University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Members of the UB community who have served in the Peace Corps are, from left to right, Michael Marrone; Tim Hartigan, holding a lunch box hand-woven by some of his students; John Stone, with a statue of the Indian god Shiva; Mike Woldenberg, holding a carved-wood musical instrument from Sierra Leone; and David Engel, with a woven cotton bag made by hill tribes in Northern Thailand. Photo: NANCY J. PARISI

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  Phillips Stevens Jr., who served in Nigeria from 1963-66, is pictured here in the Esie Museum in that African country. He set a Peace Corps precedent by being the first volunteer to work for a museum. Photo: COURTESY OF “ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE PEACE CORPS”

By JIM BISCO

Published: March 31, 2011

Across the university on a mission of reaching others are generations of faculty, staff and students who personally were moved to embrace the needs of the world early in their lives. They volunteered to join the Peace Corps.

In this 50th anniversary year celebrating the time when President John F. Kennedy signed the executive order and the vast outreach to developing countries began, some of the estimated 30 returned volunteers across campus reflected on how the experience affected them.

“It completely changes almost everything about you,” says Ellen Dussourd, director of the Office of International Student and Scholar Services. “The lens through which you see the world is totally different after that. You meet a lot of people who have much less than you do—not only materially but educationally—and yet they have so much more.”

Dussourd taught English from 1978-80 in a government high school in an African border town between Cameroon and Chad amidst blistering heat, oppressive conditions and two wars. “I taught with stray bullets bouncing off the roof,” she recalls.

An independent spirit, a search for something meaningful and a sense of wanderlust provided impetus for Dussourd and others.

David Engel, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the UB Law School, took a break from his graduate studies to go to Thailand for three years in the late 1960s as an educational supervisor. “Before I went, I hardly knew where Thailand was on the map. The Peace Corps definitely shifted my focus,” he says. “It was really a chance to become completely immersed in a culture that was very different from anything I was familiar with. It was a life-changing experience. Here I am, 40 years later, still doing research on the history and culture of Thailand.”

John Stone, clinical associate professor of rehabilitation science and director of the Center for Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange (CIRRIE), was inspired by the Peace Corps philosophy when he joined and served in southern India from 1967-69. “We surveyed the fields and laid them out in contours for rice cultivation, and also did agricultural work with seeds and fertilizers.” He lived in a mud house in a small village and worked with the farmers.

Phillips Stevens Jr., associate professor of anthropology, was in his senior year at Yale when he was attracted to the Peace Corps, which led him to Nigeria from 1963-66. He initially served as an English teacher and then became the first volunteer to work for a museum, setting a Peace Corps precedent that others later followed. As ethnographer for the federal Department of Antiquities, he contributed to the preservation of Nigeria’s endangered historic sites and artistic traditions. “The whole experience got me into anthropology. It changed the course of my life,” says Stevens.

Janice Nersinger, director of overseas programs for the English Language Institute, worked in rural hospitals and with a family planning program in the Santiago Rodriguez province of the Dominican Republic from 1969-71. “Even though I was very close to the United States, it was a different world,” she recalls. “I learned to value what you had, to not waste things.”

Michael Marrone, associate vice president for international advancement in the Office of Development, served as a rural water technician in Liberia from 1983-85. His job was to help find safe drinking water for the townspeople. “You’re really affecting lives at the most basic level,” he says. “In whatever else I’m doing, I always wonder if it is going to be as truly benefiting people as in those years.”

Michael Woldenberg, professor emeritus of geography, was among the first to join the Peace Corps in 1961 after hitchhiking around Europe for a year and beginning his graduate work in geography. “My attitude at the time was that they must have been thinking of me when they started (the Peace Corps).” He taught geography at a high school in Freetown, Sierra Leone, until 1963.

Benjamin Wixson, a graduate student in social studies education, is among the newest breed of Peace Corps volunteer. Among the hundreds of UB students who have volunteered over the years, he served from 2007-09 as a community health volunteer, educating Cameroonians on HIV/AIDS, family planning, sexual health, malaria, food and waterborne diseases. “My experience was the most challenging and enlightening of my life. I saw hardship and adversity, but at the same time perseverance and joy at life,” he says.

“You touch history. You have an insider’s understanding of just what the dynamics are,” explains Tim Hartigan, a Graduate School of Education volunteer who served in Thailand as an English teacher from 1989-91 and is a board member of the Buffalo chapter of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Members of the organization contribute to the cause, from serving Thanksgiving dinner to newly arrived refugees to helping with recruitment efforts at schools and job fairs.

The bond is strong among the returned volunteers who span the generations. “Even though our experiences were different—from different eras and countries and missions—there are a lot of similarities to what we were trying to achieve and how we felt about our experience,” Marrone notes. “It’s a great feeling.”