November 21, 2002 Feature
Story
Utah
State Space Professor Is Utah's Carnegie Professor of the Year
 The
"wave" is known to sports fans the world over to liven
the action when there is a lull in a game, and while Utah State
University physics professor Jan Sojka is a huge sports fan,
he uses the "wave" for a different purpose. As the
students in Sojka’s class participate in the "wave,"
they learn something about the simple laws of physics.
"Physics can be a tough subject to teach when you are teaching
a room full of students whose first love isn’t the subject,"
said Sojka. "I have to do something to keep the students
awake. My Scottish accent and a sense of humor helps. But I
find what works best is getting the entire class out of their
seats to participate in group demonstrations."
This interactive teaching style is one of the reasons Sojka
is the 2002 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Utah Professor of the Year. The U.S. Professors of the Year
program salutes the most outstanding undergraduate instructors
in the country. Sojka visited Washington, D.C., this month to
receive the honor. He is the sixth professor from Utah State
to receive the award in the past eight years.
Sojka believes that interaction with one’s audience and
enthusiasm for the subject go a long way toward bridging the
gap between the interested, the disinterested and the unenlightened.
 Sojka’s
love for teaching is clear and obvious in his enthusiasm and
energy in the classroom. Sojka volunteered to teach the large
enrollment introductory calculus-based physics class for science
and engineering majors because he wanted to instill his own
enthusiasm for science in others.
"My first upper division physics course was taught by Jan,"
said Jason Sanders, former Utah State student. "His love
for the subject was so strong it was almost tiring. Once in
a lecture he humorously and accurately described the principles
of flux by relating it to bunnies hopping in and out of a garden.
His energy at the blackboard was exciting, he loved the subject
and it was contagious."
Sojka involves his students in his large classes, such as his
calculus-based intro to physics, but he also makes time for
one-on-one and small group mentoring.
He is the faculty advisor for the NASA Get Away Special (GAS)
project at Utah State and oversees the entire program. The GAS
team includes interdisciplinary undergraduate students developing
experiments that will fly on the NASA Space Shuttle. Utah State
has put more experiments into space than any other university
in the world.
Sojka’s approach to mentoring is hands-off. He is there
to advise the students when needed, but prefers his students
to take risks, make decisions and experience both failure and
success.
 "Jan
provides leadership opportunities for us and teaches us to try
new things, experiment and then learn from our experiences,"
said Andrew J. Auman, student coordinator for GAS.
He spends hours helping, urging, encouraging and listening to
his students’ successes and failures, said W. Farrell
Edwards, professor of physics at Utah State.
Sojka has also invited many elementary and high schools to participate
in the GAS project the past eight years, involving more than
80 undergraduate students, 200 high school students and more
than 800 elementary school students. Sojka is especially pleased
with his relationship with the Shoshone-Bannock High School
in Idaho, which flew the first Native American payload and which
has subsequently flown two more.
"Dr. Sojka and the GAS program represented a challenge
for our Native American students," said Ed Galindo, science
teacher at Shoshone-Bannock High School.
"We had to meet the very high standards that NASA requires
in order to fly our experiment. Our highly successful first
mission would not have been possible if it weren’t for
the personal dedication and enthusiasm of Dr. Sojka and the
GAS team."
Teaching and learning physics can be fun, said Sojka. And after
having been at Utah State since 1978, he said he is in it for
the long haul.
Along with his professor and advisor duties, Sojka is also the
assistant director for the Center of Atmospheric and Space Sciences,
the co-associate director for the Rocky Mountain NASA Space
Grant Consortium and the director for the Bear Lake Observatory.
Sojka was born in Duns, Berwickshire, Scotland, and attended
Galashiels Academy High School. He furthered his education at
The University of Edinburgh, Lothian, Scotland, where he earned
his bachelor’s degree in physics. He then moved on to
University College, London, United Kingdom, where he received
his doctorate in space physics. He currently resides in Logan
with his wife, Susan. They have two daughters.
The Council for the Advancement of Support of Education (CASE)
established the Professors of the Year program in 1981 and works
in cooperation with the Carnegie Foundation. This year, the
Carnegie Foundation and CASE recognized winners in 46 states
including the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands.
Utah State’s previous Professor of the Year recipients
are: Frances Titchener, history; Ted Alsop, geography and earth
resources; Sonia Manuel-Dupont, English; Mark Damen, history;
and David Lancy, anthropology.
Contact: Jan Sojka (435) 797-2964
Writer: Maren Cartwright (435) 797-1355; maren.cartwright@usu.edu
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