Archive - 2023

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Northern Illinois University Peace Corps Thai Collection
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Steve DeBoer (Ecuador) on his running adventures
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50+ Years of Bill Moyers’ journalism joins Library of Congress archive
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Review — THE SHOWGIRL AND THE WRITER by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador)
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Towering Task is on PBS This Friday-Saturday
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Peace Corps sued over mental health policy
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C.D. Glin (South Africa) is member of the president’s African Diaspora Engagement in the United States
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PC Trainee makes TIME MAGAZINEs “Time100 Next”
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Jennryn Wetzler (Niger) wins Catalyst Award
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Review | THE 2022 WORLD CUP IN QATAR by Steve Kaffen (Russia)
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Seeking Purpose: A Meditation
12
What Peace Corps Worldwide Is All About
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The Volunteer who became an acclaimed novelist of small-town life — Kent Haruf (Turkey)
14
NPCA’s Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award given to John Coyne and Marian Haley Beil
15
60 years later: UNM hosts Peace Corps reunion

Northern Illinois University Peace Corps Thai Collection

The Peace Corps and Thai Collections at NIU: Fall 2023 Collections Colloquium Join the Northern Illinois University (NIU Library Special Collections and Archives Department and the Southeast Asia Library for the annual Fall Collections Colloquium featuring presentations on the impact of the Peace Corps on the NIU Community. Retired NIU Thai Studies professor and Peace Corps volunteer, Dr. John Hartman (Thailand 1964-67), will reflect on his involvement with the Peace Corps training program at NIU and his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand. Southeast Asia Library Curator, Hao Phan, will present on the digitization of Thai Peace Corps materials in the Southeast Asian library holdings. Additionally, NIU School of Music Instructor, Chamni Sripraram, will perform selections of traditional Thai music with the Thai Music Ensemble. The Colloquium will be held in the Founders Memorial Library First Floor Gallery on October 19, 2023, from 4:30-6:00 pm. This event is . . .

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Steve DeBoer (Ecuador) on his running adventures

In the news —   by Cigale Ahlquist     When Steve DeBoer (Ecuador 1978-80) crossed the finish line in Langford Park’s Fourth of July road race last month, he was mere blocks from his boyhood home on Raymond Avenue in St. Anthony Park in St. Paul, MN. But running has taken him so much farther. Not long after taking up the sport as a high school freshman in 1968 to get in shape for basketball, DeBoer focused on running. Since 1971, he has logged at least a mile for what is now more than 18,000 consecutive days. Back then he thought: Let’s see how many days I can do this. When people talk about streaks in athletics, Cal Ripken Jr.’s name comes to mind. The Baseball Hall of Famer known as “The Iron Man” played in 2,632 consecutive games for the Baltimore Orioles over 17 seasons. DeBoer’s streak hit . . .

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50+ Years of Bill Moyers’ journalism joins Library of Congress archive

    Legendary U.S. broadcaster Bill Moyers is set to join fellow journalist Judy Woodruff Thursday evening for a conversation and screening at the Library of Congress’ Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. to celebrate a collection of his work spanning half a century. “They will discuss changes in the media and journalism over more than five decades, their experience covering America and foreign affairs, the Civil Rights Movement, race, and the clash of ideologies, including challenges to democracy from capital, extremism, and growing conflicts over the freedom of democracy,” according to the Library of Congress. Woodruff chairs the executive advisory council of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting—a collaboration between the Library of Congress and Boston’s GBH that pulled together more than 1,000 television programs for its recently unveiled Bill Moyers Collection, most of which is available online at AmericanArchive.org. “The Bill Moyers Collection offers a wealth of engaging . . .

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Review — THE SHOWGIRL AND THE WRITER by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador)

  The Showgirl and the Writer: A Friendship Forged in the Aftermath of the Japanese American Incarceration by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65) Peace Corps Writers 488 pages July 2023 $16.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Eric Madeen (Gabon 1981-83) • By turns leaky and frypan, tarpaper roofed, roughshod dormitories imprisoned 18,000 people of Japanese descent by the end at Tule Lake Japanese American High Security Segregation Camp in Northern California from 1942 to 1946. One degradation followed another, as in the incarcerated being subjected to abominable hole-in-the-wood toilets open side by side all the way down the miserable line. Barbwire topped fences. Armed guards manned watch towers looking down on imprisoned Japanese Americans guilty of no crime. At night the sweep of search lights went back and forth like metronomes. Glazing the whole sad, evil spectacle at Tule Lake concentration camp was a grainy skin of black lava dust, and slathered across . . .

