Mark W.M. Bannatyne
Associate Professor, Department of Technical Graphics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Lecturing: Problem-Solving Strategies and Techniques for Developing Solid and Surface Computer-Generated Models
Host: Tula State Mechanical University, Tula, Russia
January 2000 - June 2000

"Eta Rossiya," Mark Bannatyne's students-and some of his colleagues-kept warning him. "This is Russia." In other words: That won't work here.

Bannatyne, an associate professor of computer graphics from Purdue University, forged ahead anyway. At Tula State University, 120 miles south of Moscow, he raised eyebrows by offering
unfamiliar courses like "Technology, Society and Ethics" and "Engineering Solid Models," and by setting inconceivable challenges for his students.

In his class on "American Business Practices and Standards," his students didn't think he was serious about wanting them to learn by establishing their own company-with investments of 50 rubles apiece (one-third of their monthly stipends). Then he pulled 500 rubles from his own pocket to start things off. Half still refused to invest, but the group did elect officers, sell stock, conduct market research, and identify and create a product (New Year's "candy bags" for children). Capitalism triumphed when the candy was sold on campus: The project returned 97 rubles for every 50 invested.

During his lectureship in the fall of 2000, Bannatyne won over faculty skeptics with his talks at the prestigious Moscow Aviation Institute and with co-authoring papers on computer graphics and engineering for international conferences in Europe. He urged students in his computer literacy class to apply for an all-expenses-paid study grant in the United States, and one of them won! "By the time I left, they [faculty members] accepted me as a colleague," he chuckles. He also committed to several return trips to Russia.

He was in Siberia on September 11, 2001, when the United States was attacked by terrorists; he was greatly moved by Russian expressions of friendship.

Internationalism is a way of life for the Bannatyne family. He and his wife, Tatiana, who had been pen pals since college, had their first face-to-face meeting in Moscow in 1989. "She was so beautiful," says Bannatyne, who proposed six months later. Tula happens to be Tatiana's birthplace, so she and their children-Yuri, 10, Kirill, 6, and Anna, 2-tagged along for the semester. The two older children attended Russian schools.

Bannatyne's Fulbright was one of the first awarded to Purdue's School of Technology, bringing recognition to the school and enthusiasm for "internationalization." Named to head its International Programs Committee, Bannatyne took five U.S. colleagues on his next trip to
Tula. He looks forward to many such trips and has been granted an extension of his Fulbright project for teaching and curriculum development, which he hopes to resume in 2002.

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