Professor F ocus-

By Kheng-Wee

Professor Lowell G. Sweet, Associate Professor Of Mathematics

Professor Sweet is from Nova Scotia. He graduated from Acadia University with both Bachelor and Master degrees in Science. He completed his Ph.D. at University of Waterloo, Ontario.

Professor Sweet’s definition of Mathematics is that "Math is FUN! There is a lot of interesting problems in math and we learn all sorts of new methods to solve math. Math problems are like puzzles, and if one likes solving puzzles,

then math is fun." His reason for becoming a professor is mainly because he enjoys teaching. "I enjoy showing students how mathematics works, and I like to help students with their math when I was a student. It is enjoyable," he said. Also, when he was a student, Professor Sweet found one particular professor called Dr. Jeffrey from Acadia an influence on him. He has a great deal of knowledge and he was very kind and considerate. He likes to help students and he was always inviting us to his home. He was a real gentleman."

Ever since he started his teaching career, Professor Sweet has taught in the Prince of Wales College before it was turned into U.P.E.I. "It was a long time ago," he smiled. He has also taught in Acadia during the summer. If given the chance to teach in Waterloo University, a few professors would normally grab it. However, Professor Sweet thinks he would not. "Waterloo is big and fast. I wouldn’t have time with the students because a lot of time is spend doing research. For me, teaching comes first. I only do research when I have time."

When asked if there are anything about university life he misses now, Professor Sweet said "a lot of sports. I still go to games, but when I was a student, I used to go to a lot of football games and hockey games." When asked if there are anything

he wishes universities had back ‘aay he answered without hesitation "computers!" It is understandable since everyone back then had to

use slide rules. "We didn’t even have calculators then."

During his student days, he lived in residence for four years and boarding house for the other four years. He liked living in residence because "I made a lot of friends and there were a lot of people to talk to. There were always people to go to games

_with and people to play cards with. There was

always something to do. But it is noisy sometimes." Residence life is renown for its partying and drinking. However, with Professor Sweet, that wasn’t the case. "No," he said, "I spent times with my friends, but I wasn’t a party-animal. I still have fun though." His ideas of fun include listening to music, playing cards, going to games. He enjoys sports a lot. .

Majority of the students tend to assume that all professors were first class students. Professor Sweet was no doubt a top student in Science. "But," he laughed, "I didn’t do extremely well in the art courses. I tend to spend all my time with my Science courses. Therefore, my marks for Science were much, much higher than my Arts."

Professors are only humans, therefore they are allowed to make mistakes. One embarrassing moments in his career was whén he was teaching Statistics. He didn’t realize that his formula was wrong until the last minute....it was upside-down!

High school romance rarely last after one enters the university. With Professor Sweet, that is not true. He met his wife when he was in high school and they have been married now for...twenty three years (he did the calculation the easy way - on the calculator). His wife was also a teacher before. They have four children, three of them are in universities, one is in grade nine. Physiotherapy, Psychology and Biology are their interests, not math.

October 12, 1990

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