Online Instruction from an Iraqi Combat Zone

North Dakota State University provides higher education in a state where agriculture and farming are still the economic anchors. Their catalogue of business degrees reflects the state’s economic orientation, so when an associate professor of agribusiness and applied economics was called to duty by the National Guard, she took her rostrum with her.

Cheryl J. Wachenheim had been teaching in the University’s online education program for years, and there was no ready replacement available. “When she got called for duty, it became a question of ‘Gee, who can continue to teach these online courses?’ Because we needed them available,” said David M. Saxowsky, interim chair of the Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics.

Ms. Wachenheim had taught those courses for a number of years, so in spite of the challenges of increased distance she was still the best person for the job. When she returned to the campus from active duty, the Chronicle of Higher Education picked up the story.

Captain Wachenheim was deployed to Balad, Iraq, just north of Baghdad, in August 2008, for a 10-and-a-half-month stay. She continued teaching courses in micro- and macroeconomics online for students pursuing an economics degree from a fortified trailer crammed with medical supplies, body armor, the M-16 rifle she was required to carry wherever she went, and a computer.

Using her personal laptop to run the courses, Ms. Wachenheim posted discussion questions and assignments using a popular course-management system, and even video lectures using audio and video software. During her tour of duty, which included training at Fort Sill, in Oklahoma, she taught four courses that enrolled 20 to 75 students—two in the summer of 2008, one in the fall of 2008, and one in the spring of 2009.

To get Internet access, she and nine other soldiers on her base in Iraq chipped in for a satellite dish and dug holes in the sand all over the base so they could run wires underground and into each of their trailers. The Balad base is one of the largest U.S. firebases in the country, known to the enlisted men as “Mortaritaville” because their location is a convenient target for insurgent artillery.

The eight hour time zone difference worked in her favor, on occasion because her mornings coincided with the online time for students working late. She was able to answer questions immediately. Not so convenient were the sandstorms that knocked out satellite communication for two or three days, and the emergency assignments that took her on the road. One last minute order that sent her to Basra took five days.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of GIs taking studying for online degrees while on active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. To date, there is only one professor who has surfaced that used off-duty hours teaching online courses for college students in Mid-America.

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