EUGENE, Ore. -- (Jan. 25, 2012) -- The University of Oregon has jumped nine spots to place No. 10 on the 2012 Peace Corps Top Colleges rankings. The UO currently has 79 undergraduate alumni serving in the Peace Corps.
Other Pac-12 institutions include University of Colorado Boulder in first place; University of Washington in second place; University of California, Los Angeles in sixth place; and University of California, Berkeley in ninth place. The University of Arizona and Arizona State place behind UO at 13th and 19th, respectively.
One UO alumnus Matthew Kolbis serving as a community environmental management volunteer in Peru.
“I am currently working with an eco-club at the primary school that I started in the town where I live,” Kolb said. “The eco-club focuses on trash management and reforestation, among other things. The teacher of the class and I try to plan environmentally themed projects each month.”
The UO has placed as high as sixth place in 2007 and 2008 and as low as 19th in 2011. The UO has never fallen out of the top 20 since the Peace Corps Top Colleges rankings began in 2003.
The Peace Corps has top college rankings for large, medium and small colleges and universities, and graduate schools. The UO placed in the large colleges and universities category, which includes schools with more than 15,000 undergraduates. The top college rankings are calculated based on fiscal year 2011 data as of Sept. 30, 2011, as self-reported by Peace Corps volunteers.
The top 25 rankings for each school size category, and the all-time and graduate school rankings can be found on the Peace Corps website.
The Peace Corps’ nine regional recruiting offices across the United States work to recruit and provide information and guidance to prospective volunteers. Applicants are encouraged to apply for Peace Corps service one year in advance of their targeted departure date. Americans with backgrounds in agriculture, environment, teaching English as a second language, and other technical or language skills related to Peace Corps assignment areas are encouraged to apply.
For more information about volunteering with the Peace Corps, contact Hannah Klausman, UO Peace Corps representative at Pcorps@uoregon.edu or attend the upcoming info session on campus at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 2 in Gerlinger Hall, room 202.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
MEDIA CONTACT: Julie Brown, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu
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