Memorial professors reach out to the world

Drs. James Sharp and Leonard Lye of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science spend a lot of their time on southeast Asian islands, soaking up the sun, surf and sand. Through family and friends, newspaper ads and colleagues worldwide, the two professors have made a career out of teaching around the globe in a number of glamourous but often challenging locations, including Malawi, Brunei, the Phillippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia. "The opportunity to go to a different culture and instead of going as a tourist where you just see the gloss, you live there for four months, you live the way the local people live and become friendly with the local people - it's just a fascinating experience," said Dr. Sharp. "Food, food, food," Dr. Lye said. "To like traveling to these places you have to be adventurous about food."

Most recently, Drs. Sharp and Lye were invited to the International Advisory Committee for the second World Engineering Congress, to be held in Kuching, Sarawak, in 2002. The appointments recognize the considerable background both have cultivated as consultants and advisors to the region - Dr. Sharp as a visiting professor and external examiner to several universities and Dr. Lye as the project leader of Memorial's graduate program in water resources for Indonesian engineers.

Of course, water is a big topic in Indonesia, as in Malaysia, from where Dr. Lye originally hails. The rainy season renders umbrellas useless. "There are two seasons, the wet season and the very wet season," Dr. Sharpe exclaimed. Dr. Lye agrees. He tells about the time he was teaching at a temporary campus facility with a tin roof. "It's so loud you can't hear anything. You can't hear yourself teaching at all, you just have to stop and wait." And, because of that rain, Southeast Asia is the land of the rainforest, home to 2,000 different types of trees and 800 kinds of orchids. Elephants, rhinos, leopards and orangutans roam the land. "Actually, when I was there last a young boy was grabbed by a tiger," Dr. Sharp remembers.

But it's not all fun and sun - classes often run six days a week, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. What's more, the professors said a lack of knowledge about the quality of other educational institutions worldwide can contribute to obstacles facing international graduate students. "I'm an external examiner for the University of Malaya, and I would say that the standard in many Asian universities, such as the ones in Hong Kong and Singapore, is quite reasonable," said Dr. Sharp. "Whether the country itself is developed or underdeveloped, you're still dealing with extremely bright capable students who want to learn." "Actually, one of the main goals of our program in Indonesia is to train engineers how to deal with foreign consultants so they can deal with them one-on-one, and hold their own ground," added Dr. Lye.

Both professors see a great deal of potential, not only in their international students, but in Memorial's ability to become a provider of choice for overseas engineering students. "Newfoundland and Labrador has a lot in common with many regions worldwide," Dr. Sharp explained, "in terms of having small communities, often underfunded, far from the big centres. We have to provide systems here which fit what we've got here, and the same is true overseas." Dr. Lye sees Brunei as a great place for MUN recruitment efforts. "It's similar to the Middle East in that the kids of ex-pats working in oil and gas have to go overseas for education, so they have to go overseas, and they have the money." "It's so great to be in a different environment," Dr. Lye said, "It's about being in a different university setting, governed by different rules and it's about teaching students who are eager to come to Canada."