BU World: “An Education I Couldn’t Get Back Home”

Boston University extends far beyond the Charles River Campus — fromstudents and alums studying overseas to faculty research in developingcountries. This week, we look at BU’s presence — in scholarship and inservice — around the world.

For the past several months, Peace Corps volunteer Nancy Ringel has lived in a mud hut in Lengwe, a tiny village in the southern African country of Zambia. She is a 14-hour bus ride from the country’s capital of Lusaka, 120 miles from the nearest grocery store, and 20 miles from the closest post office. Her village has no cell phone service, no Internet access, and no automobiles. She relies on her bicycle for transportation.

Despite the isolation, she is enthusiastic about what she is doing. “Just being around the people in my village has been more inspiring than anything I’ve ever experienced,” says Ringel (CAS’07). “My neighbors work so hard and struggle through so much to survive, yet they never hesitate to give me their food or invite me into their homes. Their generosity and kindness remind me that good still exists in the world.”

Ringel is among the 60 Boston University graduates who currently serve in the Peace Corps, making BU one of the top-ranked schools in the country for producing Peace Corps volunteers. A recent report by the Peace Corps ranked BU 11th in the country for schools with 15,000 or more students, and among graduate schools it is tied for 3rd place, behind only the University of Washington and the University of Michigan.

“Boston University has a rich tradition of community service, as well as a large international population and international programs both on and off campus,” says Urbain DeWinter, associate provost for international programs. “So BU’s high rankings among Peace Corps volunteers only makes sense.”

The University is the only private institution listed among the top 25 large schools. Most of the others are public universities, such as Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin, which DeWinter says were land-grant schools founded on the basis of community outreach. “It’s not surprising they produce students who go on to the Peace Corps,” he says. “It’s a feather in BU’s cap that we have the largest number of students from a major private institution, and it speaks even more highly of the kind of students we produce.”

Ringel, an undergraduate biology major, was a volunteer program administrator at BU’s Community Service Center, and is now a health extension volunteer, working collaboratively with the Peace Corps and the Zambian Ministry of Health to implement HIV prevention programs in rural communities. Projects include teaching HIV-prevention methods, encouraging HIV testing, and promoting healthy lifestyles.

“While my life here is exotic and incredible in many ways, it’s also much more challenging than anything I ever faced back home,” Ringel says. “It’s emotionally taxing to witness the hardships Zambians face every day, physically taxing to constantly combat illness, and mentally taxing to come up with creative and sustainable ways to tackle the nation’s enormous HIV problem. But the challenges are also the reason I love it here —every day I’m learning something and growing as a person. It’s an education I could have never gotten back home, and I value it very much.”

Peace Corps applicants must be over age 18 and be a U.S. citizen. For more information, click here. To apply, click here.

Vicky Waltz can be reached at vwaltz@bu.edu.

This story originally appeared February 13, 2008.