>> the peace corps is celebrating its 50th anniversary. the current director joins former directors to talk about what they learned it. from harvard university, this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> a story of a long-awaited return to a place where generations of had a history of making a difference. president kennedy challenge to america's young people to help people in need, promote good will over the world. that challenge became the peace corps. tonight our story comes from sierra leone, where a brutal civil war forced the peace corps to pull out over a decade ago. tonight, ron allen has the story of the first u.s. volunteers to venture back in. >> jessica now does without so many things she took for granted in new hampshire. she draws on well water for a mornings in a bucket shower. breakfast is a fried chicken. away fromrd being home. waking up and thinking, i want starbucks. >> she is among 37 u.s. peace corps volunteers in sierra leone. a desperately poor nation, devastated by civil war, that so dangerous even the peace corps pulled out. 15 years later, the first american trainees are back, learning a local language, preparing to be teachers in schools so ravaged students often do not even have books or pencils. scotts order was a firefighter in northern california. >> when things are hard, they are good, and that is what the peace corps is about. >> the most important step is learning to live like the people they are here to serve. >> i wanted to be in a situation where i could when my skills to people who need it. there is no better place than here. >> he has his positions in missing quote -- his possessions in a single room. no running water, just a few comforts of home. >> this is a basic. bare minimum. >> they first came together in washington this summer. mcchrystal a program as a civilian embassadors launched bike -- recruits to a program as civilian embassadors launched by president kennedy. leaders here hope the arrival of the americans send a clear signal to the rest of the world that this country is peaceful, save, and moving forward. over the years, volunteers have left a lasting impression. he is an accounting here with fond memories of an american teacher from 40 years ago. what would you say to him? >> thank you. >> it is the warm welcome that they believe will help them through the tough days ahead, including the drudgery of laundry. show me your knuckles. >> my war wounds. >> we are not going to turn the country around, develop it, but if we can teach kids. >> you are a little part. >> they are carrying on what has been a tradition and adventure for a young americans lending a hand in far flung corners of the world. >> and because they are carrying on a great tradition, in almost 50 years since the peace corps started, more than 200k00,000 americans have served in 139 countries. you can see a gallery of the photographs and submit your around at nbc.com. that is our broadcast for this wednesday night. thank you for being here with us. i am brian williams. we hope to see you back here tomorrow evening. good night. [applause] >> good evening and thank you for coming. i am mary jo bane, the academic dean at the kennedy school, and i am delighted to welcome you to tonight's event. the john f. kennedy for at the kennedy school is celebrating a number of evens in honor of the 50th anniversary of john f. kennedy's presidency, and tonight is one of those events. we are celebrating the fact that 50 years ago this week president kennedy announced the formation of the peace corps. we have with us tonight the current director of the peace corps and three past directors of the peace corps. they cover four administrations and about 20 years of the peace corps's history. the hon. elaine chao was director of the peace corps from 1991 to 1992, during the first bush administration. she went on to become the secretary of labor in the second bush and administration, and she was the longest serving secretary of labor since '05, and the first asian american woman in the cabinet. she is a distinguished fellow at the heritage foundation. mark gearen was director of the peace corps between 1995 and 1999. before that, he was a director of communications for the clinton white house. since 1999, he has been the president of hobart and william smith college. gaddi vasquez was director of the peace corps between 2002 and 2006, during the second bush administration. before that, he worked at the securities and exchange commission and worked in politics in california. he is currently vice president for public affairs at southern california edison. aaron williams is the current director of the peace corps. he came to the peace corps directorship from all long career and development with us aid. he was a peace corps volunteer in the dominican republic back in the late 1960's. director williams asked that we begin our evening tonight by observing a moment of silence in honor and respect for a peace corps volunteer who passed away while serving in niger and a few days ago. her name was stephanie camp, and our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends. thank you for that. and now we will start the evening by thinking back 50 years ago this week, when president kennedy was at the university of michigan and, late at night, doing what you will see. >> how many of you are willing to spend your days -- as technicians or engineers? how many of you are willing to work in the foreign service? on