Work by Matthew Stone

March 9, 2009

AUGUSTA — Sarah Walton speaks excitedly about her passion for teaching, regardless of the medium.

Since she arrived at the University of Maine at Augusta in 2002, the professor of justice studies has taught using the university's interactive television system, video conferencing and the Internet, in addition to the traditional classroom.

"I have students in Houlton, Jackman, Rockland, Sanford, Saco, all over the state," she said.

Come May, she'll add another city to the list of her students' locations: Kandahar, Afghanistan.

UMA has long recruited veterans. The college was founded just as troops returned home from combat in Vietnam. Now the 5,000-student college is reaching out to active-duty personnel stationed overseas.

UMA will offer priority slots in five summer courses this year to a Maine Army National Guard unit stationed in Kandahar. The initiative is part of a pilot project that could lead to more UMA courses geared directly toward active-duty Maine residents, said Jon Henry, UMA's dean of enrollment services.

The National Guard unit taking part in the pilot project, the 286th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, will deploy to Afghanistan this month, according to Maj. Gen. John W. Libby, the Maine Army National Guard's adjutant general. The unit's 82 members will oversee the transportation of food, water, ammunition, truck parts and other supplies to troops throughout the central Asian nation.

"We thought they were a perfect group," Henry said. "They will have down time, they'll have laptops and they have interest."

In January 2010, Libby said, 700 additional Maine Army National Guard members will deploy to Afghanistan.

"We saw the 286th as an opportunity to test the concept and hopefully perfect the concept before 40 percent of our organization goes out the door next January," Libby said.

The members of the unit taking part in the pilot project are currently at Fort Hood, Texas, preparing for their deployment.

By the time UMA's summer semester begins on May 18, however, the troops will be settled into their jobs in Afghanistan.

"During their down time, it doesn't matter whether you're sitting in Waterville, Maine, or Kandahar, Afghanistan," Libby said. "If you can connect to the Internet, then you can take (a course)."

UMA collaborated with the unit's commanding officer, Lt. Col. Diane Dunn, and surveyed the troops to gauge their academic interests. The Guard unit members will be able to enroll in courses in marketing, Web applications, economics, legal research and interpersonal communications. Registration for the unit begins in the coming weeks; it opens to other students in April.

A tuition-assistance program funded through the state will pay for the course fees.

The professors — from UMA's campuses in Augusta and Bangor — will teach the courses using Blackboard, an online interface.

Walton said her "Legal Research and Materials" course will include components from the Blackboard program and online activities offered by the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction. And in an effort to replicate live professor-student interaction as closely as possible, Walton said she will establish office hours when Guard members enrolled in her course can "drop in" via Skype, a voice-over-Internet service.

"Blackboard includes an instant-messaging system, but when you're just typing a conversation back and forth, you don't have that live dynamic," Walton said.

For National Guard members, Skype will be easy to use, she said.

"These National Guard members, I know, stay in touch with their families back home using Skype," Walton said.

Walton said she will sign into Skype's service during designated hours each week.

Coordinating schedules with students in a city whose clocks are eight-and-a-half hours ahead of Augusta's will present a challenge, she said, but it's not insurmountable.

"I'm going to have to get up really early in the morning," Walton said. "I think that is a small, small sacrifice compared to sacrifices that our troops are making."

Matthew Stone — 623-3811, ext. 435
mstone@centralmaine.com