PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (March 6, 2023) – Prairie View A&M University students interested in serving in the Peace Corps will now have a competitive edge.
PVAMU and Peace Corps on Wednesday announced a new partnership: Peace Corps Prep, a certificate program that aims to prepare undergraduate students for Peace Corps volunteer service.
“This partnership is an important element in our menu of programs designed to achieve our institutional goal of comprehensive internationalization,” said Executive Director of International Programs Godlove Fonjweng, who serves as the Peace Corps Prep coordinator at PVAMU. “It helps our students gain the global competencies they will need to succeed in our increasingly interconnected global economy.”
The Peace Corps’ mission of promoting world peace and friendship has three key areas:
- To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
- To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
- To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
PVAMU’s Peace Corps Prep will be structured as an interdisciplinary certificate program housed in the Office of International Programs. Through a combination of coursework and hands-on experience, students will develop four core competencies that are critical to intercultural fieldwork: foreign language proficiency, intercultural competence, professional and leadership development and sector-specific skills in one of Peace Corps’ six sectors. These skills will give students a competitive edge when applying for Peace Corps service and can be built upon and marketed throughout their careers.
“Students today are passionate about working with communities abroad to solve important challenges,” said Peace Corps Director of the Office of University Programs La’Teashia Sykes. “Through the Peace Corps Prep program at Prairie View, students can develop skills specifically targeted to Peace Corps service and careers in the international development and service communities.”
With the launch, Prairie View joins over 125 leading academic institutions nationwide that are Peace Corps Prep partners.
“The collaboration will help us advance an important aspect of our mission…to invest in programs and services that address issues and challenges affecting the diverse ethnic and socioeconomic population of Texas and the larger society, including the global arena,” Fonjweng said. “The Peace Corps Prep program offers our students the opportunity to hone the skills they will need to be successful in the international arena, either as Peace Corps volunteers or serving the global community in other capacities.”
Officials say PVAMU’s designation as a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) will prepare students from diverse backgrounds for Peace Corps service, building up and investing in future cohorts of volunteers that will “best represent the diversity of America.”
“The university will benefit from being a part of the Peace Corps Prep Program, as this program can be a valuable recruitment tool for students and parents interested in learning about the world and making a difference,” said Vice President for Student Affairs Beverly Copeland.
“Global competence is essential for developing academic leaders,” said James Palmer, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs. “Prairie View is, indeed, helping students to use their knowledge and understanding of the world to make connections across cultures, ideas and peoples to develop innovative solutions to pressing problems.”
Since 1961, PVAMU has sent 55 university alumni into Peace Corps service, including 2016 graduate Akilah Provost, who spoke about her Peace Corps experience at Wednesday’s launch. She described her time in Liberia as a Peace Corps volunteer. She served about three years teaching, tending a community garden, and managing workshops and projects, including at a local school.
She joined the program to explore the world while helping others. But she gained so much more. “Through my Peace Corps service, I learned so much about myself and my communication styles, and I really grew up. It really changed the way I view the world and the way I interact with the human beings who live in it.” She also appreciates the lasting relationships she forged during her service time.
Provost is excited about Prairie View A&M getting its own launching pad for Peace Corps. While she was able to secure her position then, thanks to the help of her mentor, the late Dr. James A. Wilson Jr., she said others are not as fortunate. “I know so many Black and brown youth and adults who want to participate and grow in a program like the Peace Corps, and they don’t know where to start,” she said. “It’d also be great to see more people of color serving in the Peace Corps, as it’s a predominantly white organization.”
She added, “When I was in service, I had a few people in my host country say, ‘You’re a Peace Corps volunteer, and you look like me!’”
Provost is excited about the future of this partnership: “Hopefully, the Peace Corps program [at PVAMU] will also help students expand their views of the world and, most importantly, aid them in continuing to meet their goals and thrive as global citizens.”
At the launch, Darlene Grant, senior advisor to the director of Peace Corps, shared about her time in Cambodia and how she only knew a few Cambodian words.
Yet, despite the language barrier, Grant treasures the valuable lifelong lessons she learned regardless: “If you hang in there with people, if you take time to learn their language, to learn their culture, you find what makes you the same, and it makes it harder to wage war on each other. …And that, for me, is the definition of the Peace Corps and what it has to offer: That we need more people in the world with the ability to lift up people who are wholly different from them.”
Grant concluded by urging students: “If you can, if you’re in a position to take advantage of the Peace Corps prep program. You won’t regret it.”
To learn more about PVAMU’s new Peace Corp Prep Program, visit www.pvamu.edu/internationalprograms/pcprep.
By Christine Won
-PVAMU-