CU continues its reign as the No. 1 university for Peace Corps volunteers — just in time for the organization’s director, Aaron S. Williams, to speak on campus.
Williams spoke in Old Main Wednesday afternoon and announced that CU ranks at No. 1 for number of volunteers for the second year in a row. He offered his congratulations and presented the university with a medal commemorating the Peace Corps’s 50th anniversary as an organization.
“Boulder has one of the most impressive legacies of the Peace Corps,” Williams said. “There’s a special civic pride on this campus.”
Currently, CU has 112 undergraduate alumni serving in the service program and has been ranked in the top three schools in the nation for volunteers since 2004. Since the establishment of the Peace Corps in 1961, CU has had 2,317 alumni serve as volunteers.
“College campuses are important to the Peace Corps because that’s where it all started, where the idea of the Peace Corps first took shape and where its earliest supporters first took actions,” Williams said.
He was nominated as Director of the Peace Corps in August 2009 by President Obama, and is the fourth director in the Peace Corps’ history to have served as a volunteer. He donated his time in the Dominican Republic from 1967 to 1970.
Williams encouraged the audience to serve in the Peace Corps, especially students looking to have an experience that will strengthen skills and build resumes.
“The Peace Corps represents an investment in yourself, in your future career, and I think that’s a worthwhile investment,” Williams said. “A two-year commitment to the Peace Corps can nearly change everything in terms of your perspective, and it really can put you in a position to accomplish just about anything else you want to achieve.”
Learning a foreign language, taking grassroots approaches to problem solving and experiencing different cultures were just a few of the skills Williams said could be acquired through service.
“When you come back to the United States, you’re going to have something I call ‘cultural agility’, which is what global corporations and international organizations want to see,” Williams said.
CU alumna and returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Kristin Mayer, also presented at the event.
Mayer said that, while a student at CU, she felt encouraged by her community to be engaged in community service and was inspired to take on the experience of serving in the Peace Corps.
Mayer spoke about her experience serving in rural South Africa as a School and Communities Resource Volunteer for two years, beginning in July 2009. She worked in three elementary schools, developing a literacy program and a library.
“What stands out the most were not the challenges, but the successes that I had at my school,” Mayer said. “Towards the end of my service, I started to see a real difference.”
Spending two years abroad greatly impacted Mayer’s perspective and future endeavors.
“If you really want to go somewhere and make a difference, you have to be there for at least a year,” Mayer said.
Among the students in attendance was Heather White, a 21-year-old sociology major, who said she aspires to enter the Peace Corps.
“I’m really interested in the whole idea of it, working for two years and waking up everyday with a mission: to help people and actually impact peoples’ lives,” White said.
Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Nora Keating at Nora.keating@colorado.edu.