your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, i think will depend the answer for another our free society can succeed. i think it can. and i think americans are willing to contribute. [inaudible] >> so, i was a peace corps volunteer in liberia between 1963 and 1965. i was in liberia when president kennedy was assassinated. and as i look back on that experience in my own life, i can say that without question it changed my life. it expanded the world for me. it introduced me to public service. it set me on the path to the career i have had up until this time. those of us who were in live. at that time were mostly teaching, teaching in elementary and secondary schools -- those of us who were in liberia at the time. as i look back on that, i think that we did no harm. i think we talked a lot of children. i think we were pretty good ambassadors for the united states of america -- we talked a lot of children. we probably helped keep the president in office for an additional couple of years -- we taught a lot of children. that may not have been a good thing. we went in with the idealism to change the world and came out with a better sense of what it was. so that is one volunteers reflection back. you guys have been more recent and have had much broader experience, so i am hoping you would start us off by each taking a few minutes to speak briefly about the role of the peace corps in the lives of volunteers, in the lives of the nation, and in the lives of the world. >> i was not a volunteer. in fact my successor in 1993 was the first peace corps director who was a returned peace corps volunteer, and that was a big deal with the agency, because the returned peace corps volunteers wanted of returned peace corps volunteer to be a director. i think my experience was, as a director, was a very enlightening one for me as well. i learned so much about the world, even though i myself have had a very diverse background. just to sidetrack a little bit, one of the reasons i never became a volunteer was because i was an immigrant to this country. my formative years were spent in trying to survive in this country. so i did not really understand that there were all these other opportunities, institutions that were available. and also, i was the oldest of six children. as a new immigrant family, it was my responsibility to help my parents support my younger sisters. but my experience coming as an immigrant was helpful in my experience as a peace corps director when we tried to recruit, because we have underrepresentation in certain racial and ethnic groups, and we tried to find why that was happening. a lot of times there were a lot of new immigrants -- the ability to forgo income for two years was simply a luxury that not many could afford. so that was helpful, in terms of testing our message to attract a more diverse work force. there are some wonderful people here. i do not want to take too much time. one of my most vivid memories when i travelled abroad is how much i learned from the volunteers and how enthusiastic they were, and how each one of them, regardless if they had good or bad experience, have all said that the two year or more experienced was a seminal part of their lives. their whole perception of the world changed. sometimes a volunteers were disappointed that they could not do more to contribute to improving a country. what i tell them is, you as a single volunteer may not see the fruits of your labor, but i get the chance to travel throughout the world and to see the collective work of volunteers, almost a generation after generation, spread across the world, and the picture that i seek is a powerful picture of young young americans who are willing to devote their lives to a country they have never been to, to a place they have never seen, to people they have never known, and try to help, and that is a powerful statement. >> thank you very much for having us. like ever went up here, i think we have all been thinking this week about the 50 years of the peace corps and what that would mean. to your question, i have thought of the domestic dividends. i think elaine reflected well about the difference for an individual peace corps volunteer, for the difference they make in communities around the world. i think one thing to put into the mix of our conversation is the domestic dividend, and what it means for our country, as brian williams reported. there now are 200,000 americans to have had this experience. when i was director, there were six members of congress who had been peace corps volunteers -- three republicans, three democrats. perfect. you see it everywhere. people have gone on to lives of consequence in business and law and medicine, all whole range of fields. it is with excitement that we gather here for the 50th. one thing to kick off, i think it may be time for those of us who care about the peace corps and certainly when you think about -- president kennedy did the bold idea, but really executed by sargent shriver, to cast an unflinching eye at the peace corps today. we should scale up with more volunteers and more funding, as director williams is trying to do. more americans want to do it then is allowed for. we should look at the length of service. is it one size fits all? with more americans coming to the peace corps with different experiences. should we look at the use of technology? sargent shriver and went up to me with the first peace corps volunteers, they were sending cards back home and -- postcards back home and