Forget the Army— Join the Peace Corps
Story by Kristina Iodice

Sarah Burleson is a 22-year-old senior who will graduate in May. But the political science major and Spanish minor will not be searching for a job or thinking about graduate school.

In a few months, Burleson will head to the Caribbean or South America as one of the newest Peace Corps volunteers.

Burleson is following in the footsteps of a number of TCU graduates. Since the Peace Corps was first founded 40 years ago, more than 120 TCU graduates have followed commencement with a volunteer trip to places like Colombia, The Gambia, Bolivia, Thailand, Micronesia and India.

Statewide, TCU ranks No. 8 in the number of alumni who go on to become Peace Corps volunteers. Three former students are currently abroad.

Jesse Garcia, public affairs specialist for the Peace Corps, helps recruit volunteers like Burleson.

“Most students know about the Peace Corps, and a few see the Peace Corps service as an opportunity to go into the lucrative foreign service, working in embassies throughout the world,” he said. “It is a good sign when students on a campus think globally when considering their future.”

Burleson will soon be part of an organization that began decades earlier. In 1961, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gave an impromptu speech at the University of Michigan, challenging the students to help people in developing countries. The speech proved to be the foundation of an idea that would become the smallest, and possibly the most successful, federal organization.

Anne-Marie McMahon, whose volunteer commitment in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, ended three years ago, now works for Peace Corps Southwest Regional Recruitment. She said people first joined the Peace Corps because of the idealist trend of thought and the romance of far-off places.

Kennedy’s idealism was infectious, and it made the Peace Corps successful in the early years, she said. Yet the decline of American idealism didn’t mark the Peace Corps for an early death.

“Later, when the idealism of the 1960s had worn off, the returned Peace Corps volunteers told their stories about their service, and inspired others to join,” McMahon said. “The Peace Corps has sustained a high level of interest primarily because returning volunteers bring back stories of adventures and a life-changing experience and constantly inspire the next generation of volunteers.”

Four decades after its inception, the tiny, idealistic Peace Corps continues to defy Washington norms of countless staff members and indulgent salaries. It has 550 employees working in offices around the country, and the number of volunteers has increased dramatically from the first 750 people who volunteered for the Peace Corps in the first eight months in 1961.

This year, more than 7,300 Peace Corps volunteers and trainees are serving in 76 countries. The Peace Corps is in a better position to support core programs in the areas of education, business, health, environment and agriculture because of the number of volunteers, the highest since 1974, said outgoing Peace Corps Director Mark Schneider.

The Peace Corps continues to gain support. In November, the agency received $21 million more than the last fiscal year when President Bill Clinton signed the foreign assistance funding bill. The Peace Corps budget increased to $265 million — the largest in its history.

McMahon said the majority of the budget increase will most likely fund new programs overseas and not affect recruiting. Overseas programs may be able to expand the number of volunteers, and new programs might open up in areas that the Peace Corps has never been in, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, she said.

Less than a month ago, the Peace Corps reopened its program in Uganda, Africa, and will establish a new program teaching English in the Republic of Georgia in the former Soviet Union.

The Peace Corps isn’t a business, and the bigger budget means opportunities, not higher wages for volunteers. Joining the agency for two years or so isn’t a free — or paid — opportunity to travel by any means. Even in the 1960s, Kennedy was blunt about what volunteers would face.

“Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy,” Kennedy said, when he signed the executive order establishing the Peace Corps. “Men and women will be expected to work and live alongside the nationals of the country in which they are stationed — doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language.”

TCU alumni Brian Glen and Fran Huckaby know first hand the challenges Burleson may soon be facing. The married couple spent two years in Papua New Guinea with the Peace Corps.

Glen said their official titles were Rural Community Development Facilitators, which he said meant anything that needed to be done. Incidentally, Burleson’s commitment to the Peace Corps carries the same title, but she is still waiting for her country to be assigned.

“It’s a little scary because you go in not knowing what will be expected,” Glen said. “We had six schools in our area to work with, and their biggest goal was to start elementary preparatory schools.”

They trained teachers and helped the villages to elect school boards, but there was also a lot of physical work involved, since the villages were starting from nothing. Peace Corps volunteers also start from scratch.

