UF ranks fifth nationally, first in Southeast, in Peace Corps volunteers

February 4, 2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — This year, the University of Florida ranks fifth on the Peace Corps’ annual national rankings of large Peace Corps volunteer-producing schools with 79 undergraduate alumni now serving. This represents a jump of 11 positions from last year’s 16th place ranking.

Since the Peace Corps was founded in 1961, 1,066 University of Florida alumni have joined, making it the No. 1 all-time producer of Peace Corps volunteers in the Southeast. The university also ranked fourth nationally with 15 graduate students serving overseas.

“The University of Florida is now ranked as one of the most outstanding Peace Corps producing undergraduate and graduate universities in the nation,” said David Leavitt-D’Agostino, Peace Corps public affairs specialist. “The amount of interest among the student population continues to grow exponentially as demonstrated by the largest jump in rankings of all schools ranked this year.”

The Peace Corps is especially attracted to UF because many of its undergraduates fill assignments in scarce skill areas where it is traditionally difficult to find qualified applicants. They include agriculture, forestry, environmental science, French, and teaching English.

“This university has great students who want to make a difference in the world and are looking for the best means to do it,” said Amy Panikowski, UF campus recruiter. “With an internationalized curriculum and many social justice student organizations on campus, one can’t help but pay attention to what’s going on in the world. UF does breed some strong leaders. I just help them get started on it and they do the rest.”

The following are the top five large universities in the undergraduate category: University of Washington with 101 currently serving; University of Colorado at Boulder, 95; University of California Berkeley, 89; Michigan State University, 86; and University of Florida, 79.

The Peace Corps ranks its top volunteer-producing schools annually according to the size of the student body. Small schools have less than 5,000 undergraduates, medium-sized schools have between 5,000 and 15,000 undergraduates and large schools have more than 15,000 undergraduates. The rankings are calculated based on fiscal year 2009 data as of Sept. 30, 2009, as self-reported by Peace Corps volunteers.

Currently, there are 7,671 Peace Corps volunteers serving in 76 host countries around the world. A college degree is not mandatory for service. Relevant experience in areas such as education, health, business, information technology, environment, and agriculture, however, is required. In 2009, Peace Corps received more than 15,000 applications, an 18 percent increase over 2008. This is the largest number of applications since the agency began electronically recording applications in 1998.