Peace in the nation's service

Mike McCabe GS ’94 directs Peace Corps programming, while Nwando Diallo GS ’94 and J. Alex Boston III GS ’93 are country directors. Several other alumni, including Jay Katzen ’58 — the former regional director for Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia — have recently stepped down from top posts.

Career pathways in the Peace Corps are often circuitous — in part because of a rule that normally bars members from serving more than five years consecutively. But these alumni have nonetheless found themselves in leadership positions of one of the largest development organizations in the world.

Corps volunteers commit 27 months to the Peace Corps and are routinely assigned to the most rural villages of underdeveloped nations to serve the villagers according to their individual needs. They learn the local language during 90 days of training prior to embarking on their missions, and they live with villagers to experience local culture.

The alumni all said they were moved by their experiences in the far corners of the world.

“The Peace Corps is exactly where no one else is,” Diallo said.

Katzen said that joining the Peace Corps was a natural choice.

“I wanted to spend more time towards the end of my professional career serving my country,” he said. The chance to administer 19 Peace Corps programs in different countries “seemed like a wonderful opportunity, so I jumped at it,” Katzen explained.

As country directors, Boston and Diallo assist and support volunteers, making sure that everyone is “safe and healthy,” Diallo said.

Joining the corps

The four alumni noted that their University experiences influenced their decision to join the Peace Corps.

“What I got from the Woodrow Wilson School were critical and analytical skills to look at a problem, think outside the box, look at the available resources and decide how to apply them,” Diallo said.

Like Boston and McCabe, Diallo earned a master’s degree in public affairs from the Wilson School.

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“The Woodrow Wilson School has played an important role in my commitment to public service,” Boston noted.

McCabe said he initially wanted to volunteer for the Peace Corps in Mexico after graduating college. But because the Peace Corps did not have a program there, he decided to find another path to Mexico, putting the Peace Corps on hold.

“When I came out of college, I knew I wanted to do two years of service,” he said, so he volunteered for a variety of service organizations, including UNICEF. Nine years ago, McCabe joined the Peace Corps as deputy director for the Dominican Republic, the position he held until becoming chief of programming four years ago.

Diallo, on the other hand, said that she only considered joining the Peace Corps long after graduation. Armed with her MPA, Diallo joined the Carter Center in Atlanta to work on African disease eradication efforts. There, she noticed that “a lot of people who were instrumental” in the organization’s work were Peace Corps volunteers. After working for the Carter Center for 10 years, Diallo applied to the Peace Corps as an administrator.

Like Diallo, Boston ended up in the Peace Corps after a stint in another service organization. While working as the director of homeless services in Boston, a few of his interns who were former Peace Corps volunteers suggested that he apply to be a Peace Corps country director.

All four alumni expressed continued interest in public service after their Peace Corps careers. After leaving the Peace Corps in January 2009, Katzen took time off to travel and is now “trying to get back in the mix,” he said. “Even with my age, I want very much to continue in that public service aspect. Hopefully I’ll be able to continue doing that overseas.”

McCabe will be leaving his post in June, but he said he hopes to return to work at the Peace Corps as a country director in the future.

Katzen noted that some of his favorite memories from working in the Peace Corps are those involving the volunteers.

“There were several stories that I think about often — each one involves what I would call a ‘hero volunteer,’ ” he said. Katzen cited as examples volunteers who sang songs in Mongolia at temperatures below 30 degrees Fahrenheit and volunteers in Moldova orphanages who served as role models for the children there.

“I was so impressed by the quality of the work [the volunteers] were doing ... changing lives,” Katzen said. “The only thing I would enjoy more is to be a Peace Corps volunteer myself.”

Diallo encouraged more Princeton students to apply to the Peace Corps.

“I think the work is really fulfilling,” she said. “It is really the best of both worlds. You get to serve and also get to see the world and meet new people and learn about their cultures.”

She also appealed to students’ knack for work.

“It’s the toughest job you’ll ever love,” she said.

Staff writer Sean Wu contributed reporting.