Last week, Sargent Shriver, President Kennedy’s brother-in-law, passed away, at the age of 95. President Clinton said at the funeral that Sarge was the living embodiment of Kennedy’s quintessential challenge, “Ask not what your country can do for you.” President Obama described the founding father of the Peace Corps as “the brightest light of the greatest generation.” As awe-inspiring as the man being eulogized were his five children, Bobby, Tim, Mark, Tony and Maria, who have helped millions through the Special Olympics, Save the Children, and the Red Campaign. As I watched the funeral on a computer screen in Kathmandu, I thought to myself, this is no ordinary family.
Without Shriver’s genius and boundless energy, Kennedy’s 1960 campaign promise to create the Peace Corps, would have been a hollow dream. Shriver was its master builder. Â He crafted the Peace Corps in lightening speed and drafted the sharpest, grittiest minds in America to run it. If there were problems hurting the volunteers, he wanted to know. If something needed to be done, he got on a plane and did it. He was the best kind of leader, one that viewed rules as dispensable if they obstructed the ideals they were meant to realize. In just 5 years, he had 15,000 volunteers on the ground in nearly 50 nations, and Peace Corps was the darling of the American media. It was at once America’s culture and counter-culture. It was a political statement against war but existed outside the breaking dichotomy of party politics. It was the rare label that even those against the establishment embraced.
Though I never met Sarge, I know he would have wanted us to use his passing as a catalyst to build a new Peace Corps that was better. Before he developed Alzheimer’s disease which he fought with grace, he spoke at Yale University in 2002 as a vociferous critic of the Peace Corps, saying it had not gone far enough and had become mired in bureaucracy and protocols.
As an example of the lackluster administration of Peace Corps, even today, it takes nearly a year to get in. Peace Corps loses thousands of qualified candidates by making them wait a near-eternity for an acceptance. It’s time for us to challenge the agency itself, as Sarge did, even as we advocate for greater funding.
The new Peace Corps leadership, has had two years to bring reform but has not delivered. Many people such as Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff have laboriously researched and documented some of what needs to be done but Peace Corps has not listened to them or other constructive critics. Even in terms of growth, Peace Corps has announced it will stall out at just 9,500 volunteers. Rather than challenge the Obama Administration when it issued a directive to freeze the number of volunteers, they followed suit and did what they were told. Sarge never would have done that, especially if he had a third of the United States Congress endorsing a $100 million increase in 2012. He would have called everyone he knew in power to challenge that directive. Â While it’s true he had the advantage of being President Kennedy’s brother-in-law, we all have advantages but the question is whether we use them.
One of the things that has frustrated me in this campaign is the lack of tolerance for subtlety and nuance within Congress and the media. Why can’t we advocate for both robust growth and robust reform of the agency’s management? Â Now is the time to shift in that direction. Â If anything, the problems underscore the need for more reform funding.
I along with thousands of others have been a champion of expanding the Peace Corps budget and remain so. Considering how much federal money is squandered, it’s pitiful that we spend just $400 million a year on something as valuable as the Peace Corps, a sum equal to the budget of the army marching band. It’s condemnable that President Obama promised to double the budget to $750 million by the 50th anniversary in 2011 and did nothing. However, from this point on, we will also challenge the Peace Corps admin itself to deliver substantial and major reforms within the next 3 months. We will lobby the Peace Corps leadership as hard as we push the Congress to deliver changes expeditiously.
Sarge would have wanted it that way.
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Rajeev, I think you have done a tremendous job in promoting an increase in Peace Corps force and funding. The current fiscal crisis is not your fault, although I certainly share your frustration. As for Sarge, he left full-time employment with the Peace Corps in February of 1964, barely three years into the agency. Who knows how things might have changed if he had resisted President Johnson’s request and instead stayed with the Peace Corps.
Also, there really isn’t any “Peace Corps.” It is an ever changing conglomeration of political appointees, and short time civil service employees, who rarely even stay the five years. Director Williams has been on the job 17 months, not two years. The Deputy Director was not approved by the Senate until last June. She has barely six months on the job. As for the other 30 or so political appointees they came on board after Williams.
Peace Corps Administration is engaged in reform efforts as described in the report:
The 2010 study, The Peace Corps: A Comprehensive Agency Assessment can be found at:
http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/opengov/PC
The report addresses some of the concerns you mention, such as the slow time from application to service. But, they are now dealing with budget cuts. The future of the Obama administration is uncertain. So,
Volunteers beginning service now, may find themselves completing their tours with a whole new set of political appointees from the Republican party, if indeed, the Senate even approves them in a timely matter.
I would urge you to read the report. I note that it shows an ambitious
schedule for implementation of reforms. I don’t know if anyone outside the agency is monitoring that progress. Perhaps that is something you might take on.
I read the Peace Corps report and know the people that wrote it, and I have even used it and a bulleted version we created summarizing its mind findings to advocate on Capitol Hill. I would think that the possibility of budget cuts would actually make it even more desirable to expedite application time. I understand the process is from the dinosaur era and heavily reliant on old technologies.
We have created broad Republican support. Some of the staunchest allies of advancing funding are conservative House and Senate Republicans from the South. Did anyone at Peace Corps try to reach out to them before following the directive from the Obama administration? The freeze on spending is for non-security related programs. It should be fairly straightforward to make the case that soft power programs like the Peace Corps augment the safety and security of US citizens.
Reform can happen without the security of knowing what the budget will be. However, Peace Corps needs to start admitting what those problems are - that’s the first step.
