Spring Newsletter

Greetings from the Director, Frank Cipriani

The Peace Corps Prep Program at Monmouth University

Another year has come to a close. We maintained and added to our numbers. In fact, we have increased the number of prep students to 130. We have seen five acceptances to Peace Corps with zero rejections this year.

We will say goodbye to our recruiter, Dan Turkel, our man in Washington, who has been with us from the beginning of our prep program, as he assumes other duties at Peace Corps. His support allowed us to navigate the application process and we will miss his presence at our Film Festival and other events.

The Film Festival was very successful this year. Our Peace Hawks president and campus ambassador, Maya Paco, suggested that after the film festival we have a sit-down dinner with all comers. This was a great idea. We were able to dialog with returned volunteers, students, parents and faculty board members. I think that sit-downs should be the hallmark of our celebrations, and we will attempt to implement more of those next year.

We were also able to send Maya to Morocco to visit our Monmouth Peace Corps Prep graduate and current volunteer Liz Carmines. She will be sharing her story in this edition of the newsletter. Additionally, we will be sending PCP rising Sophomore Hannah Craft to Vietnam this summer. We intend to send at least one student per year to visit alumni in the field.

Next year we will have another Primitive Survival Fair, which continues to be our best recruiting event. In addition, we will be hosting the premiere of the documentary, A Towering Task, which tells the story of the Peace Corps. We intend to create a week of activities to coincide with the premiere.

Our goal for next year is to have 160 students in the Prep program and a total of six MU graduates apply successfully for service in the Peace Corps. This will keep us on track for a summer 2021 goal of 200 students and 8 successful applications. The sort of students who aspire to volunteer are the kind I want to have in class- engaged, interested students who are enthusiastic about making the world a wonderful place. We will continue to try and recruit such students to Monmouth. I want Monmouth to develop a reputation as a “Peace Corps University”, a place students come specifically because we afford the best opportunity for Peace Corps service.

I want to thank my board, the Prep students, and Maya in particular for making this a successful year. I also want to thank Deborah Rothermund, our Administrative Assistant, for doing much of the everyday work this year, and for putting together this newsletter. This program would be impossible to run without her. I look forward to seeing you out at the well next year, and I urge interested faculty to please get involved.

An open letter of thanks to Provost Moriarty

As the year draws to a close, I want to express my gratitude for the shoulders I was able to stand upon to be able to do this thing I love to do. When I got word that Provost Moriarty was stepping down, I knew that my conscience could not bear it if I were to let the opportunity pass to recognize the importance of her support and encouragement.

Nancy Mezey, a returned Peace Corps volunteer envisioned the Peace Corps Prep program. Nancy saw the Prep program as a silo-breaker, and indeed it has been. Between our 132 students in the prep program and five recent graduates now serving abroad or about to embark we have nearly every major represented. Our board provided, and continues to provide, support and advice (and by the way, we are always looking for visionaries from all departments to serve). I merely supply the paperwork and conducted the daily operations, and that with very heavy lifting from our assistant Deborah Rothermund. In order to really make the program a silo-breaker, we needed someone in Wilson Hall who understood what we were trying to accomplish. From the early days, Provost Moriarty was the individual who helped us move forward. When I mentioned the level of support coming out of the Provost’s office at a meeting of Peace Corps Prep coordinators at a Washington DC conference, one of the other coordinators lamented, “Well, we don’t have that level of administrative support. We’re not a Peace Corps University like Monmouth.”

Of course, I have had my own vision for the program. I see our program as an opportunity to recruit a new sort of Monmouth student- one who is willing to take an intellectual walk on the grass, to spread the blanket of intellect and enthusiasm and picnic even under a cold November sky. We are attracting the kind of student that can share ideas with us faculty that supercede the common death-drone question of many a glass-eyed scholar: “Is this going to be on the test?” Instead, we are reaching the student that is eager not just to go out and change the world, but to be intellectually alive enough to let the world change her/him. Recently, we had the first such recruit join us, the kind that I hope will become as common on campus as the athlete or the local commuter, a student who told me she chose to enroll at Monmouth University because we are “a Peace Corps University”. Can you imagine a Monmouth University with a critical mass of students thus motivated?

