The Michigan Daily - Monday, October 7, 1985 - Page 3 Peace ( By JILL RINGEL The goals set out by Sen. John Ken- nedy on the steps of the Michigan on Oct. 14, 1960 created the foun- dation for the U.S. Peace Corps for- rially established by Congress a year 14ter. Over the past 25 years of the otganization's existence, those idealistic objectives have changed lit- t* if at all, according to the Univer- sity's Peace Corps coordinator, L~ouise Baldwin. "What the Peace Corps does is give untries, give Americans a chance to t to know what it is like to live in a veloping country, and give the ople there a chance to know what Americans are like on a person-to- pprson basis," Baldwin says. ALTHOUGH MORE students showed an interest in the Peace Corps ii the early days and the government pimped more dollars into it back then, students have been exhibiting a newed interest in the program ring the last few years, especially is year, says Baldwin. And, though students of the 1980s e of a different sort than the oneering volunteers of the 1960s, the sons given for joining the philan- t ropic government agency have mained nearly the same for 25 rs, Baldwin adds. "People go in to make a difference a an individual, and they can feel od about what they do," says James nes, who spent two-and-one-half rs in Western Samoa when he j ined up in 1967 upon his graduation from the University. corps upholds ideals over past 25 years DURING THE Vietnam war era, however, Jones said the Peace Corps. also served as an appealing alter- native to killing and being killed. "I was drafted and was looking for ways out of doing something immoral - fighting in Vietnam. I joined the Peace Corps to do something con- structive rather than blowing up villages," Jones says. In retrospect, Jones says he would have joined the Peace Corps again, even if he was not faced with the draft. "IT IS AN experience you can get in no other way. You have to learn in or- der to survive. You have to become a part of the culture and get rid of preconceived notions or you won't un- derstand," Jones says. "Above all, you learn a lot about yourself and others." Originally, Jones worked in a Samoan village on sanitation. After six months, he was asked to teach art in a high school in town. For two years he taught and worked in community development, where he felt he had a greater impact than he could have in the village. Because Jones was the first person to teach art at the school, he was given the responsibility of set- ting up his own program. Jones believes the experience and responsibility he was given in the Peace Corps set him years ahead of his contemporaries in the United States. He says he learned more about American society by studying and working within the Samoan political system. "IT WAS VERY democratic. In the United States, we compete for money, but the Samoans compete for status and titles. Many people had more than one title. They keep a mental balance sheet of favors and expect each one of them to be repayed." As a visitor, Samoa seemed to be a very generous society, but it was ac- tually very stressful and competitive. It showed me how competitive our own society is." Former University student Derek Brereton joined the Peace Corps with his wife, Bonnie, also a former Univer- sity student. Both taught English at the Prince Songkhla University in South Thailand from 1969 to 1973. LIKE JONES, Derek Brereton says the draft was an important factor in his decision to join the agency. But he says Kennedy's inspirational words to the University also had an impact on him when he heard them over the radio while still in high school. "I remember that was the first mention I had heard of the Peace Cor- ps," Brereton says. Brereton concludes that the Peace Corps experience met his expec- tations of its potential. "YOU ARE like a fish, and the water is your culture all around you. You have to pop out of the water and look back to see all you take for gran- ted," Brereton says. "On the one hand, it is contrived. On the other hand, it is a necessary new perspective to what it means to be human. I saw how very different life was." John Heinrich served in the Peace Corps of the 1980s, and thus didn't join to avoid being drafted. He says the Peace Corps represented travel, ad- venture, and the chance to learn how people cope with life in an im- poverished nation. SERVING IN Nepal, Heinrich helped to implement a program that provided primary health care at the village level. He says it sparked his interest in the area of public health, and he is now enrolled in the Univer- sity's School of Public Health as a graduate student. "I was a strong idealist, and the Peace Corps helped me to broaden my perspective of people," he says. "I also learned that the people in Nepal are aware of their own predicament. I wanted to help them get the resources to better their own lives." Heinrich says the experience has given him