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A.B. engineering major Machel Morrison ’04 (Kingston, Jamaica), a sprinter for the track team, has chosen the road less traveled in shaping and pursuing his education. His independent research project returned him to his native land, where he compared a privately financed toll road project and a publicly financed highway project.
Morrison says it is one thing to read in a textbook how highway projects are financed and developed, but “it is something totally different to be out in the field working with experienced construction crews.” He presented his research at the 18th annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research, held April 15-17 at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
During his stint on the road projects in Jamaica, Morrison says he had “to deal with contractors, foremen, employees, maintaining a detailed analysis of the daily progress under the supervision of the engineering superintendent.”
Morrison began his work by studying how road projects are financed and developed overseas in Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, and Thailand.
“Major engineering projects now are global efforts,” he says, with the two projects he studied being financed by firms from Korea (public project) and France (toll road project). “The Koreans were inexperienced in dealing with cultural differences in the Caribbean and underestimated how long it would take the workforce to reach certain goals.”
His adviser, David Veshosky, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and chair of A.B. engineering, says Morrison also encountered the challenge of squatters.
“Impoverished natives hear a road project is cutting through the jungle and they lay claim to the land, hoping to be bought off,” he says. “Engineering classes cannot prepare a young man for how to handle such conflicts. You can only learn by doing.
“Machel did a very good job,” adds Veshosky. “He understood and synthesized the relevant literature. He learned to manage his own time well in focusing on topics such as management finance, energy construction, and risk analysis. He succeeded because he has such good people skills. This project played to his engineering talents and his interpersonal skills.”
His mentor “has always been more a friend than just a professor in his office,” Morrison says. “I’ve always felt that any academic or personal problem could be shared with him. He’s taken a real interest in my development.”
Morrison admits that he had to humble himself at times when dealing with experienced construction workers who may have lacked his formal education, but had been working for decades on highway projects around the world.
“I came in as this white-shirt-and-tie college kid,” Morrison says with a laugh, “and I learned not just practical skills, but how to get from someone less educated than I the crucial information by which to assess the project.”
Morrison’s personal skills may come from his appreciation of what it is like to be culturally dislocated, or “a fish out of water,” as he puts it. He admits his first year at Lafayette was difficult because of cultural and educational differences between the United States and Jamaica, which lacks high-end computer technology.
He gives special praise to Dean of Studies Gladstone A. Hutchinson, a fellow Jamaican, who took Morrison under his wing and helped him make this adjustment. Morrison says he is convinced that at a larger school, he would have been lost.
“Fortunately, Lafayette is a small enough school that I made friends with faculty and fellow students,” he says.
Morrison’s hands-on experience at Lafayette began when he interned as an on-site inspector during renovations at Skillman Library, which is undergoing a $22 million expansion and modernization.
In addition to competing in track, Morrison is vice president of Brothers of Lafayette, an outreach group that works in the Easton community. He is a member of the Patriot League’s Student Athlete Honor Roll.
Morrison has applied to Duke University and the University of Maryland with an eye to study engineer management for his master’s degree.
“I will pursue formal studies, but I’d also like to go back to the toll-road project and work for the same company,” he says. “I’d like to help see the project through to completion.”
Honors thesis projects are among several major opportunities at Lafayette that make the College a national leader in undergraduate research. Lafayette sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year. Forty-two students were accepted to present their work at the annual conference this month.