Pitt a leader among producers of Peace Corps volunteers

Adrienne Long discovered while working in Africa as a member of the Peace Corps that having access to a bathroom made only out of reeds meant she could only bathe at night and not during a full moon. This is just one challenge that Pitt students have experienced while serving in the Peace Corps.

As one of the major international service organizations in the United States, the Peace Corps sends citizens abroad to serve and improve others’ lives. As the organization’s website states, participants return with knowledge and skills that help to enrich their own communities and lives. It currently has 7,209 members and 65 host countries. 

The Peace Corps recently released the rankings for top Peace Corps volunteer-producing universities (separated by various categories), and Pitt — which has 13 graduate alumni serving in the corps globally — ranked fifth among U.S. graduate schools. 

Long is just one of Pitt’s graduate students pursuing a master’s degree in public health who served in the Peace Corps. She volunteered in Mozambique for two years through her Peace Corps Master’s International Program with the School of Public Health. 

Long worked as a health volunteer through the nongovernmental organization Pathfinder International, which strives to foster a discussion about the stigma and violence against people with AIDS. Long also helped run a youth photojournalism club for high school students.

Long said the most touching experience during her time in the Peace Corps was the relationship she formed with her next-door neighbors, an older and a middle-aged woman whom she called “grandma” and “aunt.”

“They thought it was fascinating that I didn’t have a husband or children and I was in school,” Long said. “Just the process of me learning from them and them learning from me was really great.”

Gilliane McShane, an alumna of Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, is currently serving as an education volunteer in Tulu Bolo, Ethiopia.

After a year in the Peace Corps, McShane said she appreciates how her graduate education prepared her for time abroad.

“The impact of GSPIA on transitioning to my service in Ethiopia wasn’t noticeable at first. But now that I have been here for nearly eight months, I have been able to reflect on the value of the courses and discussions I had,” McShane said. 

She has applied lessons from the classroom to her experience abroad. 

“I can see that my academic experience gives me an advantage in how I conduct myself as a volunteer in that I try to be very conscientious of the many underlying factors that make my service frustrating or puzzling,” she said.

Daniel Saftner, a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, served in the Peace Corps in Cameroon between 2011 and 2013. 

Saftner worked as a science education volunteer and taught physics to high school students. He also focused on improving sanitation and providing students with drinkable water.

Saftner dealt with some misconceptions about Americans held by locals while working in Cameroon.

“A lot of people think you have traditional healing powers, like you have the cure for AIDS. They think you can cure them by just speaking to them,” he said.

For Saftner, his greatest achievement was bringing a well to the school where he worked. Previously, students either drank from the creek and got sick or they didn’t drink for nine hours and ended up fainting from dehydration during the day. 

Sara Goodkind, a professor in Pitt’s School of Social Work, taught English in Romania for the Peace Corps between 1994 and 1996.

She found that being American in a foreign country brought some risks.

“You’re seen as a target [as an American]. I had an incident of a neighbor trying to break down my door with an axe,” Goodkind said.

While the Peace Corps comes with challenges, they didn’t faze Emily Johnson, a senior majoring in psychology. She recently finished applying for the Peace Corps.

For Johnson, a study abroad experience in Ireland inspired her to apply for the Peace Corps.

“Going abroad, I saw I could thrive in a different country. But Ireland wasn’t drastically different, and I wanted to go somewhere drastically different and help people,” Johnson said.

Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs participates in the Peace Corps’ Master’s International Program, which allows students to pursue their master’s in foreign affairs and receive credit for serving with the Peace Corps. The school signed the agreement for the program with the Peace Corps in 2011, according to GSPIA counselor Elizabeth McCabe, and began accepting students for the program last spring. 

McCabe said the program has benefits for both students and the country they’re serving in.

“It allows students to apply the skills they are gaining in the classroom to make a difference in developing countries. In addition, students earn course credit and fulfill the internship requirement through service with the [corps],” McCabe said in an email.

GSPIA also works to encourage graduates to pursue a job with the Peace Corps by offering tuition scholarships to returning volunteers. 

“It helps them to build their resumé with related work experience and develop a better understanding of the type of career they want to seek after graduation,” McCabe said.