a more realistic view of the situation of people in countries such as Ethiopia, where a drought brought about widespread hunger and attrac- ted the attention of numerous American philanthropic groups. "Several donor agencies want a quix-fix solution to the problems. They dump grain in a country and, then leave. The Peace Corps is in-' terested in the long run improvement; they don't expect any miracles." Students built corps movement t Council may pas! (Continued from Page 1) SME-Loc THIS YEAR, Hunter wants the or one-thi card to handle divestment alone, and Gould e is certain the measure will pass member cause Democrats now dominate the resolution ouncil by 6 to 5. Democrat Edward have gon fierce, elected mayor last spring, member tipped the balance. says he f Kathy Edgren, (D-Fifth Ward) said tribute t he thought all the Democrats on the the board ouncil would vote for the resolution. Divestr But even if the council approves reasons hunter's resolution, it will have no especially finding effect on the board, which is loss in Independent. Burns, ci "All (the council) can do is set the the board guidelines," Bruce Laidlaw, the city's "A CIT attorney said last night. any cours BUT THE council can apply trusteesa litical pressure, since it appoints Burns ee of the boards nine members, of divestn jaid John Gould, president of AF- his resole FHAPPEN S divestment resolution (Continued from Page 1) developing countries. TWO DAYS after the Bowles speech, student responses to the suggestions began trickling into the offices of the Daily. "Representative Chester Bowles and Senator Kennedy in their speeches to the students of the University of Michigan both em- phasized that disarmament and peace lie to a very great extent in our hands and requested our participation. throughout the world as necessary for the realization of these goals," wrote Alan and Judith Guskin, both Univer- sity graduate students at the time. "In reply to this urgent request, we both hereby state that we would devote a number of years to work in countries where our help is needed, either through the United Nations or through the United States Foreign Service." THE GUSKIN letter turned the trickle into a flood. In the Sunday, Oc- tober 23 edition of the Daily, every let- ter to the editor responded to the new idea. They urged students to get in- volved in the project and to contact both Kennedy and Nixon about the ideas - by telegram if possible. One letter appearing in the Thur- sday, October 27 Daily announced the formation of a group of students who had begun to act on Kennedy's request - Americans Committed to World Responsibility. LOOKING BACK, Guskin recalls how surprised people were when students began acting on Kennedy's idea. "(The campus) was pretty quiet at that time. When the Peace Corps movement got started, there was much surprise," she said. "We didn't just sit around and wait for the President after the election." Americans Committed to World Responsibility began researching and composing what they called "working papers" - outlines that assessed the needs of individual countries. Ob- taining information from foreign students of needy countries, they wrote up plans for what a volunteer could do in a specific country. "It was very exciting that students . were actually taking the initiative to learn what the countries would need," Guskin recalled. AT THE SAME time, the students began contacting both Kennedy and Nixon about the idea and the work they were doing. The idea was too fine to be strangled by partisan politics. Surprisingly, initial contacts failed to yield a serious reaction from either side. Mildred Jeffries, then a committee member of the National Democratic Party, finally made progress for the students. She contacted Sorenson, a Kennedy advisor, who held a national volunteer job. THE NIXON campaign on the other hand wrote the idea off completely, Guskin said. "They called it a kiddie corps and said it was naive." Several factors made Kennedy's idea appealing. "One thingtthat seemed clear was that he wanted to deal with third world countries in a new way,"~ Guskin remembers. "He said it was in our hands. He challenged us..He seemed to have faith in youth." ON NOVEMBER 2, Kennedy for- mally announced the concept of a Peace Corps in San Francisco. The Guskins and other students were contacted by Kennedy aides who asked them if they could meet him back at the Toledo airport to hand in petitions they had circulated. At the airport, Guskin handed Ken- nedy a petition with 800 signatures on it. Her husband asked Kennedy a question. "MY HUSBAND said, 'Are you serious about this?' and he answered, 'Until the election, we will worry about this country. After the election, the world."'