Focus on Faculty
Patrick Mendis: Pursuing Two Noble Professions

Patrick Mendis

By Chip Cassano

Sri Lanka is almost 9,000 miles from UMUC’s headquarters in Adelphi, Maryland, but distance only begins to describe the path that led Patrick Mendis from a small Sri Lankan farm—surrounded, as he put it, by “rice [paddies], 13 water buffalo, and a few coconut trees”—to a professorship at UMUC. Along the way, he would teach in Europe and Asia, as well as stateside, serve as an ambassador, be listed in Who’s Who in the World, be named a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (where he became friends with Sir Arthur C. Clarke, world-renowned author of the science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey), and hold positions of influence in the U.S. State Department and, most recently, with the World Wildlife Fund, one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations.

“I always believed, growing up, that the two most noble professions are teaching and public service,” said Mendis, an adjunct professor of economics and management in UMUC’s Graduate School. That belief has helped guide him on what has been quite a remarkable journey.

Even as a child, he took his schooling seriously, attending state-run schools during the week and, on the weekends, studying with a Catholic priest who lived with Mendis’s family. By the age of 16, he had won national recognition for his leadership as an army cadet, and was offered the opportunity to travel to the United States to attend school as an AFS (then American Field Service) scholar.

“I was a guinea pig, more or less,” Mendis said, laughing, “because I didn’t speak the language.” To make matters worse, he found himself in northern Minnesota—in the winter.

“Imagine going from Sri Lanka to a place where the wind chill was 40 degrees below zero. It was culture shock, climate shock, language shock. Everything was a shock.”

Patrick Mendis (right) with Sir Arthur C. Clarke (seated) and Ambassador Ronald F. Lehman II (left) in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

But if Mendis was a guinea pig, the experiment must have been successful. After finishing a year of high school in Minnesota, he returned to Sri Lanka to earn his undergraduate degree in business administration and economics. He didn’t forget Minnesota, though, and the friends he made there certainly didn’t forget him.

“The entire town got together and raised money to bring me back,” Mendis said. “About 23 families, the local churches, and the Lions Club, Rotary Club, and Kiwanis Club, all worked together. I guess I was more or less adopted by the community.”

No doubt they knew they were betting on a winner. Mendis entered the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, one of the top-ranked schools of public affairs in the country. After completing his master’s degree, he went on to earn a PhD in geography and applied economics, which landed him a teaching position at the Institute of International Studies and served to launch his teaching career. He’s been teaching, either full or part time, ever since.

“I never quit,” Mendis said. “I taught at the University of Minnesota for seven years, then I went to UMUC–Europe in 1997 [where he won the first Stanley J. Drazek Teaching Excellence Award]. Then Paula Harbecke [a former administrator for both UMUC–Asia and UMUC–Europe] said, ‘Patrick, you won’t have had a real UMUC experience until you teach in Asia.’ So I went to Asia.”

While there, he also participated in the faculty exchange program with Northwestern Polytechnic University in Xi’an, China. He might be traveling still if his daughter hadn’t registered a gentle complaint.

“She said, ‘Dad, we’ve been to all the cathedrals in Europe and we’ve seen all the Buddhist temples in Asia. We need to go back home to Minnesota.’ But I said, ‘Sweetheart, what can I do in Minnesota?’ I wanted to be involved in international affairs,” Mendis said.

So Mendis moved, instead, to Washington, D.C., where he accepted a position at the U.S. State Department and a teaching position in UMUC’s Graduate School, stateside. At the State Department, it didn’t take him long to make an impact.

He authored the State Department’s Handbook on International Science and Technology Agreements (“That’s one I’m especially proud of,” Mendis said, “because everybody in the government uses it”), chaired the government’s Interagency Working Group on Sustainable Development, and served as an advisor to the U.S. delegations to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, which eventually led to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in South Africa in the summer of 2002.

As if that wasn’t enough, he also served as special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State and the secretariat director of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and edited two electronic State Department journals—Sustainable Development and Food Security.

After two years at the State Department, a new opportunity arose, and Mendis took a position with the World Wildlife Fund, where he serves as senior policy advisor.

It is anyone’s guess where he’ll be next; he doesn’t believe in planning his career.

“My mentor, Ambassador Harlan Cleveland, who was dean of the Humphrey Institute, told me, ‘Never plan your career, because when you do, you will succeed by narrowing your options,’” Mendis said. “I took that advice wholeheartedly, and if I had planned my career, I don’t think I ever could have seen the adventure that was ahead of me. So I’ll just continue to try to do the best I can with what is given me each moment, and take each step as it comes.”

One thing is certain: Wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, you can be sure he’ll be pursuing those two “most noble professions”—teaching and public service.