Early Peace Corps Experience

Ron Tschetter is the third Peace Corps director to have first served as a volunteer. In the 1960s, he and his wife Nancy were stationed in India, and came face-to-face with the tremendous value of the program — both for volunteers and for the recipients of Peace Corps service.

This experience was a far cry from Tschetter’s South Dakotan roots. His parents, people of humble means and generous spirit, were the foremost influence in his joining the Peace Corps, along with the compelling recruitment message to sign up for the "toughest job that you will ever love."

Since those early days in the Peace Corps, Tschetter has had a distinguished career in the financial securities industry, and has led several nonprofit and higher education boards. He initially served as chair of the National Peace Corps Association, which brought him closer to the working of the Peace Corps today. "I received a call from the White House out of the blue, asking me if I would be a candidate [for the directorship]. I said, 'Yes,' — that quickly."

The Peace Corps Today
According to Tschetter, the primary Peace Corps goals have not changed since its founding by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

• Helping the people of interested countries meet their needs with the support of trained women and men.
• Helping other peoples gain a better understanding of Americans.
• Helping Americans gain a better understanding of other peoples.

The Peace Corps is the epitome of soft diplomacy, “where people overseas get a view of America that is 99 percent positive,” says Tschetter. Furthermore, he adds, the Peace Corps "is a significant contributor to building peace, friendship, and understanding around the world."

The current level of support and funding for the Peace Corps is strong. Participation is at a 37-year high, with more than 8,000 volunteers serving in 74 countries. He notes that volunteer security is his number-one concern as reflected in his recent decision to pull volunteers out of Kenya, temporarily. "We are in 14 Muslim countries where, as I travel and speak to volunteers, they report feeling 'completely safe.'"

Service-Learning in the Peace Corps
Service-Learning is both the experience of the Peace Corps teacher — learning by serving — and a way the Peace Corps teaches overseas. It is also a methodology employed by the World Wide Schools Initiative, which connects volunteers with students and teachers in the U.S. More than three million American students have learned about other countries through the initiative.

The Peace Corps also offers a unique Masters Degree program, in which college graduates spend a year in U.S. classrooms, then two years as volunteers abroad. They complete their masters with a year back in the United States that culminates in a thesis integrating their Peace Corps experience.

It is no surprise that education is the Peace Corps’ biggest programmatic element; according to Tschetter, fully 35 percent of volunteers work primarily as teachers.

The Peace Corps' Influence
But, "By far the biggest impact of the Peace Corps is through the 190,000 returned volunteers living and working in this country, roughly a quarter of whom now work in related fields such as education and foreign service," he adds.

Clearly the original vision of Peace Corps has found new life in this seasoned, passionate, and hard-working director. NYLC is proud to host him at the upcoming 19th Annual National Service-Learning Conference and looks forward to hearing his vision of how Peace Corps and service-learning share a common cause in advancing quality education and a more peaceful world.