A stage that fosters connections

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Clayton Stromberger’s farthest ever outreach trip began when he saw the familiar phrase “all the world’s a stage” at Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport. 

As a friend of Prof. John Rumrich and an outreach expert for “Shakespeare at Winedale”, Mr. Stromberger came to Hangzhou to join a global Shakespeare session. 

Initiated by Prof. SHEN Hong from School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, and Prof. John Rumrich from College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, The Global Classrooms Project: Shakespeare kicked off in spring. This project aims to introduce selected works of Shakespeare, arguably England’s greatest playwright, through the reading and acting of his plays.

When Prof. Rumrich was teaching Shakespeare’s plays at ZJU two years ago, Prof. SHEN Hong and him came up with a new idea: they could co-teach a Shakespeare class, simultaneously in China and the United States. Using digital communication, The Global Classrooms Project: Shakespeare has made “online exchange” a reality.

Both ZJU and UT Austin pledged support for this project. There was only one issue: both universities needed a classroom that had enough cameras, screens, microphones, and technicians to work on these devices. ZJU upgraded an existing classroom with state-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment, and appointed WANG Jinglei from School of International Studies as the technical manager of this project. In Austin, Prof. Rumrich invited Matt Russell, an expert in learning and technology, to be the technical facilitator of the project.

The American semester started six weeks before the Chinese one, which provided ample time to conduct a pilot test for the project. Prof. Rumrich co-taught a brief section with a colleague at West Point Academy. Together with cadets at West Point, the UT students discussed and performed parts of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.

After the successful pilot test, Prof. SHEN and Prof. Rumrich turned to their trans-pacific classes. The Austin class met on Mondays from 5 to 8 p.m., and the Hangzhou class (being 13 hours ahead) met on Tuesday mornings. When the Hangzhou semester began on March 5, the two classrooms started collaborating by putting on Hamlet.

All the students from both UT Austin and ZJU were paired up with each other. They talked about Shakespeare and his plays, their campus lives and the future of China and America, gleaning fresh insights and forging new friendships during their transpacific classes.

“The more time we spent with them, the more it felt like they were sitting right next to me in our classroom,” a student from UT Austin said.

MENG Shiying, a student from Prof. SHEN’s class, was assigned to connect with Mr. Stromberger and asked to prepare her favorite line from Shakespeare’s plays while picking him up him at the airport. Mr. Stromberger recognized her as soon as he saw “all the world’s a stage” on her board, which is part of Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Photo: SHEN Hong

Writer: LIN Tianying

Edited by: XU Weiqin & Ian Chew

In Video

Source: Department of English, College of Liberal Arts, UT Austin