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Towering Task is on PBS This Friday-Saturday

A Towering Task Coming to PBS Nationwide A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps is coming to PBS stations across the country. There will be a nationwide premiere of A Towering Task on the PBS World channel on Friday, September 29th at 8pm and Saturday, September 30th at 3am, 9am, and 3pm. In addition, individual stations are scheduling the film in local markets starting September 2nd. You can click this link to see the broadcasts that have been scheduled so far. And we are adding stations and dates every day. Here is the link to click for the broadcasts that have been scheduled thus far: https://www.peacecorpsdocumentary.com/broadcast And here is the link for more info: http://bit.ly/47SZP0J

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Peace Corps sued over mental health policy

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from John Pettit (Ethiopia 1965-67) & Matt Losak (Lesotho 1985-87)   Applicants have challenged the Peace Corps practice of rescinding invitations to applicants on the basis of mental health conditions. by Ellen Barry the New York Times Sept. 27, 2023 Lea Iodice was thrilled to hear that the Peace Corps had accepted her application and was sending her to Senegal as a community health care worker. She shared the good news with her roommates, her family and her favorite professor and daydreamed about her last day at her job, managing a gym called SnapFitness. She was crushed, about a month later, to receive a letter from the Peace Corps Office of Medical Services saying that her offer was being rescinded because she was in treatment for anxiety. Though she had been in therapy to manage occasional panic attacks, she had never taken any psychiatric medication, . . .

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C.D. Glin (South Africa) is member of the president’s African Diaspora Engagement in the United States

President Biden Announces the Inaugural Members of the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States Today, President Biden is announcing the inaugural members of the  African Diaspora Engagement in the United States. The establishment of this Council was a significant commitment announced by Vice President Harris on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration during the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, aimed at enhancing dialogue between United States officials and the African Diaspora. In accordance with Executive Order 14089, the Advisory Council comprises up to 12 members appointed by the Secretary of State, and represents the diversity of the African Diaspora from African American communities around the United States and African immigrant communities across the continent and the Caribbean. RPCV C.D. Glin, Member C.D. Glin   (South Africa 1997–99) President of the PepsiCo Foundation and Global Head of Social Impact for PepsiCo. In this role, Glin leads the food and . . .

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PC Trainee makes TIME MAGAZINEs “Time100 Next”

  In the news In 2020, Rikki Held joined 16 other young people in Montana to file a lawsuit against the state for violating their constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment by contributing to climate change through its continued extraction of fossil fuels. Rikki Held stepped forward to become the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by Our Children’s Trust — a not-for-profit law firm that specializes in environmental cases — suing the state of Montana for violating its own constitutional guarantee that it would provide citizens “a clean and healthful environment.” The case, Held v. State of Montana, was the first constitutional and the first youth-led climate lawsuit to go to trial in the U.S., and it resulted in a historic ruling — one that could provide a road map for similar efforts. On Aug. 14, the Montana District Court sided with Held and her fellow young plaintiffs, . . .

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Jennryn Wetzler (Niger) wins Catalyst Award

In the news   Creative Commons is a non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. About The Catalyst Award This award is presented to an individual actively engaged in promoting the creation and implementation of OER and application Open Practices. A Catalyst is someone other than a professor/teacher that supports the ideals of the Open Education movement through their own practices and who creates engagement in Openness within an organization or community. Examples might include but are not limited to librarians, researchers, instructional designers, policymakers, or administrators. Jennryn Wetzler (Niger 2004-06) Jennryn Wetzler is the Director of Learning and Training at Creative Commons. She runs the Creative Commons Certificate program, a training in open licensing, copyright, and the ethos of our global, shared commons. She focuses on projects to increase collaboration and . . .