getting answers every six months. the world has changed. more partnerships. we've created ngo's and groups around the world. how do we expand international volunteer service? as we celebrate the 50th, i think shriver and kennedy would be urging us to think in different ways for how we honor the legacy of those 200,000 volunteers. for the past, for future volunteers, a ticket to the next 50 years. for my part, it was a privilege of a lifetime to be the director of the peace corps. i think we would all agree with that. it is something that -- i am excited to be able to reflect with you on this conversation. >> i will build on what mark said with regard to serving as director of the peace corps was an opportunity of a lifetime. it was transforming for me because it gave me the opportunity to lead and manage an organization of volunteers and professional staff who embraced fully the bold idea tha t president kennedy articulated. subsequent to my duties as director of the peace corps, i served as ambassador to the united nations organizations and roll up from 2006 to 2009, where we dealt principally with food and agricultural policy during the global food crisis. and as i traveled the world dealing with these new issues, it was always a bit astounding to me that wherever i traveled, the fact that i did then the director of the peace corps, even in countries where the peace corps did not have the existing programs, have left such a meaningful and powerful legacy, not only in capital cities and amongst the ranks of leaders of government, but amongst community leaders and people at the grassroots, people who still remember the impact of americans serving in these communities. i will never forget my first trip overseas was to afghanistan shortly after the bombing had ceased, and we were meeting with the administer of women's affairs in kabul, which you can imagine is a formidable task. the minister spoke a great english. and i said to her, you speak great english. where did you get your training? she said to me, i was taught english by peace corps volunteers. those other kinds of special moments that, when you have these encounters, you realize the powerful legacy of the dividend that has been talked about internationally, where presidents and prime ministers were touched by americans in these rural villages anda have left that legacy. as an ambassador, i had the opportunity to interact with chiefs of mission. i just met with a gathering of former u.s. ambassadors in texas. many of them said, i was a peace corps volunteer. one many leaders around the world are making an impact and making a distance. all of the first director of the peace corps post-9/11. my wife looked at me and said, "are you sure you want to take this job? this is going to be a tall order." she wondered if americans might turn away from the idea of going overseas in the aftermath of 9/11. a few communications and press media folks conducted interviews with me as the first director after 9/11. they said surely you must be concerned that americans may not want to go overseas as peace corps volunteers. ladies and gentleman, i am pleased to tell you that the numbers of applicants skyrocketed to historic levels. the interest in the peace corps escalated in a dramatic fashion. and i think it speaks volumes about the american spirit and the willingness that we are not content to just be spectators. in effect, we want to be participants and shape our world and our nation, the future of this world. but also the fact that americans young and old are seeking the opportunity to advance the idea that president kennedy articulate it. and 50 years later, it remains a bold and strong ideal. i have always believed that one of the tests of a great idea is its sustainability. and if the journey of 50 years is a test, we are in a great place for the peace corps to do even greater things in the years and generations to come. thank you. >> what a wonderful introduction from a director. i find it is a privilege to say that i have worked for the peace corps, acting having -- after having served as a volunteer in the peace corps. i never imagined i would be someone with the opportunity to do this. i have been a beneficiary of able to establish volunteers throughout this tenure. i have been in 18 countries. let me share what i consider to be one of the great, great success stories of the peace corps. when i go to the country, typically a will meet with the ambassador in the country. often, the embassador or some of the staff are former peace corps volunteers. i will see the government officials, the minister of health, the minister of education. in their early years, they had a positive experience as a peace corps volunteer. i want to talk about what i just saw last week in our very first peace corps country. i had business with our volunteers in education and health and information technology and small business to the element, etc. i will run into the heads of various international ngos doing great work in the field. they also are peace corps alumnus. we have this great net -- this great nexus 50 years later, which is a testimony to president kennedy, and the people who find the best way to find places for these volunteers to serve. i was in gonna last week. , was our first country -- ghana was our first country. 