Morgan becomes a Bronco

Barbara Morgan has worked all over the universe. Always led by her passion for learning, she taught on an Indian Reservation in Montana, an international and national school in Ecuador, an elementary school in McCall and has even worked on the International Space Station. However, Morgan’s most recent job isn’t in a foreign country – and it’s certainly not in outer space – but according to her, it’s a place just as exciting as NASA. Morgan is the new Distinguished Educator in Residence at Boise State University. Her new job entails working to provide more opportunities in the area of math, science, technology and engineering for students not only at Boise State, but also at schools statewide. She will work with students in kindergarten through their senior year as well as college students. Morgan, wife and mother of two sons, has a passion for teaching and educating the youth. "One of the greatest joys about being a human being and being alive is the ability to learn and to share it with other people," Morgan said. It is this passion that first led her to NASA. When President Reagan announced in 1984 that he would send a teacher into space, Morgan did not hesitate to apply. After a long application process, Morgan was selected as the alternate for fellow teacher Krista McAuliffe on the Space Shuttle Challenger. The Challenger exploded in 1986 only moments after launch. Morgan describes this as one of her most difficult times. "I learned that you have to keep pressing on, there’s still lots of life all around you … the sadness, it never goes away, but it just gets a little bit easier," she said. Despite the accident, Morgan finished out the goals of the program by sharing her experiences with students nationwide. She returned to McCall after the program and continued teaching elementary school from 1986 to 1998. During this time she also continued to work with NASA for one week every month. In 1998, Morgan was called back to Houston, this time not as a teacher, but as an actual astronaut, or mission specialist. Morgan worked and trained with NASA for 10 years. During this time, another space shuttle, this time Space Shuttle Colombia, failed during flight. Again led by her passion for teaching, Morgan was not deterred from entering space. "I felt it was really important, as NASA did, to find out what went wrong … fix it, and keep the future open for our young people," Morgan said. Morgan believes that with anything it’s important to weigh the risks and decide if something is important enough. "I think our kids need to learn to take risks … you’re not going to go anywhere or learn anything if there’s no risk ever, you’re not being a human being, you’re not living," Morgan said. For Morgan, space exploration was important enough, and Aug. 8, 2007 she successfully launched into space as part of an assembly mission to help build the International Space Station. The mission lasted almost 13 days. Morgan proved true to her beliefs that the sky is no limit. "If people look inside themselves and figure out what it is that they want [to] learn or what it is that they want to do and just keep working at it … those things will come true," Morgan said. Morgan chose to come to Boise State because of the goals, commitment and energy of the university. "It was a really tough decision to leave NASA but a really easy decision to come to Boise State," she said. According to Morgan, her first task will be to learn everything possible about what’s going on at Boise State, and about it’s faculty, staff and students.

RENEE DAVIES
News Journalist

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