Deployed professor teaches from Afghanistan

Stays on duty at Mount Olive

In recent months, Ted Janicki has done most of his teaching late at night or during the dark, still hour around 4 a.m.

That's when the Mount Olive College professor rose early to beat his three roommates to the computer in the cement building where he lives. Janicki, a captain in the Air Force Reserves, has taught computer science to his North Carolina students at a distance of 7,100 miles. He is serving in Afghanistan.

He never met his American students, and some of them weren't even sure how to pronounce his name. While they slept, Janicki graded their tests or tapped out e-mails about their assignments.

Sometimes, the professor would be incommunicado. That's when the classmates -- who never met each other -- would lean on each other for advice.

"I give all the credit to my students," Janicki said while on a two-week leave last month. "They were very understanding. They definitely stepped up to the plate, my students did."

The redhead with a fresh buzz cut is a self-described computer geek with an infectious laugh. Since July, he has been in Afghanistan, where he oversees communications at a base in Kabul. He is also a mentor and teacher to the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army.

Last May, Janicki found out he would be deployed. He immediately went to his bosses at Mount Olive, a private liberal arts college 60 miles east of Raleigh. The 3,100-student college serves traditional-age undergraduates, working adults and the military at six locations, including Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro.

Janicki was determined to keep teaching, but meeting a teaching load of eight courses per year from Afghanistan would be difficult. Before he left, he was able to teach two classes in the college's one-month May term.

Then, while training in Mississippi, he encountered five enlisted airmen who needed a public speaking class to be able to move up the career ladder. Janicki hatched a plan to teach the class. He worked it out so the airmen could register for the course with Mount Olive, and the college shipped books to Afghanistan.

There, he also taught computer science in two five-week online courses to North Carolina students, with about 20 people in each class. He warned them up front that the experience could be quirky -- their professor had other responsibilities that had to come first. There could be interruptions, and if someone from his base was killed, there would be a communication blackout.

Students adapted

The students took it in stride.

"I think he did a wonderful job, especially since I ended up with a B in the class," said James Rollins, a Department of Correction officer who logged on from home in Pine Level. "He'd answer any question you had. You'd e-mail him, and he'd get back you to the very next day, or day and a half."

Rollins, who will graduate in May with a degree in criminal justice, said Janicki's computer class was his last. After the course was over, he sent the professor an e-mail thanking him for his service.

During the class, Janicki encouraged the students to get to know each other during online discussion time. Some had personal home pages on the class Web site, with pictures and details about their lives.

"We could kind of help each other," said Janette Oliver of Chapel Hill, a bartender who took prerequisite classes at Mount Olive on her path to nursing school. After a while, she forgot Janicki was so far away.

He made it a point not to talk much about where he was and what he was doing. He had to be careful with e-mail. "Most of our communications go through China," he said, "and they listen to everything."