% The following December the Guskins and other students lobbied in Washington for the Peace Corps, holding a national conference on the subject at American University. At the conference, the working papers put together by the Michigan students were used, Guskin said. The students' efforts were finally realized on March 1, 1961 when Ken- nedy signed the Executive Order which created the Peace Corps. THE GUSKINS decided to interrupt their doctoral studies at the Univer- sity to spend four years in Thailand. Judith taught English, while Alan started that country's first graduate psychology department. Although she and her husband realized they were taking a risk, the risk was well worth the gains, Guskin. said. "We were aware that career-wise, this may not be the best thing to do," she admitted. "But we felt that par- ticipating in world affairs and also the growth . . . would be too exciting tr turn down." Although the idea of the Peace Cor- ps was not formally announced in Ann Arbor, Guskin said she still thinks the University deserves to be recognized as the birthplace of the movement. "I think Michigan did get~, recognized as the key place for the Peace Corps, primarily because of the student response there," she said. "It was the student response that made it happen." Correction A resolution passed by the EngineeringCoucil Thursday night requested "that MSA restrict its for- mal discussions and statements to issues directly concerning the student body." The wording of the resolution did not include references to MSA's recent resolution to encourage student demonstrations against Vice President George Bush. A story in Friday's Daily incorrectly stated the contents of the Engineering Council resolution. al 2733, which represents 300 ird of the city's employees. has said publicly that his s would support Hunter's in. But his words apparently e unheeded by at least one of the pension board, who fears city workers who con- o the pension fund may sue dfor changing investments. ment for moral or social may not be justifiable, y if reinvestment means a stock dividends, said Alan ty controller and a trustee on d. 'Y employee could sue us for se of action we take ... the are liable," he said. questioned the effectiveness ment as well as its legality. In ution, Hunter wrote that the INGSi mayor and the council ought to "con- demn the systems of apartheid as practiced by the government of South Africa and therefore recommend divestment of the city's retirement fund..." But Burns countered: "We would also be divesting from (firms that are) large Michigan employers, like General Motors. GM is one of the companies that has gone out of its way, to the extent of breaking laws to help (South African) blacks." THE QUESTIONABLE effec- tiveness of divestment was one of several reasons two Republican coun- cilmembers gave for why they will oppose Hunter's resolution tonight. They also said they want to retain the pension board's independence and wonder whether city employees would support divestment. Highlight Vice President George Bush will speak at 2:30 p.m. on the front steps of! Michigan Union in honor of the Peace Corps' 25th anniversary. A sym- posium on "America's Role in Africa's Development: Past and Future" will begin at 9 a.m. in the Rackham Building. Films MTF - Pink Floyd: The Wall, 7 & 9 p.m., Michigan Theater. Performances School of Music - Recitals: organ majors, 3:30 p.m., Blanche Ander- son Moore Hall; organ, Robert Glasgow, 8:30 p.m, Hill Auditorium. Speakers Studies in Religion - Harvey Cox, "Jesus & the Moral Life," 8 p.m., MLB3. Near Eastern & North African Studies - Jay Spaulding, "The Origins of Urban Life in Northern Sudan, 1700-1821," noon, Lane Hall Commons Room. Chemistry - Richard Suenram, "Microwave Spectroscopy Studies at NBS," 4 p.m., Rm. 1200, Chemistry Building. Women's Research Club - Cynthia Bland, "Teaching Grammar in -Medieval England," 7:45 p.m., W. Conference Rm., Rackham. Friends for Mental Health - Lana Pollack, "Problems of Dein- stitutionalization," 7:30 p.m., Meeting room, Ann Arbor Public Library. UAC - John Ehrlichman, "Reflections on White House policy: Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan," 8 p.m., Rackham Auditorium. Meetings Society for Creative Anachronism -7 p.m., East Quad. LSA faculty -4:10 p.m., MLB4. Public Relations Club - 4:15 p.m., Kuenzel Room, Union. Miscellaneous Rackham Student Government - Candidacy forms available at Rackham Student Government Office; Deadline, Oct. 21, Rm. 2006, Rackham. Yearbook Portraits - Walk-in sittings, 9 a.m. to noon, 1 to 6 p.m., Student Publications Building, 420 Maynard Street. CRLT - Workshop, Alfred Storey, "Speaking Skills," 7 to 9 p.m., 109 E. Madison St. Guild House Campus Ministry - Reading, 8 p.m., 802 Monroe St. HRD - Workshop, Catherine Lilly, Improving Your Listening Skills, 1 to 4:30 p.m., Ostafin Room, West Quad. Guild House Campus Ministry - Reading, Lonnie Hull & David Schaaf- sma, 8 p.m., 802 Monroe Street. Conmntina Center - Workshon Christine Wendt. Laura Bollettino & lye us our. 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