March 31, 2008  UNC Global News 

UNC-Chapel Hill reaches a milestone of 1,000 alumni Peace Corps volunteers.

UNC-Chapel Hill emphasizes service. And there may be no better way to serve the world than by joining the Peace Corps.

Initiated in 1961 after a challenge from President John F. Kennedy to help the United States and the world, the Peace Corps has sent 190,000 dedicated individuals to foreign nations to assist on issues ranging from AIDS prevention to environmental protection.

And Carolina students have heeded Kennedy’s challenge. Since the Peace Corps’s inception, 1,012 Carolina alumni have joined, making the University the 25th-leading producer of Peace Corps volunteers.

In addition, UNC-Chapel Hill was ranked No. 4 among large schools for sending its alumni to the Peace Corps in 2007. That ranking climbed from No. 8, and there are currently 81 Carolina volunteers worldwide.

But these accomplishments don’t surprise University administrators.

“The missions of the University and the missions of the Peace Corps align in many important ways,” Chancellor James Moeser said on Feb. 25 when Peace Corps Deputy Director Jody Olsen visited campus for Peace Corps Week. Olsen presented Chancellor Moeser with a certificate of appreciation for the service of UNC's 1,012 alumni volunteers.

Moeser cited strong legacies of service to people around the world by both institutions.

And for Carolina alumni who have served in the Peace Corps, their service proved to be a valuable and rewarding experience.

George Platt, a 1966 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, is now an attorney in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. He and his wife Anne worked in Panama as newlyweds in community development and organization. The lessons he gained are still important to him today.

“Not a day in my life goes by that the lessons I learned as a community organizer haven’t translated someway in helping me do what I do as a lawyer,” he says.

Elena Lebetkin, a 2002 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate who is currently a master’s student in public health at Carolina, served in Ghana from 2002-2004 performing agricultural development work. She learned many practical things in the Peace Corps that will aid her in life.

“I learned implementation. I learned that it’s OK to fail—that you need to learn from your failure,” she says. “I definitely learned how to work with all sorts of people, all sorts of education levels.”

Volunteers also come away with new perspectives of the world and a feeling that they are better global citizens.

Platt, who decided to attend law school after the Peace Corps because he thought it was the best avenue for him to help bring about change, says it alters attitudes about the rest of the world. One of the missions, he says, is to “bring back to this country a much better understanding of these countries.”

“You probably become much less chauvinistic,” Platt adds. “You assume, I think, an attitude and philosophy of being a citizen of the world instead of the United States.”

Patrick Smith, a medical and public health student at UNC-Chapel Hill who completed his undergraduate work at Carolina in 1996, says his role as a rural health worker in Ecuador from 2001-2004 taught him that people of the world have perspectives that differ from your own. He also learned just how significant an impact the U.S. has on the rest of the world.

“You kind of have this awareness of how other people are affected and view the ways that you act or how your country acts.”

But before they traveled and dedicated themselves, these volunteers were both inspired and prepared while studying at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Platt says he believed in the Kennedy credo of serving your country and thought it would be noble to help the world through the Peace Corps instead of fighting in Vietnam. He studied Latin America at UNC-Chapel Hill and says he had the luxury of selecting classes meaningful to his journey.

Lebetkin and Smith, on the other hand, have experienced the University’s recent emphasis on global education.

Lebetkin took several environmental studies classes and learned about environmental degradation. She saw how countries export their raw natural resources because they lack the funds to refine the resources themselves. Desperate for money, they sell the natural resources at low levels, and then have to buy the refined products made from those resources at exorbitant prices.

In addition, Lebetkin’s extracurricular activities at UNC-Chapel Hill helped her greatly.

“The University environment, just the nature of Carolina, that there are so many organizations…really prepares you for being in an unknown environment,” she says.

Smith, who had wanted to join the Peace Corps since childhood, was drawn by the adventure of going overseas and living in a community. But the University environment also affected him.

“I felt at UNC, it’s definitely a culture where you need to help other people,” he says, adding that led him to proceed with his plans of joining the Peace Corps.

He says the challenging nature of Carolina also prepared him for the unknowns of the Peace Corps.

All of these alums remain involved with Carolina today. Lebetkin and Smith are graduate students, and Platt and his wife are members of the Advisory Board for Global Education. They’ve seen the administration place an emphasis on global education as UNC-Chapel Hill has become a truly international institution.

Smith has noticed the change firsthand. When he was an undergraduate, the mentality when going abroad was seeing what you could get out of it. That is no longer the case as students are increasingly performing service abroad.

“It seems to me that in the time that I was here in the early ‘90s to now, there’s really been a paradigm shift,” he says.

Lebetkin has also seen change. She mentions the emphasis on global health in the school of public health and the increased global focus for every degree.

“I’ve definitely seen progress,” she says. “I still think we have a ways to go.”

Platt agrees that work still needs to be done but that there have been major strides forward from his time as an undergraduate.

“It’s just a totally different school and there are hundreds of opportunities through the various departments and aspects of the University to have a global experience of some kind and engage in global studies that are meaningful and substantive.”

He notes that Chancellor Moeser was a Fulbright Scholar and that numerous other faculty and administrative members have impressive international backgrounds. That encourages him, as do the leadership in North Carolina’s government and the international development of the Triangle.

Exceeding the thousand-volunteer mark speaks volumes about UNC-Chapel Hill, the alums say, particularly about the students of the University.

“I think it says that UNC is really recruiting incredible students who are going on to do great work throughout the world,” Lebetkin says.

Platt agrees: “I think it’s a real feather in our cap that we raise the consciousness of students to want to explore the world and want to render some form of public service. I think that is a tremendous benefit that comes from a Carolina education.”

Smith says he sees a cultural change as people are valuing service. And he also believes there is a change in meaning for one of Carolina’s most well-known phrases.

Charles Kuralt once referred to UNC-Chapel Hill as “the university of the people.” Smith says that doesn’t just mean the people of North Carolina.

It now also means engaging with the people of the world.

- Story by Jordan O'Donnell  '08