‘Renaissance man from mud house’ in Lanka wins Lifetime Achievement Award in US

By Mohamed Faslan

WARSAW, Poland – Prof. Patrick Mendis, who travelled to, and worked in, more than 130 countries, had been recognised for “achieving a lifetime of accomplishments that are truly extraordinary and widely accepted, globally,” said Dr. Dishan Jayasinha, the President of the Sri Lanka Foundation in Los Angeles, California. It is the most respected and widely known institution that educates the citizens of the world on Sri Lanka and builds bridges between the Sri Lankan diaspora and the global community.

Prof. Mendis served as an American diplomat and a NATO military professor. He is a “renaissance man” who hailed from a “mud house (in Sri Lanka) to the White House (in the United States), then to international diplomacy,” as described by his mentor and friend, Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku—former Vice Chancellor of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, and the Sri Lankan Ambassador to China, Japan, South Korea, and UNESCO.

At present, Dr. Mendis is a distinguished visiting professor of transatlantic relations at the University of Warsaw in Poland. During the spring semester, he taught a seminar course on Sino-American Relations and International Organisations at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw, one of the largest and most renowned institutions for global affairs in the European Union.

Committed to Service

Prior to becoming a naturalized US citizen, Prof. Mendis represented the Government of Sri Lanka as its first Youth Ambassador to the United Nations and received the UN Medal for the International Year of the Youth. He later worked at the World Bank.

His public and international service in the US Government started at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Reagan White House. However, after obtaining his doctorate in geography and applied economics, he taught courses, ranging from international relations, business management, and the UN system at the Universities of Minnesota, Maryland, and Yale.

After leaving his academic career, he accepted a string of government appointments at the US Departments of Agriculture, Defence, Energy, and State during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. For his contributions, he received numerous leadership and service awards.The Sri Lanka Foundation, for the first time recognized the award-winning US diplomat with the Exceptional Achievement Award in 2008. “The Foundation identifies and pays tribute to outstanding high achievers who have made Mother Lanka proud,” said Dr. Jayasinha.

Life of a Sojourner

Prof. Mendis was born into a Buddhist-Catholic family on a three-acre rice farm, with water buffaloes, in Polonnaruwa, the medieval capital of Sri Lanka.During his formative years, Prof. Mendis was a Boy Scout of Sri Lanka while he was growing up with the Catholic priests and the Buddhist monks. A sports and martial arts enthusiast, at a young age, he served as the sergeant of the Police Cadets Corps, became the best commander of the Army Cadets Corps, and won the UNESCO Award in national competitions.

When Prof. Mendis succeeded in winning a highly selective scholarship from the American Field Service (AFS) that was sponsored by the US Department of State, he came to the United States for an academic year of study. As a teenager, he attended Perham High School in Minnesota, becoming the fastest runner and the champion in badminton.After earning his American high school diploma, he returned to Sri Lanka. He studied at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and received a first-class honours degree in business administration and economics. When the civil war broke out, he was invited back to the United States and “adopted” by Minnesotans.

Prof. Mendis received a host of scholarships—including the Humphrey and Kennedy fellowships—to study at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.In Minnesota, he met his future mentors: Honorable Edward Burdick, NATO Ambassador Harlan Cleveland, and US Vice President Walter Mondale. Each of these legendary American leaders enriched the life of the Sri Lankan sojourner.

The late NATO Ambassador Cleveland was a mentor and a friend to Prof. Mendis for more than a quarter-century, including his two tours of teaching with the NATO and Indo-Pacific Commands. After his assignment with the US Department of Defence, he joined the US Department of State, working under the late Secretaries Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell. The late Vice President Mondale recommended Prof. Mendis to the Obama White House for an appointment as US national commissioner to UNESCO. He served two terms under Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry until the Trump White House withdrew from the UN agency.

Natural Leader

During his diplomatic service, under the late Secretary Albright, Prof. Mendis left an enduring legacy by authoring the Handbook on International Science and Technology Agreement for the US Government. It is still being used by American diplomats and scientists at US Embassies around the world and across the federal government.

