Lessons From a Life of Peace Corps Service
UMD Alumna and Former Peace Corps Director Reflects on the Importance of Building Global Relationships Based on Trust
College of Education Dean Kimberly Griffin (left) hosts Jody Olsen Ph.D. '79 for a discussion Friday about her recent memoir, “A Million Miles: My Peace Corps Journey.”
Photo by Tatiana Herrera
In 1966, Jody Olsen Ph.D. ’79 joined the Peace Corps as a young newlywed, yearning to explore places very different from the conservative Mormon community in Utah where she grew up. She soon did at her first posting in Tunisia, spending time daily with a Muslim extended family and learning about their views on patriarchy, elders and in-home religious ceremonies as they built a deep friendship.
It was the beginning of a career in the Peace Corps spanning six decades, culminating with her service as director from 2018 to 2021. Now chair of the University of Maryland College of Education’s Board of Visitors, she returned to campus last week to lead a conversation on mentorship with Dean Kimberly Griffin and to discuss her recent memoir, “A Million Miles: My Peace Corps Journey.”
This is Peace Corps Week (Feb. 23-Mar. 1), celebrating the independent government agency that promotes world peace and friendship and community-based development by integrating U.S. volunteers into communities around the globe. Olsen in an interview reflected on how the Peace Corps changed the way she views the world and herself, the commonalities she discovered across vastly different cultures, and how building relationships grounded in trust and respect can change communities and save lives.
What made you dedicate so much of your career to the Peace Corps?
I changed fundamentally as a Peace Corps volunteer because all I believed in was challenged. I learned not to think my way was the only right way but to understand and respect other traditions. In that process, I had to listen, be curious and be part of other people’s lives. I wanted to make it possible for others to have that kind of life-changing experience. The communities in which volunteers serve also give back and change. It becomes an exchange.
How did your early experiences as a volunteer lay the groundwork for the rest of your Peace Corps career?
It taught me to be humble. When you come in as director, you get assistants and a big office, and people call you Director Olsen. I always remembered that every staff person knew that I, too, had used a latrine at some point in my life.
Olsen relaxes with local friends and Peace Corps volunteers in Senegal. (Photo courtesy of Jody Olsen '79)
Shortly after earning your Ph.D. in human development from UMD, you became Peace Corps country director in Togo, West Africa. How did your experiences at UMD help you adjust to that role?
I was going through culture shock. As country director, I didn’t get to spend time with the community, so I decided to interview older people in villages on the Togo/Ghana border. Their answers about life satisfaction were so close to the older people I interviewed in Baltimore for my dissertation research. The complexity of their lives, joy and sadness was almost identical.
As chief of staff from 1989 to 1992, you helped expand the Peace Corps to many European countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What did you learn about the value of democracy?
In an orphanage in Romania, there were empty white walls everywhere. The headmaster said, “We’ve taken down all the pictures of our former leaders, the Ceaușescus, but we don't know what to put up.” Then he said, “Our minds are empty. We’re now finding, person by person, what to put in our minds.” I was just so taken by that—that under democracy, they were discovering that they could put in their minds what was important to them and they could share that with others. It took being there for me to understand that we cannot take that for granted.
How did the Peace Corps’ emphasis on integrating volunteers into their communities help keep volunteers safe around the world after the 9/11 attacks?
After 9/11, armies were pulling out guns, and embassies were building walls. We knew that our program would die if we did that because our goals are based on being in a community.
Congress was very nervous. As deputy director, I went to a Congressional hearing with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez around 2002. A congressman gave an example: “Joanna is all by herself in a village in Niger. She isn’t safe.” Gaddi said, “All by herself? There’s 600 other people there. That’s her family.” We communicated that our safety and security was about trust and respect in a community. That was the antithesis of the way other agencies had approached that issue.
You evacuated all 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers from 61 countries at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—an unprecedented act. How did you make that decision?
As COVID got worse, every country director was getting word from the foreign ministers that they were going to have to close their borders. The foreign ministers didn’t call the embassies; they called the Peace Corps because we had each other’s trust. They knew the volunteers, and they wanted to take care of the volunteers first.
It was the most difficult decision I made in my life, but I knew it was the right decision.
Hundreds of thousands of people came forward in those days to ensure that volunteers got home safely. You have to build communication and honesty with each other over time because you don’t know when you’re going to need each other. We needed them, and they were there.
What’s your proudest accomplishment from your Peace Corps career?
I’m proud of how 240,000 volunteers, including myself, have become part of communities all over the world. After the Peace Corps had been in Namibia for a year, I asked the minister of education what he’d noticed so far. He said, “The greatest gift you’ve given us is that we’ve never had a foreigner speak our own Indigenous language before now. You respect us.” That’s what I’m most proud of.
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