“Before a village can accept a volunteer, they have to be able to support them, and part of that is building a house,” Glen said. “We spent six months without a house of our own, and it is still basically like camping for two years.”

He said the closest village in the surrounding six was an hour walk away, and the farthest took 12 hours to reach on foot from their “home” village.

The nearest town took between eight and 24 hours to reach by truck depending on the weather, Glen said. Even so, the volunteers weren’t completely cut off. They had a short-wave radio set, and the Peace Corps required a check-in at three preset times each day.

After Glen and his wife finished their two years, Glen said another couple took over to continue the project. As the violence became progressively worse in Papua New Guinea, Peace Corps volunteers were pulled out of the highlands, and Glen and Huckaby’s replacements were flown out by helicopter. It meant the villages would have to keep the schools and the project going on their own, Glen said.

Burleson, who calls herself a “big, idealistic dork,” said she is a little scared about being in unfamiliar territory for two years, but it is something that is right up her alley. She plans to pursue a law degree and possibly go into public policy or public service.

“There are times in your life when you can’t afford to make a big change or take a big chance and do something different,” she said. “I felt the end of my undergraduate experience was the right time before I go on to graduate school, and I’ve never felt so free to do what I want to do.”

She doesn’t plan on being scared away by the different kinds of living she will encounter on her assignment. She is well aware of the poverty that exists in the world, she said.

“I’m a spoiled brat by the standards of these other countries,” she said. “I’m ready to see a different value system, and I love being a fish out of water.”

In fact, Burleson said she is a little scared going to a foreign country or living in a totally different environment for two years, but she is more frightened of something else.

“My biggest fear has nothing to do with going there — it’s coming back,” she said. “My biggest fear is that I’m going to come back to friends that have completely different lives that I can’t relate to.”

Burleson said she will come back and be at a different place in her life. She is in effect putting her life on hold, she said.

“But I hate regret,” she said. “I know I would regret not following what’s in my heart at this point, feeding my wanderlust and the chance to help these people.”

She does think service should be encouraged more in the university setting, she said. Her professors were very dedicated to what is going on around the world, Burleson said, but other than that, the campus doesn’t seem to be aware of service opportunities.

“I think TCU does do a good job of getting students abroad,” Burleson said. “Going to London gave me the courage to do this.”

Some observers might think that with the idealism of 1960s a thing of the past, the Peace Corps is outdated and might not survive, but there are many who disagree.

Glen said he thinks the increased budget will help the Peace Corps reach its goal of doubling the number of volunteers in just a few years.

“There is always going to be the young idealistic college student (who) wants to change the world,” he said. “It’s obviously not for everybody — a little more than a third of our group dropped out before the end.”

There is a mentality on campus that people are ready to get out and move on, Burleson said. A lot of people have trouble thinking that it’s OK to put things like graduate school or work on hold, she said.

Burleson said she is surrounded by friends who think very highly of service opportunities like the Peace Corps. One of her roommates will soon depart for Japan, where she will be teaching English as part of a formal program. Her other roommate will also postpone finding a job or going to graduate school to do something completely different.

“I think there is still a lot of altruism in the world, and we have so many more resources to help people now,” she said. “I don’t want to lose my idealism.”

McMahon said volunteers aren’t always idealistic college graduates, even if the 20-something age group might make up the largest single group of people who join the Peace Corps.

“A second group of people who join are those who have been out in the work force for a number of years, become disillusioned with the 9-to-5 corporate world, and decide they want to make a positive change in their life,” she said. “These people join the Peace Corps and often find the opportunity for new careers when they return.

“A third group of people who join Peace Corps are retirees, many of whom once considered Peace Corps when they were younger, but didn’t join for some reason.”

The Peace Corps pitch to recruit new volunteers hasn’t changed at all, McMahon said, but there are now more opportunities. Peace Corps used to narrow standards for recruiting in the early years, seeking volunteers with a background in medicine, engineering and agriculture.

“We’re now recruiting liberal arts graduates of any major, saying that we can fit anyone with a degree into a Peace Corps program,” she said. “However, the motto has stuck with Peace Corps throughout all of its 40 years — ‘The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love.’”

Kristina Iodice
k.k.iodice@student.tcu.edu