Laura Moriarty has had faith in our program and has helped us and other members of the university community through the unexplained disappearance of Paul Brown and through the political upheavals that followed the Trump election. She has always greeted my eccentricities and my vision for Peace Corps Prep and for the continuing reworking of the Spanish Communication major with patience and understanding. She has been supportive and encouraging of the work. She has even popped in on my Spanish class as it did its “Grammar tour of Wilson Hall” and has been in attendance during Scholarship Week presentations that my students have been involved with.
I hope that as her tenure draws to a close and she takes stock of her accomplishments as Provost, that she recognizes that our Peace Corps Prep program could not have enjoyed the successful launch it has without her considerable efforts on our behalf.

Thank you Laura.

2019 Peace Corps Film Festival

The Peace Corps Prep was honored to host the Peace Corps Film Festival for the third year. This year’s theme was “A Day in the Life…” Peace Corps Volunteers and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers were challenged to submit a film short that answers the question of “What does a day in the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer, host family member, counterpart or community member look like in your Peace Corps country?” The finalists were selected by a Peace Corps panel and their films were highlighted during the festival. Six members of the RPCV-NJ set up tables with artifacts from their service and discussed their experiences prior to the start of the film festival. Peace Corps Recruiter Dan Turkel opened the evening, followed by RPCV Leila Ali with a powerful keynote speech, sharing some memorable moments of her Peace Corps service in Kosovo. In addition to the nine film shorts, a video made by current Peace Corps Morocco Volunteer/Monmouth alumna Liz was shown that included her students singing and dancing. The late Tom Gallagher was remembered with a slideshow and a moving speech by Director Cipriani. Following the films, guests were invited to stay and share a meal. Many members of the RPCV-NJ sat family-style with MU students, faculty, and staff and shared engaging stories. It was a wonderful evening filled with joy, fellowship, and many laughs.

Peace Corps Prep Certification Ceremony 2019

The Peace Corps Prep was proud to host our annual Certification Ceremony during the evening of April 22. Although the weather forced the ceremony indoors and prevented Director Cipriani from creating fire using the friction method, it was still an enjoyable evening. Eleven students were celebrated for earning the Peace Corps Prep Certification and we were happy to provide Marissa with a joyful send-off. The RPCV-NJ was represented as two of their members joined in as guests. We were honored to have President Dimenna there as well as some faculty and Peace Corps Prep Committee members.

Director Cipriani with students who earned the Peace Corps Prep Certification

A Dip in the World of Peace Corps Morocco

By: Maya Paco

When you do something as eventful as going on a study abroad trip to Australia, it goes without saying that you, and your bank account, need a break from the zest of travel. Or, you go to Florida a week later to “relax”. Okay, you tell yourself, no more travel it’s time to be still again. Then, in a God-like manner, you see the email from the two amazing people who have been by your side since freshman year, “Please contact me ASAP re: going to Morocco”.
One month later, I am the first Monmouth University Peace Corps Prep student to go international to visit a current Peace Corps volunteer – Liz Carmines, stationed in Peace Corps Morocco for youth and development, a 2018 Monmouth University graduate. I spent 10 days shadowing Liz and living life alongside her. Her day is not empty, she teaches English at many different grade levels and plans each one to suit them best. She does aerobics with the women in her community and devotes extra time to help kids learn English and work on what they are learning in the classes. Although some of her days are consumed with these classes, time is still hers too. I joined her on her roof that overlooked the village and almost every night we sat and ate with the family and there is no entering a host family home without eating something …THAT I learned very quickly. I grew a love for tea, even when there is a diabetic amount of sugar in it. I was able to read my Scar Tissue book while Liz played her guitar and was free of guilt that I was not being productive or missing work. No, this was not any vacation either, it was simplicity and it felt okay.

On the best day, when it was almost time to go, the family took a trip to the lake and played and watched as the sun would set on the horizon. I was getting hugs from my extended sis, Emen and thinking about how I would leave them and who would be my host sister when I was in the Peace Corps. I often thought about how I would be most effective in my community and left knowing that it was not my job to be the best, rather it was my job to lead by example in what would allow the community to be the most sustainable. For Liz, she has the children, the next generation of builders, mothers, and thinkers. She challenges them to think outside of rulers and lines while still keeping their childlike nature intact. They are all so smart, I wished to give them all the opportunity I was blessed with in my life. I asked if they would be interested in creating something that represented their culture, well Liz translated, and they were so excited and came up with ideas to show their mosque where they worship and also an oven. Here Liz and I were thinking, okay maybe they will bring in shoe boxes and we’ll figure out how to build something from that. No. First of all, they were there before we were, and they’d already brought with them the completed and colored replica of a mosque. The oven was no ordinary oven either, this oven was specifically used to make bread, it was typically found outside and rather than a box it was rounded like a cave. Did I mention this was a miniature clay model the students made secured with a ceramic tile? Don’t believe me? Well I brought it back with me and its now on display at Monmouth University, in Wilson Hall’s display case outside the auditorium.

