About the Group
Public Description
This group is particularly designed for Peace Corps Prep coordinators and anyone preparing college and university students to work in new cultural environments that place high demand on their emotional resilience and, ideally, a commitment to developing inclusive, transparent, sustainable, and mutually-beneficial community partnerships.
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Aletha D Stahl @ on
As of fall 2018, I serve as Purdue University's Peace Corps Prep coordinator. Beyond the recruiting and administrative duties of a coordinator, I was one of the instructors for a team-taught Purdue course designed for PCP students and am now the primary facilitator of a non-credit program that replaced that course. I am also designing and co-leading a PCP-targeted 3-week program in Morocco (slated for May 2020) that has cultural humility and emotional resilience as primary learning outcomes and that will allow students to meet with current PC volunteers at their work sites. In my prior career as faculty at Earlham College, I also supported PCP to some degree, including by helping to design and lead a one-week community needs and asset mapping experience.
I created this group so that PCP coordinators and others interested in similar work can share ideas, resources, questions, etc. I invite you to introduce yourself here if you feel like it.
For starters, I will also raise 2 possible topics of discuss.
First, in Purdue's programming, I include critiques of Peace Corps, discuss its neocolonialism overtones, and create opportunities for students to delve into self-awareness about their motivations, the potential (white) savior complex, and the problems of a deficit perspective. It seems only fair for these prospective PC volunteers to have reflected sooner rather than later on big-picture issues and their own position with regard to Peace Corps' broader mission and to themselves as representatives of the US federal government. I want to see them equipped to do no harm and to have the emotional resilience to build friendships and to make the experience something that will inform their future as citizens and leaders. That said, I'm interested in how others of you present some of the less-than-perfect sides of Peace Corps while still supporting students in their exploration of opportunities there.
Second, what are your stated learning outcomes for courses and other aspects of your PCP program, and how do you assess for these? For example, I'm looking into a pre/post assessment too that uses the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale to get a sense of student learning on the Morocco program. Is anyone else assessing for intercultural knowledge and competence, e.g., cultural humility, empathy, openness, emotional resilience, etc.?
You don't have to share my questions or interests to jump on board here. Please take this conversation any direction you want. Above all, welcome!
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Aletha D Stahl @ on
Welcome to the HubICL's Peace Corps Prep Group!
Happy to see you figured out how to join on your own.
I've started 2 collections for this group -- curricula and assessments. It would be great to have you add to them. You can get to them through the group, but you may also use these direct links:
https://hubicl.org/groups/pcp/collections/peace-corps-prep-curricula-for-intercultural-competence
https://hubicl.org/groups/pcp/collections/peace-corps-prep-assessment-tools----formative-and-summative
You are also welcome to build new collections, raise questions for discussion in the Forum, etc. If you find the interface challenging and would rather send materials to me to add, my email is stahl23@purdue.edu.
I understand info overload. If you wish to leave the group at any time::
1. Go to the icon of a human bust in a circle (or your photo) at the top right of the page.
2. Click on "Profile."
3. When your profile opens, click on "Groups" from the menu on the left side of the page.
4. Your groups will appear. Click on the "x" on the top left corner of any group.
Again, welcome!
Aletha Stahl
Senior Intercultural Learning Specialist
Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment and Research
Purdue University
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Gavin Young @ on
Hello,
My name is Gavin Young.
I'm an EFL teacher at a Japanese university and a former Peace Corps volunteer.
I'm often doing programs to prepare students for study abroad.
Thank you.
-Gavin Young
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