Students pass teacher Jeffrey Vanke’s math classroom daily, unaware that the physics and history accolade has received a doctorate degree, written several books, and studied abroad in multiple countries.
Vanke credits his experiences growing up and the places he lived as the main source of inspiration for pursuing a career in education. Growing up in an average, middle-class suburban family in North Carolina, he and his brother spent extensive time visiting their extended family in Ohio. While attending school in-between Chapel Hill and Durham, two major university towns both located in North Carolina, Vanke first realized a passion for specific academic topics.
“I was raised in an overlap between Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina, where a lot of professors lived and sent their kids to my school. I heard them talk about things they were interested in, lifestyles they had, or research trips for the summer or whole year their family got to go on,” said Vanke. “I said to myself, ‘that sounds like fun.’”
Vanke also mentioned a summer camp that he attended for highly academic and creative students that required a test to be admitted as a source of inspiration to become an educational instructor of some kind. Vanke explained how at his last month-long visit when he was 16, one of the instructors he had convinced him to become an academic.
“The teacher convinced me by example, more than persuasion, to become a teacher. I already knew then I probably wanted to teach college because I was always interested in the next level I went to. I thought, ‘when I get to college, I’m probably going to want to teach college,’ which was true,” said Vanke.
Sure enough, Vanke was able to secure a college-teaching job as an assistant professor of History and International Studies at Guilford College at Greensboro, which he held for five years. After marrying and having kids, and with his wife studying in the medical field, Vanke decided to step down and walked away from his career at Guilford College. Although he tried a few times to get back into that career later, he ultimately decided to desert it indefinitely.
Even though Vanke teaches math classes, he is an avid fan of history and has written and self-published a couple of historical fiction books, as well as a non-fiction historical book about the formation of the European Union, which was the topic of his dissertation. Vanke’s first novel, a spy thriller set in Nazi Germany during the 1930s, was inspired by his travel and research while studying abroad.
“I already knew most of the historical research related to it, but I also used my college study-abroad in Berlin and my graduate research in Paris. I was familiar by virtue of my History PhD,” said Vanke.
Once his children had grown up, Vanke wanted to work in their hometown of Roanoke, Virginia, but he found work unsustainable there. He ultimately decided to earn a license to teach mathematics in school, and moved to WS after applying and accepting a job offer.
“I looked at schools that looked like they were calm places to be as I age, since I have to teach until I’m 65,” said Vanke. “WS was a very attractive place to be.”
Due to his frequently changing career paths, Vanke ultimately will not be able to accept a FCPS-provided pension for teaching. Despite this, he is comfortable and plans to teach math until he can fully retire.
