Hope College is in the top 25 nationally among small colleges and universities producing Peace Corps Volunteers in 2017.
The Peace Corps announced its 2018 Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges and Universities list on Wednesday, Feb. 21.
Hope is ranked 22nd nationally among small colleges and universities, with 10 alumni serving as Peace Corps Volunteers. Hope is the only school from Michigan on the top-25 listing for the number of undergraduate alumni serving from small colleges and universities, and is one of only three Michigan institutions of any size recognized for the number of alumni volunteers in 2017.
The college’s alumni are serving in Ecuador, the Kyrgyz Republic, Lesotho, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia.
Since the Peace Corps was founded by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, 198 Hope alumni have traveled abroad to serve as volunteers. Hope was also on the top-25 listing in 2008 and 2009.
The Peace Corps ranks schools according to the size of the student body. Small schools are those with fewer than 5,000 undergraduates, medium-size schools have between 5,001 and 15,000 undergraduates, and large schools have more than 15,000 undergraduates. Hope has 3,150 students this year.
The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Michigan State University are also in the top-25 undergraduate listings, in the category for Large Colleges and Universities. The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor is eighth in the category with 61 undergraduate alumni volunteers, and Michigan State University is 17th with 47 volunteers. The University of Michigan is also in the report’s top-five listing for graduate-level programs producing volunteers, placing fifth nationally with 14 volunteers.
The number of alumni volunteers among the top 25 in each of the three undergraduate size categories ranges from 38 to 85 for large colleges and universities; from 16 to 50 for medium-size colleges and universities; and from 10 to 17 for small colleges and universities. The entire 2018 Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges and Universities list can be found at here. An interactive map that shows where alumni from each college and university are serving is available online.
Since the Peace Corps was established, more than 230,000 Americans of all ages, including alumni from more than 3,000 colleges and universities nationwide, have served in 141 countries worldwide. More information about the Peace Corps is available at peacecorps.gov.
Here is a link to the Peace Corps’ announcement about Hope being on this year’s top-25 list, including an interview with Lindsey Hall ’07, who is serving as an education volunteer in Uganda.