The late Secretary Powell appointed Prof. Mendis to serve as the Secretariat Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs—managing the Fulbright, Humphrey, Muskie, and other international exchange and cultural programmes. The former recipient of AFS scholarship circled back to lead the agency that funds and manages global educational and cultural programmes for the US Government. To recognize his leadership in government service, he was honoured with the Meritorious Honour Award, the UN Negotiation Award, and the Benjamin Franklin Award by the Department of State.

Global Educator

While in government service, Prof. Mendis continued to teach at the USDA Graduate School and the US Foreign Service Institute—the two premier training institutions for diplomatic and civil service employees in the federal, state, and local governments.

When he was teaching courses on economics at the USDA Graduate School, the Bush White House appointed Prof. Mendis to serve on the USDA Graduate School Board. For his contributions, the US Department of Agriculture conferred on Prof. Mendis the USDA Graduate School’s Outstanding Leadership and Service Award.After his government service, Prof. Mendis returned to academia. He served as a visiting foreign policy scholar at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Service and the Vice President of the Osgood Center for International Studies. During his tenure at Johns Hopkins he authored two books: Trade for Peace and Commercial Providence.

He later served as a distinguished senior fellow and affiliate professor of public and international affairs at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, teaching graduate courses and authoring another book, Peaceful War, on the historic evolution of the US and China relationship.His latest book was translated into Chinese. He continued his teaching career in China, lecturing at various national and provincial academies and universities—including Anhui, Fudan, Nanjing, Shandong, Tongji, Tsinghua, Wuhan, and Zhejiang. Most recently, he served as a distinguished visiting professor of Sino-American relations at the Yenching Academy of Peking University. For his accomplishments, Prof. Mendis was recognized with the International Confucius Award at a special symposium in the National Confucius Research Institute in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius in Shandong Province.

After leaving China, Prof. Mendis continued his teaching as a distinguished visiting professor of global affairs at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan. He was also appointed as a distinguished visiting professor of culture and diplomacy at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei. To continue his academic career, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China awarded him the prestigious Taiwan Fellowship.His lifelong contribution is related to his two teaching tours in Europe and Asia as a military professor with the US Department of Defence’s NATO and Indo-Pacific Commands. Prof. Mendis has taught American service members at every major US military base in England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Turkey, Spain, and South Korea for which he received the Stanley J. Drazek Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Maryland, the sponsor of the programme.

Philanthropist at Heart

Prof. Mendis has established a variety of scholarships and awards to help the next generation of leaders in Sri Lanka and the United States. His philanthropic activities reflect his life journey from Sri Lanka to the United States and beyond.In Sri Lanka, he endowed the Sarvodaya Peace Prize to honour his childhood mentor and friend, Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, the “Gandhi of Sri Lanka” and the founder of the Sarvodaya Movement—the largest humanitarian and spiritual organisation in Sri Lanka. The University of Sri Jayewardenepura established the annual Dr. Patrick Mendis Prize, which is presented to the students for outstanding academic performance and leadership in extra-curricular activities. After the tragic tsunami, he funded more than 15 tsunami scholarships at the Buddhist temple and the Catholic church in Polonnaruwa.

In the United States, Prof. Mendis established the Johnson-Mendis Scholarship at the Minnesota State College for high school students in memory of his American AFS family. To honour his mentor and friend at the Minnesota House of Representatives, he created the annual Edward Burdick Legislative Award for graduate students at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. To support students in journalism and international relations, the Kennedy School’s alumnus established the Millennials Award for Leadership and Service at Harvard University.

“In the circle of life, the greatest achievement for me is to give all I have; only then am I blessed to receive,” said Prof. Mendis. His philosophy of life seems to resonate from his hybrid cultural upbringing with Buddhist ethics and Christian morality while growing up in Sri Lanka and Minnesota.

In all this, Prof. Mendis is indeed a quintessential Minnesotan—kindhearted and hardworking—who has pursued the American dream. “His journey is a relevant one, from a mud house with water buffalos in Sri Lanka to working with the United Nations, the World Bank, and the US Government,” summarized Prof. Brian Atwood, the former dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the administrator of the US Agency for International Development during the Bill Clinton presidency.

(The writer is a lecturer in political science at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka. He is currently pursuing his PhD in political science and international studies at the University of Warsaw in Poland.)