Penn State is listed as one of the top five universities in the country for the number of graduates who serve as Peace Corps volunteers.
In its annual list of "Top Volunteer-Producing Universities and Colleges," Peace Corps officials placed Penn State at No. 4, along with the University of Texas at Austin, for the number of graduates involved in Peace Corps service. Both institutions have 72 graduates who are volunteers currently serving overseas. Penn State jumped significantly in the rankings this year, moving up from 12th place.
"I am proud that Penn State has for years been among the leading universities in supplying its graduates to the Peace Corps," said President Graham B. Spanier.
Listed as No. 1 for the second year in a row is the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with 117 graduates currently serving, followed by the University of Colorado-Boulder with 91 volunteers.
The University of Michigan, the site of President John F. Kennedy's speech in 1960 proposing the Peace Corps, moved from fifth last year to third this year, with 78 volunteers. The University of California-Berkeley, which was 13th last year, rounds out the top five with 71 volunteers.
The Peace Corps was authorized by Congress in September 1961 with a mandate to "promote world peace and friendship" by helping countries meet their needs for trained manpower and by promoting a better understanding of Americans.
This year, the Peace Corps will be recruiting 400 more volunteers than it did in 1999 to expand the number of volunteers to 10,000 over the next few years. Currently, more than 7,000 volunteers are serving in 78 countries around the world, working to help fight hunger, bring clean water to communities, teach children, help start new small businesses and stop the spread of AIDS.
In the nearly 39 years that the Peace Corps has been sending volunteers overseas, almost all have been college graduates. Today, 97 percent of Peace Corps volunteers hold at least a bachelor's degree, while 13 percent have a graduate degree.