Peace Corps Prep to start this fall

FIU has been selected as a Peace Corps Prep partner institution, enabling the university to offer an enhanced academic and service-based program to prepare FIU students for entry into the Peace Corps and other positions in international development. The university has had a proud history with the Peace Corps, with 187 alumni having served and 11 alumni currently in the field.

The national Peace Corps Prep was launched in 2007 to develop qualified applicants for service. Each participating institution develops its own criteria for the program based on the Peace Corps’ general categories, which include foreign language study, community service and coursework in strategically important disciplinary areas.

Students in FIU’s Peace Corps Prep program will complete four global learning courses, four semesters of foreign language study, a minimum number of approved global co-curricular activities, and a written self-reflection. Students will gain skills and experiences that make them competitive applicants for the Peace Corps and other international development positions.

In addition, these students will be awarded the FIU Excellence in Global Learning Medallion, also being given for the first time in fall 2014. The Global Learning Medallion offers employers and graduate schools tangible evidence of students’ enhanced global awareness, perspective and engagement.

The Office of Global Learning Initiatives (OGLI) will administer the Peace Corps Prep Program at FIU under the direction of OGLI Director Hilary Landorf, who served as a Peace Corps teacher of English-as-a-Foreign Language at a public school in Oujda, Morocco, from 1979-1981. Interested students will be able to sign up online starting fall 2014.

OGLI Director Hilary Landorf with one of her classes at Lycee Zaineb Enefzaouia high school in Oujda, Morocco, in 1980.

“The Peace Corps is a transformative learning experience that gives students the opportunity to reflect upon their own lives, other cultures, and perspectives in ways that will be of personal and professional benefit for the rest of their lives,” Landorf says. “One of the most important lessons I learned from serving as a Peace Corps volunteer is that the more I learned about the Moroccan language, culture, and people, the more I understood how little I know and how much there is to learn.”

A signing ceremony to formalize this agreement will take place in early fall 2014.