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CU ranks third for Peace Corps

January 14, 2008
By Paula Pant

Once again, CU-Boulder graduates have topped the charts for international volunteer service.

CU-Boulder ranks third in the nation among large universities for the highest number of graduates serving in the U.S. Peace Corps, the organization announced Monday.

The University of Washington and University of Wisconsin-Madison are ranked first and second, respectively, among colleges and universities with more than 15,000 undergraduates.

Ninety-four CU-Boulder alums are serving in the Peace Corps, a federally-funded organization that sends U.S. citizens abroad on 27-month volunteer stints.

CU-Boulder has a strong history of producing Peace Corps volunteers: the campus also ranked third last year, and is the sixth largest source of volunteers since President John F. Kennedy launched the Peace Corps in 1961. Over the last half-decade, 2,100 CU-Boulder graduates have served overseas.

"The general guidelines that undergrads need to meet [at CU-Boulder] really does emphasize creating 'global citizens,'" said Kathleen Wiley, Peace Corps Campus Representative to CU-Boulder. "[CU students] realize the privileged life that we do live here, and they have a responsibility to act."

Each Peace Corps volunteer serves in one of 139 countries, representing every continent except Antarctica. Volunteers work across a variety of disciplines, including education, health, business, agriculture, engineering, and the environment. They receive three months of in-country language and culture training and subsist on a cost-of-living stipend.

CU-Boulder students say their motivations for volunteering are personal fulfillment, an expanded worldview, and the chance to learn another language, Wiley said.

Many students are drawn to the prospect of living in another country for two years instead of visiting it for two weeks, she said.

"I've had a lot of kids come in and really want to serve in the Middle East and North Africa," Wiley said. "They want to learn Arabic and they say it's a really good chance to get into the culture and understand more deeply the issues that are going on there."

Most CU-Boulder students serve assignments in community development, youth development and education, Wiley said. "CSU [Colorado State University] is more of an agriculture school."

More than 8,000 total volunteers are serving in the Peace Corps, an all-time record for the organization.

Amy Zader, a graduate from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, joined the Peace Corps in 2001 because she wanted to translate textbook knowledge into firsthand experience.

"I had studied a lot about international development and the environment, but I hadn't actually studied abroad during college," Zader said, "and I was just really wanting to go somewhere where there was a tension between development and the environment."

Her wish was fulfilled when the Peace Corps sent her to China, where she spent two years teaching English at the high school and university level. But the SARS scare forced her to abruptly evacuate in 2003, without having a chance to say goodbye to the friends she'd made over the past two years.

Transitioning back to the U.S. was tough, she said.

"From everything I had just experienced - being in China for almost two years - and then (asking myself) 'What's the next step of my career? Or my life?" Zader said.

Zader decided to keep China "integrated into what I do," and is now a doctoral student in CU-Boulder's geography department, researching Chinese food systems and agriculture.

She keeps in touch with her former students by e-mail and has visited the country three times since her service ended.

While teaching English in Ukraine as a 2004-2006 Peace Corps volunteer, Wiley witnessed the Orange Revolution, an uprising against the rigged 2004 presidential election which eventually handed power to opposition candidate Victor Yushchenko, whose photogenic face was famously disfigured by dioxin poisoning during the election.

Living through the dramatic Orange Revolution, Wiley said, "completely informs what I'm doing now." Already proficient in Ukranian, she enrolled as a master's candidate in Eastern European political geography at CU-Boulder, studying Russian language and nation-formation.

She works part-time for the campus Peace Corps office and - without having confirmed "placement" figures for this year - guesses that the number of CU volunteers is increasing.

"We're looking at more than we were from last year," she said.

Contact Paula Pant about this story at pant@coloradodaily.com, or at (303) 531-4951.

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