Download - Faculty of Engineering - University of Alberta

Courtesy Dr. Guaning Su
Nanyang Technological University
Even 38 years later, John Foong
(Electrical ’71) remembers sweating
nervously over a math
exam and looking up to see his relaxed-looking
classmate, Guaning Su (Electrical ’71),
hand in his paper and breeze out the door.
“I’m still just trying to understand the question
and he was already done,” says Foong.
Not only did Su usually finish first, he finished
on top. Writing his mathematics exams
in pen (“he didn’t make any mistakes,” says
Foong), Su went above and beyond the call of
duty. If an instructor required the students to
fill out six of 10 questions on a test, Su would
complete all 10 of them and get them all
right, says Foong.
“He was head and shoulders above everyone
else,” says Foong. “We expected great
things from him.”
And he delivered. Today, Dr. Guaning Su
is president of Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore, following an illustrious
career helping to shape his country’s
national defence. But his academic path started
at the University of Alberta in 1967.
As a recipient of a Colombo Plan
Scholarship, Su was chosen to study in
Canada. He admits he knew little about the
country at the time and even less about
Edmonton or Alberta, except that it was
cold. “I have a vivid memory of landing in
Canada, in Vancouver, and finding bright
sunshine and big cars, and then later landing
L-R: John Foong, Guaning Su, and Foong's
mother during 1971 spring convocation.
at the Edmonton International Airport and
wondering where the city was,” says Su.
“The airport was quite far from downtown,
and all I saw were fields. I remember wondering
if the city was underground due to the
cold winter.”
Before he came, Su learned Canada was
bilingual. So, ever the diligent student, he studied
French at the Alliance Francaise in
Singapore to prepare. Of course, Alberta
turned out to be quite different than he expected,
and the relative absence of French was just
one revelation. “I was surprised to learn that
Ukrainians were a significant ethnic group,” he
says. “And at the time Premier Ernest Manning
maintained a ban on movies on Sunday.
“Lots of people in our
crew were bright, but he
was a step above. He was
getting straight nines while
everybody else was trying
to play catch up to him.”
— ALAN HAWRELAK
“But everything was so new and wonderful.
In those days Singapore was a Third World
country and Canada already a very developed
country. And it was so warm indoors, whatever
the weather outside. My parents were sur-
Spring 2009 U of A Engineer 23