A global revolving door: Peace Corps recruits at IU, IU's SPEA recruits RPCVs

Randall Baker, director of International Programs at SPEA (left) is pictured on the stairwell of IUB's SPEA building with RPCV's Aaron Shiffrin (center) and Erik Boyle.
Photo by Chris Meyer

A global revolving door: Peace Corps recruits at IU, IU's SPEA recruits RPCVs

By Jayne Spencer

The Peace Corps bills itself as "the toughest job you'll ever love." And for Indiana University graduates, the slogan has had an appealing ring, verified last month with a letter of congratulations from Peace Corps Director Mark Gearan to IU President Myles Brand. IU now ranks 15th among all colleges and universities in producing Peace Corps volunteers. During a 36-year history that began under the administration of John F. Kennedy, the Peace Corps has placed 1,123 IU alums in overseas service. "Throughout its history, the Peace Corps can trace much of its success to the energy and idealism of American college students," Gearan wrote to Brand. "These colleges and universities are to be commended for producing students committed to making a difference, with a thirst for adventure, and with the desire to experience a new culture in an ever-changing world."

Tapping into this wealth of experiential learning, IU's School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) has begun to aggressively recruit Peace Corps volunteer returnees (RPCVs) to graduate work at the school. The initiative began five years ago under the direction of SPEA Professor Randall Baker, director of SPEA's International Programs on the Bloomington campus. Already rich in language acquisition, public service and expertise in fields as diverse as rural water and sanitation development, freshwater fisheries work, agronomy, and school curriculum and community development, RPCVs brought to SPEA classrooms an invaluable global perspective. Baker wanted to increase returnee enrollments.

A marketing campaign targeting RPCVs includes advertising in Peace Corps magazines and sending posters and a customized recruiting brochure to field offices throughout the world. The initiative has been successful, forming a "continuing heritage" between IU and the Corps, Baker said.

The number of PCVRs enrolled in graduate programs at SPEA grew from four to six, then to eight, then to 14. For the past two years, the school has been besieged with inquiries, sometimes as many as six a day. Of the 30 returnees now enrolled at the school, each serves as an "information ambassador." Students names, countries of service and field of specialization are sent to all who request SPEA program materials. Most returnees who check out SPEA for graduate study are interested in environmental studies and natural resource management. Some are drawn to comparative and international studies and there is, said Baker, an across-the-board interest in not-for-profit organizations. Inquiries regarding criminal justice and health-care administration are funneled to SPEA personnel on the Indianapolis campus.

In the early 60's, Donna Shalala (now HHS secretary) received a telegram of acceptance to the Peace Corps, along with one rejection and one acceptance to law school, according to a new book that chronicles the experiences of volunteers. "The decision about what to do -- law school or the Peace Corps -- was easy. I was a child of my generation. I was a Kennedy Kid."
Among this year's crop of returnee-students at IUB are Aaron Shiffrin of Bloomington and Erik Boyle of Covington, Ky. The two roommates met at orientation at SPEA last month. Shiffrin, a graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree in psychology is, incidentally, the son of Richard Shiffrin, the Luther Dana Waterman Professor of psychology and director of the Cognitive Science Program at IUB. And though Bloomington is familiar to Shiffrin, the strength of the faculty and SPEA's resources, combined with SPEA's granting of credit for Corps service and national reputation, led him to a joint masters' program that combines public affairs and environmental science. "I do call Tonga home," said Shiffrin, who served in that country for two years. "A part of Tonga will always be with me."

He learned the Tongan language in country and then set about a monumental task: creating and initiating a national science curriculum project for the country's secondary school system. Ahead, he foresees more travel overseas and a career in international development.

Boyle's Corps assignment took him to Kyrgyzstan, to a small village called Ala'Too (pronounced ala-toe). As a graduate of William and Mary College, Boyle had a degree in German. Instruction in Kyrgyz prepared him to teach English to village schoolchildren. For two or three months each year, he joined the children in the fields to pick grapes for the collective farm's wine factory. It was an experience of extremes, Boyle said. Temperatures were well over 100 in the summer and minus 40s in the winter. There was no air conditioning or central heat.

"Dishes froze in my sink and clothes would freeze in the bathtub when I was washing them."

Boyle heard about the SPEA program from a former Corpsman who was building toilets in the Ivory Coast and had decided to attend SPEA. After mustering out of the Corps, he requested SPEA materials while working with a U.S. Information Agency educational development project. He was heavily recruited by SPEA and was particularly interested in the special area studies component that SPEA offered in collaboration with Central Eurasian studies. (There are area studies programs also with the Polish Studies Program and the Russian and East European Institute.)

When Boyle visited IU, he requested a meeting with Professor William Fierman, whom Boyle considered "a Central Asian guru." Baker saw to it the meeting took place. Boyle and Fierman met in Fierman's campus office. Boyle told the IU professor he was interested in language policy.

"As a matter of fact, I'm writing a book on Uzbek language policy," Fierman told Boyle. The returnee was hooked. He will be working toward a master's of public affairs degree with a specialization in transitional economic management. He looks toward a career that addresses the problems of former Soviet states in their transformation from a command economy to a market economy.

Since 1961, more than 150,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps. Last Friday (Sept. 5), the Corps announced the publication of a new book of personal accounts of RPCVs, Peace Corps, The Great Adventure. Contributions to the book were made by more than two dozen returned Peace Corps volunteers and their families, including U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Halala, a volunteer in Iran from 1962-64, and New York Times reporter Karen DeWitt, who served in Ethiopia from 1966 68. Other well-known contributors include former President Jimmy Carter, whose mother, Miss Lillian, was a Peace Corps volunteer in India from 1967-69 and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

In "Welcome to the 'Pace' Corps," Halala wrote: "The telegram came along with one rejection and one acceptance to law school. I remember it had a misspelling, 'Welcome to the PACE Corps.' The decision about what to do -- law school or the Peace Corps -- was easy. I was a child of my generation. I was a Kennedy Kid."