Fulbright takes biology professor to Malaysia

During the summer, Distinguished Professor of Biology and Environmental Erik Lindquist took his sixth trip to Malaysia—his first time there without Messiah students—on a six-week Fulbright Specialist award to teach and train students and faculty at Methodist College-Kuala Lumpur (MCKL).

“It was one of the greatest honors of my professional career. We love Malaysia. We have longstanding friendships that extend to my undergraduate experience,” he said.

The Fulbright Specialist Program, which is part of the larger Fulbright Program, provides qualified U.S. academics and professionals with an opportunity to share their expertise by carrying out projects requested by host institutions abroad.

Lindquist spent six weeks in Malaysia teaching about biodiversity, conservation and endangered/threatened species.

“They use a textbook that’s very American, so I made sure the lectures had a Malaysian sense. I spent lots of time writing lectures and really engaged the students on thinking through this, a theological necessity of being scripturally minded,” he explained.

Lindquist also gave the keynote address in a public forum with 100+ attendees.

As part of the Fulbright award, the professor is paired with a specialist who shares their expertise and assists with strengthening links between U.S. and foreign host institutions. In this case, the specialist was an MCKL professor.

“It was nice to work with another professor, Di Lin Ng,” he said.

Lindquist trained the larger faculty on experiential pedagogy, and he took the students on a field experience in a national park.

“We spent the whole day talking through how to use field experiences—museums, public parks—and gave them ideas of why you should get your students out of the classroom to have these kinesthetic learning experiences,” said Lindquist. “We teach and interpret the mangroves we were in. We come back to the classroom to discuss how you can use these living experiences to improve the classroom.”

He says education abroad—whether to Malaysia or anywhere—is integral to the holistic student experience.

“I have been teaching either research, classes or service trips abroad since 1999. I have done 51 of those and I’ve led 535 students,” he said. “I know every single name of every single student.

It’s transformative.”

He’s hoping to have professors from MCKL come to Messiah in a reciprocal way.

“The most important thing is networking and an ongoing relationship. We want to improve connections between Messiah and them. How can we improve their biology program with cooperation between my department and theirs? There’s the possibility of co-teaching in our future, as well. Messiah would be really blessed to have these folks come and teach here,” he said.

— Anna Seip