Midd Earns Peace Corps Recognition

According to a press release from the Peace Corps, the College ranked 14 on a list of top volunteer-producing small colleges. There are currently 12 former students volunteering worldwide, serving in Botswana, China, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Paraguay, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and Uganda. Since the Peace Corps was founded in 1961, 481 alumni have traveled abroad to aid in the humanitarian effort.

Zoe Armstrong, the Peace Corps volunteer recruitment and selection representative for the College, credits Middlebury’s success with the Peace Corps to the global citizenship of students and their commitment to finding sustainable solutions.

“Of [the College’s] 150 student organizations, almost all of them are dedicated to either service or cross-cultural exchange,” Armstrong said. “Middlebury students are already global citizens and that makes them great candidates for Peace Corps service.”

“[The College] shares the Peace Corps’ commitment to finding sustainable solutions to community challenges. Middlebury students always impress me with their commitment to helping marginalized populations and also their passion for finding environmentally sound innovations to combat climate change. They humbly talk about amazing work they are doing in environmental conservation, sustainable farming, LGBTQ rights, empowering youth, refugee outreach, and immigrant advocacy,” she added.

The College’s intensive language programs also makes students more attractive candidates for the Peace Corps, according to Armstrong.

“Students consistently come to interview sessions with files that reflect years of language study. They highlight their commitment to linguistic study because they want to use these skills to serve cross-cultural goals,” she said.

Assistant Director in Career Services and Careers in the Common Good Tracy Himmel-Isham emphasized this commitment to language as a driving factor for students.

“Two huge driving factors for students who are interested in the Peace Corps are an interest in using language skills and an interest in living internationally,” Himmel-Isham said, adding that the International Politics and Economics and Environmental Studies majors are two particularly attractive majors in the eyes of Peace Corps recruiters.

A commitment to international development, language study, and sustainability is evident among College alumni who are currently working as Peace Corps volunteers.

“I am working as a sustainable agriculture extension agent and speak the local language,” said Rosalind Vara ’10 of her experience working in Senegal in a press release.  “I work with farmers to increase their crop yields, improve soil fertility, and reduce chemical inputs.”

Margaret Bale ’10 drew a parallel between her education at the College and her experience in the Peace Corps.

“I came to Botswana as a health volunteer, but my work has predominantly been in a primary school assisting with improving education for almost 200 children. Remembering what I had learned from my interdisciplinary experiences at Middlebury, I have been able to turn this into one of the best learning experiences I’ve had in my life,” she said in a press release.

Armstrong emphasized that the accessibility to small villages around the world is a unique draw for the Peace Corps program.

“Peace Corps uses a last kilometer approach; volunteers serve in many small villages and thus make resources available to an expansive number of people,” she said.

“Volunteers may learn a language that very few people in the world speak, volunteers gain new and unique perspectives to community challenges; when they come back to the United States, they bring leadership skills home with them and innovative ideas about how to become community leaders here,” she added.