CANDLE LAKE — Saskatchewan Polytechnic instructor Sam Bansah spent his early years rising at four o’clock in the morning to help his mother who worked hard as a trader to put food on the table for her family of six. His father rose early, too, to begin work as a mechanic. In Ghana, that is often the way relatively poor families get by — with long hours and hard work.
Bansah no longer gets up nearly as early as he once did, but the work ethic he developed in his youth stood him in good stead as he went on to pursue higher education and a career in engineering. For many years, “get up early and put in the hours” was a personal mantra. He credits his parents with giving him the tenacity to pursue his career dreams. “My early life wasn’t easy,” says Bansah. “It was that way, rising before dawn and working hard, until I got to university, but we had a good upbringing. My parents were proud and disciplined. My dad achieved a certificate in mechanics from a trades college, but neither he or my mother had as much opportunity as they wanted for me or my three siblings, and they felt it was important for us to get a higher education.”
Bansah entered the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, west Africa, where he completed an undergraduate engineering degree. After graduating he made his way to Europe to pursue a post-graduate diploma program. He then returned to Ghana where he worked at a mine, and on-and-off as an instructor and researcher at the university where he first studied. His sights, however, were set on further education, so in 2006 he moved to Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, to pursue a master’s degree.
Completing his program in the United States at the height of the economic recession, Bansah and his family applied to immigrate to Canada. “My wife had a friend living in Regina who offered to help find us a place to land,” he remembers. By then, the couple had two small children. Bansah and his wife, also a civil engineer, worked hard to get settled in Regina, a place with an even longer winter than Illinois.
“I wasn’t done with education yet,” explains Bansah. My parents always challenged us to go as far as we could so I applied to the University of Manitoba to do my PhD.” Though Bansah and his wife had added two more children to their family, he commuted from Winnipeg to Regina, spending weeks at a time away from them for the four-and-a half-years it took to complete his doctorate.
“I finished my PhD in February 2020, and then March came and the pandemic,” he explains. Home for a year without work, Bansah eventually found a job with Statistics Canada. After a few months he found something more in line with his training at the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency, and finally landed work as a project engineer with Saskatchewan Water Corporation.
But Bansah, it seems, is drawn to higher learning. When an instructor position with Sask Polytech’s Civil Engineering Technologies program became available he jumped at the chance to return to the classroom. He is currently teaching hydrology and instrumentation to students pursuing the program’s water resources option. “I am very happy to be working now with Saskatchewan Polytechnic,” says Bansah. “I’m most excited about the people—interacting with students, feeling their emotions and knowing that I am imparting the knowledge I have gained in all of my studies and work experiences. I find these human interactions compelling.”
Bansah recently attended a field camp with his students at Sask Polytech’s Hannin Creek Education and Applied Research Centre at Candle Lake. There, he worked with students to evaluate ecological and environmental changes occurring in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. “This is important and timely given the recent forest fires we have had in the area,” he explains. “We were lucky to have graduates from the program who now work at the Water Security Agency come to the camp with us for a number of days. When students see their past colleagues come and perform the sampling, the field measurements and civil engineering evaluations with them, it shows them what their future in the field could look like.”
Bansah hopes that his own story of courage and tenacity will help students realize that they can do anything they put their minds to. The way you approach life, stresses Bansah, is the absolute key to educational outcomes. “When I get a student with the right attitude, it doesn’t matter if they aren’t brilliant. If they are willing to work hard they will do well. A good mindset is what produces good results. I believe that every individual has inbuilt ability, and that if you are focused and determined and don’t quit, you’ll make it. Everyone can do so much. It’s your attitude that matters.”
Bansah’s experience working in the field of engineering has also taught him soft skills that he knows are important in the workplace. “In life, teamwork is key, so teaching students how to do the work, to work through it together, that’s what really matters.”
Bansah is now focused on settling into his teaching role and further developing the materials he will use in his courses. What will come next is up to the man who can’t seem to rest for very long before pursuing more knowledge. “I am trained to conduct research and have been active in that ecosystem for over a decade now. I will engage in applied research at Sask Polytech at some point in the future,” says Bansah. “For now, I’m happy to be teaching. I love it here!”
— Submitted by Sask Polytech Media Relaitons
