Grads take Jesuit values to heart

By Caroline Vaughan

According to Santa Clara's Mission Statement, "student learning takes place at the undergraduate and graduate level in an educational environment that integrates rigorous inquiry and scholarship, creative imagination, reflective engagement with society, and a commitment to fashioning a more humane and just world."

According to a survey done by the Office of Institutional Research, one quarter of the class of 2004 strove to fulfill that mission when they indicated that they would be engaged in some volunteer work upon graduation. There are currently 21 alumni volunteers in the Peace Corps alone, ranking Santa Clara first in California and 11th nationally among small universities in the number of alumni serving in the Peace Corps.

But the work of Santa Clara graduates is not limited to the Peace Corps. Armored with Jesuit ideals, many have previously, are presently or currently plan to volunteer full-time after graduation.

"Santa Clara students are leaders that act with conscience, and who are genuinely compassionate toward others," university President Paul Locatelli, S. J., said in response to the ranking.

For Melissa Peterson, who graduated in 2002 and completed a two-year program with Teach for America, the reasons for her decision were the ideals she learned at Santa Clara. With what she considered a privileged education, she didn't want to look back and think of social justice as something she studied in class.

For others, like junior resident peer minister Chris Fisher, service through the faith-based Jesuit Volunteer Core is an opportunity to "take the focus off materialism and be able to learn something more valuable."

Senior Erin Stratta sees service as an opportunity in the real world before she locks herself into seven years of medical school.

"In college, our lives are so oriented around the four years here, but two years is a blip in the course of our lives," she said.

Those two years are the commitment required by the Peace Corps of its volunteers. Teach for America and Jesuit Volunteer Corps also require minimum commitments of at least one year. But getting to that commitment point begins way beyond arrival to one of the 72 countries of which the Peace Corps serves. First applicants like Stratta go through a lengthy application process, beginning with a 32-page online application asking for everything from previous volunteer work and job experience to criminal background combined with essays.

Once the first application is accepted, a packet arrives, which includes required references and finger prints. After approval, there is a personal interview in which the sponsor from the San Francisco office delves into one's family's feelings about the experience to relationship status, and ultimately gauges the commitment level and the appropriate placement on the individual level.

If the applicant makes it through all of these steps, they are nominated and the recruiter presents their application to the country that proves an appropriate match. These spaces in the programs fill within hours due to high demand, and preferred spots are extremely difficult to find.

Before the nomination can go through, each applicant must complete a physical, which Stratta claims requires the doctor to check "every crevice of your body." Cowell Health Center reserved a solid two-hour slot just for her exam. Finally, the nomination period can take three to six months, at which point the decision is entirely in the hands of the country being served. When an applicant is selected by a country, there is a very limited amount of time before he or she must commit. Throughout the entire process the application status can be checked online.

"The process is difficult on purpose because they only want people who are really serious," Stratta said.

Peterson's commitment process to teach for America was entirely different. Following a two-minute blurb on Oprah, a bored Peterson decided it wouldn't hurt to fill out the application. Unsure of her future beyond graduation, she had not looked into teaching, much less in the rural area of North Carolina. But when her acceptance letter arrived, she decided to go.

Two and a half years later, she is in law school at University of Oregon hoping to study criminal law. She feels that her time teaching left her and her fellow teachers, who included many Ivy League graduates (Teach for America was founded by Princeton graduate Wendy Kopp), with a will to affect change on a broader level after having seen what the effects were on the smaller level. She was asked for a hall pass on her first day by a fellow teacher, but became a confident teacher who feels she has proved herself.

Graduates' reasons for choosing to volunteer vary, and the programs they participate in are diverse. Some are looking for a program directly affiliated with their faith, which draws them to the Jesuit Volunteer Core (JVC). JVC works within the United States, placing volunteers in hundreds of non-profit, often grass roots, organizations, providing services for low-income people and those on the margins of society, including the homeless, the unemployed, refugees, people with AIDS, the elderly, street youth, abused women and children, the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled.

For others, Peace Corps or Teach for America feel more appealing. To help discern the most appropriate program, the Career Center hosted a Volunteer Service Discovery Fair last November, bringing in alumni who have participated in a full-time service program after college.

For more information, contact the Career Center or reference the Peace Corps Web site at www.peacecorps.gov, the Jesuit Volunteer Web site at www.jesuitvolunteers.org or the Teach for America Web site at www.teachforamerica.org.

* Contact Caroline Vaughan at (408) 554-4546 or cvaughan@scu.edu.