learning and came to a clear consensus: They prefer remote learning over an in person environment. One faculty member made a succinct case for teaching online, noting a sense of comfort that cannot be replicated in the classroom: “There’s just something about teaching in pajama pants.” Others have taken...
April Fools: ‘Wellness Day’ to Become ‘Wellness Hour’
By Phoebe Doscher, Magazine Editor In a new mental health initiative, Gettysburg has devised a plan to give students moments of reprieve not through a fully-cancelled day of classes, but in interspersed Wellness Hours throughout the rest of the semester. During those pre-planned hour-long blocks, one class at most would get canceled, and students will be encouraged to use face masks, take a nap, or watch one to two episodes of their...
Opinion: Pandemic Burnout—It’s Not Your Fault and It’s Not Just You
By Phoebe Doscher, Magazine Editor “How are you doing, really?” This is the question that precipitated a Gettysburgian editorial last fall deconstructing stress culture at Gettysburg. We discovered that we were not, in fact, “good,” or even okay for that matter, and addressed the toxic behavior of letting our mental health slide during a busy semester. That was in 2019. Fast forward 14 months, and we find ourselves in the midst of...
Sophomores Reflect on Disrupted College Experience
By Phoebe Doscher, Magazine Editor At this time last year, first-year students had just reached the midpoint of their second semesters at Gettysburg. They had begun immersing themselves in college life by meeting friends, discovering areas of interest for possible majors, and getting engaged in activities. In other words, when the pandemic hit and the college transitioned to remote instruction for the remainder of the spring 2020...