Republicans are not the problem.
Rajeev,
I agree that Republicans are not the problem. That is not what I meant. If they win the White House in 22 months, the current roster of political appointees, some thirty people in decision-making positions, will resign and will be replaced by a whole set of new political appointees. If there is a new Director for the Peace Corps, he or she may establish their own reform agenda and/or priorities.
I believe the problem is that the Peace Corps is not an independent government corporation, insulated from the winds of political change.
I also believe that sucessful service as a Volunteer should be a pre-requisite for any position at Peace Corps. I realize that there are technical and administrative positions which may not require prior Volunteer service, but such positions can be outsourced to other agencies.
I don’t know how the funding freezes and budge cuts will impact the reform agenda. As you recall, what happened in 2006 forward, when there were funding problems, was that support to Volunteers in the field was reduced. I would hate to see that happen.
I think it would be very important to know how Peace Corps is going to proceed. I certainly do not have any contacts there. I would appreciate any information you might have or could obtain. I do wish that NPCA had the resources to be more involved with such matters.
Cut Washington staff by 60% for starters. Completely redo the application process. Your app goes online and any country in the world can recruit you- first come, first serve.
The Office of Statistics is the biggest rip-off I have ever heard of. Get rid of it! Cut the director’s salary in half since it is such a big honor. We’ll find out who has True Grit or not.
Crime? Violence? I proposed training volunteers in judo-ju jitsu, 1 hour a day for 16 weeks. Use embassy guards as instructors to save money. I also suggested sending women in pairs-the buddy system (which they used to do) and equipping all volunteers with shrill whistles and pepper spray like any camper in the U.S.A. would have. Some former volunteers took offense, citing our “image.” Hey, I ain’t no quaker and I did kick some ass while volunteering. So, whose image of what? There are other ways- use your data to find out which countries rape the most American women and pull all females out. Another solutions would be to further deliniate which parts of a country are raping American women and pull out of those areas.
Because of music, television, radio and movies- the worldwide perception of American women is that they are liberated. However, to many cultures on earth this is synonomous with whore. In fact this term is used over and over when reading accounts of PCV rape. The rapists make it a point to call them whores, as if they deserve it. We cannot change all of this but that does not mean that we have to accept rape or blame the victim- which is what the PC has been doing since 1992 when this first was made public in Congressional testimony.
The agency won’t “man-up.” Time for chicken dinner. Get the ax and let’s start chasing these bureacrats around the barnyard.
Man, I’m hot as a pistol. This is not the martyr corps. Over the years the Peace Corps has taken on some kind of psuedo-religious flavor. Please, check out the three goals again. None of them have to do with vows of poverty, chastity and non-violence. They hire you for a job and as any human being, you have the right to self-defense. No volunteer should be sujected to rape, robbery or even ridicule. According to congressional testimony, this is and has been a problem for an entire generation. The Peace Corps response has been the bureaucratic two-step. Hooey! It’s time to do something.
I had a great time in the Peace Corps and like all of the rest of the former volunteers consider it a life-changing experience (as noted in my memoir South of the Frontera). However, I did not hesitate to use my fists when required and as a consequence I was not raped or robbed and kept ridicule to a bare minimum. I realize that women cannot fight off gangs. The self-defense might help them deter an attacker. A whistle might make them run. The pepper spray would definitely stop a few. In any case, the volunteer just might have a chance to escape.
Lastly, I have two sons. They both know how to defend themselves. If I had a daughter, she would too.
I think Joey makes a good point. Maybe we should be advocating to make it an independent government corporation, if that’s better and there aren’t significant disadvantages. The 30 political appointments is too many and we have tried to change that through bills in Congress but those bills have not moved forward. I think it would be wise to take the opportunity of the 50th anniversary to make some bigger changes reflecting what you suggest.
I like Lorenzo’s application idea.
I find Lorenzo’s idea of direct selection by a Host Country also intriguing. It is almost like Harmony.com!
I checked the dates from my application process in1963. The PC test was given to large groups on college campuses. I took it in early April, after submitting an application, I think that was the sequence. I got a telegram on May 16th inviting me to a training group which began on July 7 th. I believe that I had to go to either a military or public health facility for medical review. I had dental work done, but that was done privately at my own expense. I recall that there was an elaborate background check but that was not done by Peace Corps personnel, it was done by the Civil Service Commission or the FBI. It continued during training. (The FBI does do routine background checks on a variety of applicants for work in the public sector). There also was the dreaded selection process so once you were in training, you were subject to all kinds of review and observation and perhaps “de-selected.” There were no recruiters or recruiting offices, back in the day.
Why does it take so long today?
Rajeev, You have been so successful working with Congress to increase funding and force for the Peace Corps. This might be the time in which you could test support for a public corporation model for the Peace Corps.
Thirty political appointments is a lot. I think that it may have been an inducement to Congress to keep the agency alive.
I’m going to start testing the waters and see what folks think. If changing its placement and location within the government and its funding structure would create new opportunities for growth and innovation, that’s what we should go after. This is a good time for considering major changes.
I reiterate the problem with the Peace Corps. It costs something like $50,000 a year to place a volunteer in the field which is the Corps only “product.” We all know the volunteer only sees a small fraction of that amount. The rest goes to the most bloated bureaucracy in Washington.
Rajeev please stop calling Price the acting Director of Communications. She is not acting - she was appointed to that position a long time ago. Stuff liek that makes you lose credibility, like the guy up the thread here that said lose the Office of Statistics. There is no such thing.