Claiming PowerPoint lectures are a "cop out," physics professor Jan Sojka likes to keep his students awake and alert through humor.

"I dislike it when students are sleeping," he said.

However, Sojka also recognizes part of being an effective educator is recognizing students have unique needs, and that learning styles differ greatly from person to person.

"Life would be pretty pathetic if we were all the same," he said.

An adviser to the Get Away Special team since 1978. It's an organization has sent more than 10 payloads into space.

"I used to launch rockets into the aurora borealis from northern Norway by pressing a button," he said.

Developing and then launching experiments into space through the GAS program at USU gives students that "same excitement," he said.

Sojka has known he would be involved in space research since his 11th birthday, April 12, 1961, when Yuri Gagarin became the first person to enter outer space. Saying he is "too chicken" to ever venture past Earth's atmosphere, Sojka said he decided to explore space via physics.

"Physics is a pretty compelling way to get into other fields," he said.

"There is a huge amount of stuff we don't understand yet."

And space really is the final frontier. From runners seeking to be the world's fastest man, to climbers always seeking a higher peak, mankind is always looking for boundaries to push, and Sojka says space exploration provides them.

Besides his love for physics and teaching, the British native is an avid American sports enthusiast. A true-blue Dallas Cowboy and Utah Jazz fan, Sojka said he enjoys sports partly for the life lessons they teach. Being a teacher though, educates in its own way.

"[In teaching], there is nothing stale or boring," he said. "In American sports, teams play to win. But in education we don't need to win to have thoroughly gained from the experience."

-- PHOTO BY JOSH J. RUSSELL; TEXT BY BROOKE NELSON