Oberlin College and the Peace Corps have enjoyed a strong relationship through the years, and will look to continue that relationship into the 21st Century. Peace Corps Representatives will be on campus from Oct. 5-7 recruiting students for service.
Since 1961, nearly 413 Oberlin graduates have served with the Peace Corps, including 17 volunteers currently overseas. Michael Tiche, a Peace Corps representative, will be hosting open information sessions and discussion groups to recruit students.
Nearly 7,000 volunteers are now living and working in 77 countries. Over the last several years, an average of about 150,000 people have contacted Peace Corps seeking information and requesting applications to serve as volunteers. This is an increase of nearly 50 percent since 1994. Currently, more than 14 percent of the volunteers are members of minority groups and about seven percent of all volunteers are over the age of 50.
The Peace Corps' application process matches the background and skills of the applicants with the needs of overseas communities. The Peace Corps has recently implemented an early admissions process that lets applicants know sooner where they will be serving. With this new process, applicants could know their country of service as much as six months before departure.
Peter Goldsmith will be busy this year conducting nationwide job searches. The new dean of students needs to fill three open positions this year, a new dean of Residential Life, a new director of the Multicultural Resource Center and an associate dean of student life.
"This is just a function of late departures this summer. It certainly wasn't a matter of design," said Goldsmith. He is still in the process of configuring search committees for each position.
Someone outside of Student Life will head the committees. Goldsmith said, "There is some utility in having it chaired by someone else outside the division because it gives them a kind of useful neutrality, and the MRC search especially will require the involvement of students, like all searches, but also the very heavy involvement of faculty."
Goldsmith's office is understaffed at the moment, and will look forward to filling the positions as soon as possible. "I sort of feel like if I can make things work this year with three-quarters staff, then I feel like I can manage whatever else comes down the pike this year - with luck!" said Goldsmith.
Copyright © 1999, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 128, 5, October 1, 1999
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