This trip was more than a vacation and I don’t deserve the wisdom that I am so grateful to have gotten from it. This was longer than expected or needed but it is far shorter than deserved. Thank you, Professor Cipriani and Deborah for the experience and to Liz for bringing me into her new life and her amazing family.

Peace Corps Volunteer Spotlight

Erin, a 2018 MU graduate, has been serving in Ethiopia since January 2019 as a Community Health Educator. She spent the first three months training in Addis Ababa, living with a host family. Erin was immersed in language acquisition and learned Tigrinya in preparation for her assignment in host site Tigray. Erin will be involved with a program that focuses on mothers and caregivers of children to improve household access to water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition. She is finding that hospitality is a true Ethiopian value.

Erin, second from right, at the graduation ceremony

Marisa, a 2019 MU grad, began her Peace Corps Volunteer assignment in Kosovo. She left just 9 days after graduation! After the training period, Marisa will be working as English Education volunteer. Leila Ali, a Kosovo RPCV and current MU graduate student (who also earned her undergraduate degree from Monmouth) and friend of PCPP has been mentoring Marisa and helping her to prepare for her Peace Corps service.

MU’s Peace Corps Prep Program is proud of Erin and Marisa and eagerly await to see what great things they do in their communities.

Spotlight on RPCV and Monmouth University alum Brett Gilmartin

Brett graduated from MU in 2013 and served in Peace Corps Peru from 2014-2016. His role was as an environmental educator and agroforestry promoter. His site, Huamparan, has the distinction of being one of the highest Peace Corps locations, at 12,000 feet above sea level. 700 people live there and they all rely on farming potatoes and quinoa for a living. Brett shared an experience that will surely stick with him forever:

“A few times a year, my family would have to trek over a mountain to get to a very remote farming area they had (about a 3-4 hour walk). One such occasion, my host dad, host brother, and I were voyaging to the distant farm. After about 2 hours of walking my host dad said he felt dizzy. As we were climbing up the mountain, my host dad suddenly fell backwards right into my arms. I laid him down and he went into a seizure. Upon seeing this, my host brother started crying and laying on his chest. I had never seen anyone go through a seizure before and in that moment I was like a deer in headlights. Luckily, I had cell phone signal and called down to my host family to bring up a wheelbarrow or something to transport my host dad down the mountain. My other host brother got there in about half an hour (he had just covered what took us 2 hours and he had a wheelbarrow with him). I ended up helping my host dad down the mountain and consoling my host family the rest of the day. He ended up okay, but it is a day I will never forget.”

Brett credits his experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer with helping him to obtain his current job with the EPA. Using the non-competitive eligibility benefit that volunteers get for completing their service, Brett started at the EPA in Philadelphia two months after returning from his Peace Corps service. His position is a Brownfields Project Officer, which includes awarding and managing grants to assess and clean up contamination.

PCV Brett in Peru with his host family, host dad on far right.

Trivia Time! Did you know….?

The first country to have Peace Corps Volunteers was Ghana in 1961

The Peace Corps has some famous alumni – Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings, political pundit Chris Matthews, and This Old House host Bob Vila

Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen and Montenegrin Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Pažin signed a historic agreement May 6, 2019 establishing a new Peace Corps program in Montenegro, the agency’s 142nd country of service

Monmouth University is the ONLY New Jersey university with a Peace Corps Prep Program

Students in the Peace Corps Prep Program work towards earning a Peace Corps Prep Certification, which accelerates their application when they apply to the Peace Corps

Connect with the Peace Corps Prep Program

Director Frank Cipriani

Office: in Global Education, Student Center
Phone: 732 263-5377
Email: fciprian@monmouth.edu

Website: monmouth.edu/peacecorps
Twitter: PeaceCorpPrepMU
Instagram: PeaceHawksMU