Fifty-five years ago this month, President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps by signing an executive order. That was on March 1, 1961, less than two months after his "Ask not what your country can do for you" speech.
The next year, Neil Ross, then 22, became the first University of Rhode Island graduate to serve overseas as a Peace Corps volunteer. In all, URI has produced 416 Peace Corps volunteers. Thirteen are now serving their two-year assignments.
Those 13 have put URI, for the first time since 2007, on the 2016 list for the top 25 medium-size colleges and universities sending Peace Corps volunteers. The No. 1 spot is held by George Washington University, which sent 43.
URI, in a four-way tie for 25th, is the only Rhode Island university on the list in any category and only one of four medium-size New England universities. The others are the University of Vermont, which sent 31, the University of New Hampshire, 18, and Boston College, 14.
With about 6,900 volunteers serving and nearly 23,000 applications received in 2015, getting picked isn't easy. But URI students will be getting a competitive edge.
Ross, who had served in the Dominican Republic, heard about Peace Corps Prep, a program in which undergraduates earn a Peace Corps certificate. He proposed starting a Peace Corps Prep at URI, and the idea was accepted by URI leadership and approved by the Peace Corps. Now 75, he'll be the program's alumni volunteer, and URI Prof. Michael Rice, who was stationed in the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1981, will be its coordinator.
To get the certificate, students must take six courses, three in the field they've chosen and three to prepare them for moving nimbly into other cultures. They also have to log 50 hours of related field experience, fulfill three leadership requirements and ensure their proficiency in a foreign language.
The Peace Corps is divided into six fields: education, health, environment, agriculture, youth development or community economic development. Students are asked to pick one. URI's program suggests classes and field experience for each.
Everyone has to take Introduction to Global Issues in Sustainable Development, but they can choose two electives. Those classes, already in URI's curriculum, are as varied as Africana Folk Life, Children and Families in Poverty, Existential Problems in Human Life, Gender Inequality, Global Marketing, Nonviolence and Peace Studies Colloquium, Peoples of the Sea and Theories of International Conflict.
Ross said students will learn whether they're cut out for the Peace Corps. Some volunteers, he said, "when they get off the plane, they get back on the plane and go home."
URI undergraduates are invited to apply. For more information, visit web.uri.edu/peacecorpsprep/
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