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Review | THE 2022 WORLD CUP IN QATAR by Steve Kaffen (Russia)

  The 2022 World Cup in Qatar by Steve Kaffen (Russia 1994-96) April 2023 $5.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Sue Aiken (Ethiopia 1962-64) • This digital book regales us with all the beauty and memorable moments of the seventh World Cup the author attended in Qatar!  Striking photography and vivid descriptions tell the reader about the great soccer being played, upsets, a remarkable final, controversies , as well as the effort of a small Middle Eastern country.  Qatar is in the middle of a sprawling sand desert hosting perhaps the world’s most important sporting event! Having been a Saturday morning soccer mom for about 10 years of my life, but growing up completely unaware of the existence of soccer, this is truly an eye opening book told only  as someone with extensive knowledge, excitement and experience could tell.  Kaffen takes the reader along on his travel experiences ,teaching as he goes.  . . .

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Seeking Purpose: A Meditation

  The WOW Factor: Words of Wisdom from Wise Older Women By Bonnie Lee Black (Gabon 1996-98) At the beginning of each new semester when I taught English 101 at UNM in Taos, New Mexico, I would draw a huge circle on the front board, while the semicircle of first-year students sat and stared. “This is the world,” I’d say, patting the circle. “And these . . . ” I quickly marked the circle with lots of short, horizontal dashes “— are problems in the world. As I see it, our job as individuals – our personal purpose – is to seek out one of those little negatives and turn it into a positive, using all the intelligence, talents, heart and soul we’ve been given.” I scanned the room to read the students’ reactions. Their faces looked blank —what we used to call “subway faces” in New York — registering . . .

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What Peace Corps Worldwide Is All About

Marian Haley Beil, publisher and John Coyne, editor – both Ethiopia PCVs 1962-64 Together we are currently responsible for the blog Peace Corps Worldwide and the Peace Corps Writers Imprint. Our efforts are at the heart of the Third Goal of the Peace Corps — to “bring the world back home.” We support the writings of RPCVs and PCVs in a positive way to educate Americans about the world and share with all who have a desire for international understanding. Since 1989 John and Marian have been publishing about the many PCVs and RPCV writers. We have promoted their books, essays, poetry and stories; we have interviewed them; announced their new book publications; reviewed their books; published their books, and made it easy for our readers to obtain their books. John is the schmoozer/editor/writer who gathers, and many times writes, the material; and Marian, the publisher, edits, designs, and distributes. In . . .

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The Volunteer who became an acclaimed novelist of small-town life — Kent Haruf (Turkey)

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) Kent Haruf served as a Peace Corps Volunteer English teacher in Turkey from 1965 to 67, after graduating from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1966. Before becoming a writer, Kent worked in a variety of places, including a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Denver, a hospital in Phoenix, a Presidential library in Iowa, an alternative high school teacher in Wisconsin, and various colleges in Nebraska and Illinois. Undoubtedly, these hardcore working experiences served as inspirational foundations to his later life as a novelist focused on the broad subject of small town America. All of Kent’s subsequent novels take place in the fictional town of Holt in eastern Colorado. Holt is based on Yuma, Colorado, one of Kent’s residence in the early 1980s. His first novel, published in 1984, The Tie That Binds, received a Whiting Award and a . . .

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NPCA’s Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award given to John Coyne and Marian Haley Beil

Here is a short video of Marian Haley Beil talking about creating Peace Corps Writers website with John Coyne.The link to the video: https://youtu.be/y7lLWyXQ_zw?si=fVXR7IQ8lJqE2ztq

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60 years later: UNM hosts Peace Corps reunion

    Turning outward bound into homeward bound; that’s an unforgettable experience that took place at The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque on Sept. 19, 2023. Decades in the making, members of the UNM Peace Corps Outward Bound Training 1963 class, known as Colombia VIII, reunited at UNM. Now retired with families and memories, these Peace Corps alumni were able to relive their lives from years ago. Thanks to the College of University Libraries & Learning Sciences (CULLS), and its archives these former students were able to recollect through old photos of their time training for the Peace Corps at UNM. “It was such a pleasure seeing the Peace Corps reunion today. I’m impressed that so many people traveled from around the country to be here. It just shows how important the Peace Corps were to everyone’s lives,” University Archivist Portia Vescio said. Vescio, Graduate Student Amber Lane and Macon McCrossen led the . . .

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