UI among top Peace Corps volunteer-producing schools
Katherine Cleary, a doctoral candidate at the University of Idaho and former Peace Corps volunteer, said the community she volunteered in didn’t accept her at first, but eventually people began inviting her to parties every Friday and Saturday night.
Because of these parties, which were four-hour rosaries, she said she can say the “Hail Mary” and “Our Father” in Spanish. In fact, she is now fluent in Spanish because of her time in the Peace Corps.
UI recently tied for 14th place among medium-sized schools for Peace Corps’ 2015 top volunteer-producing schools, with 18 Vandal alumni volunteering worldwide. Marya Nowakowski, Peace Corps regional representative for Eastern Washington and North Idaho, said the ranking was based on the number of volunteers from 2014.
Last year’s Peace Corps recruiting reforms shortened the application process, turning what was once a 60-page, eight-hour process into an online application that takes less than an hour to complete, Nowakowski said.
Due to the changes, the number of submitted applications in July 2014 increased by over 400 percent in comparison to July 2013, according to Peace Corps records.
Nowakowski said UI was previously tied for ninth in the Peace Corps’ top colleges list for 2014 with 24 alumni volunteers, and seventh in the 2013 list with 33 volunteers.
Despite the shrinking numbers of UI alumni volunteers, Nowakowski isn’t worried about the number of applications submitted by UI students.
“It’s really not as if University of Idaho suddenly stopped having students apply to the Peace Corps,” Nowakowski said. “What happened was once we made the application process easier, a lot more people applied to Peace Corps and it kind of shifted the ranking.”
Approximately 6,818 Americans volunteer worldwide, with half being replaced every year, Nowakowski said.
With the application reform, she said submitted applications must have strong resumes that meet the requirements of the position the applicant is pursuing.
Natalie Magnus, program coordinator for the Center for Volunteerism and Social Action, said she knows students who previously felt deterred from applying because the process was intimidating.
“It is a long process, and it takes a lot of time, and there’s a lot of applications and there’s multiple interviews,” Magnus said. “I think when students hear that, they think the bar is set really high, that only this super high achieving student can obtain a position.”
Brady Fuller, a student coordinator for the Center for Volunteerism and Social Action, said he felt the application process was daunting.
“I started the application for the Peace Corps and I didn’t feel like I was qualified,” Fuller said. “Because it asks, ‘How many languages do you know?’ and it asks so much in just the application before you even get to the interview process … So it’s half done on my computer, because I definitely felt like I wasn’t qualified.”
Another problematic area with applications is where people want to volunteer, Nowakowski said.
Cleary said she didn’t choose the community where she volunteered.
“You’re going into the Peace Corps to be of service to a community, so you don’t get to pick the community based on your interests,” Cleary said. “The Peace Corps will assign you based on your skill and experiences and match you with the community that’s requested someone similar to you.”
Courtney Stoker, a student coordinator for the Center for Volunteerism and Social Action, said international volunteering is important and gives individuals perspective of the world around them.
“One thing I always talk about is cracking open your worldview,” Stoker said. “If you have that ability to go out into the world and put yourself in these situations that are unlike anything you can get in the academic environment, you’re going to be able to grow in a completely different way.”
Jake Smith can be reached at [email protected]