10 months after kennedy spoke, the first group went to ghana. by any stretch of the imagination of government, that is miraculous. [laughter] we have all had experiences with initiatives that did not launch that fast. we have had 50 years of uninterrupted service in ghana. i had a chance to meet with the leadership in government, the private sector, the nonprofits, and society. every man and woman told me they had had a very positive, seminal experience, a life changing experience, with a peace corps volunteer. this is an incredible testimony for what the peace corps has done and the service america has provided in a country like ghana. everywhere you go, you see remarkable americans dedicated to service, who are patient, who are innovative, who are making a difference at the grass-roots level. they are working in the community, side by side. the peace corps volunteer might be the only american these communities will ever have the opportunity to get to know face to face, the true face of america. it is americans working in these places. the volunteers go there. we need to grow because more americans want to serve. as we grow the peace corps, we want to make sure we invest in training, staff, and support for volunteers. we are doing that. fortunately, the peace corps has always enjoyed bipartisan support. we continue to enjoy that support marvelously. i think that one of the things we need to do to build on the legacy of john f. kennedy and the marvelous dynamic leadership of the shriver is that we need to look for ways to expand the peace corps. this year, we moved into indonesia, sierra leone, and columbia -- colombia, three countries that were part of the kennedy-shriver legacy. will continue to expand. the peace corps on the 50th anniversary gives us a tremendous mandate from the american people. i always told my staff and the people i talked to about the 50th anniversary. it is not so much an opportunity for us to pat ourselves on the back and say look how much we gave and how much we received. it is too late to let america celebrate the singular opportunity, this wonderful idea that president kennedy launched 50 years ago, october 15. look at what it has wrought. it is a truly major performance that has affected many. >> i want to ask a couple of questions about the effect of the peace corps, and then i want to pick up on mark's question about the future. let me ask you this question. many of you have spoken, as i did, about the effect of the peace corps on the peace corps volunteers, and on training a country -- trimming a cadre of people who make contributions in other ways. let me ask you to speak more specifically. i would like to start with you, director williams. you came out of the aid community and came to the peace corps from working with usaid. what has the peace corps contributed, positively and negatively, to the development effort in africa, in some of the less developed countries of the world? then i hope others will come in on that question. >> i think the most important thing the peace corps has contributed to the development process, and one thing that is important to the development process -- it is a generation presses. the revolution took place in 1960. we need to reinvest in security worldwide. that is current in terms of development. the peace corps has always worked at the grass-roots level, the community level, in terms of developing capacity, inspiring young people to get an education, to take on leadership responsibility. i think that is the important factor in what the peace corps provides in terms of recipient countries, in terms of how americans can interact on a global basis. that is a bottom-line accomplishment, one of the greatest investments we can hope to achieve. it is developing capacity at the local level. for example, whether we are working in health or education, we are trainer's of people. we are the ones who are trying to make sure we extend the hands of the community working on their priorities, because we have to be invited into a country, and we work our national priorities. to me, that ishe most important thing we do. >> the important thing is that the peace corps has to remain relevant. part of that, as the director has alluded to, is that you have to have a willingness to adapt development programs that help the peace corps in a host country. you have to be invited. during my tenure as, there was a program in mexico, which was a first in the history of the peace corps. it required delicate negotiations so the program was acceptable to the host government. it had to be relevant and a little bit out of the box to what the peace corps have traditionally done calling in to countries. this is what the government of mexico and representatives of the government were looking for. you have to be constantly assessing and raquel betting the programs throughout the peaceful world and to assure they are relevant, pertinent, and that it is not only yielding a positive for those countries. frankly, the volunteers in their service have to walk away with a sense of fulfillment, a sense of accomplishment, which in turn creates another recruiter for the peace corps once you come back to the united states and begin to readjust to home life. so i think those are critically important. i think the training component is very, very important, the component of trading in a country to peace corps volunteers. it is very relevant. volunteers want to feel they are well suited, well-trained, well- equipped to do their jobs, so there is a feeling of fulfillment and sustainability when difficult times come. i think any volunteer would tell you this challenges come earlier than later sometimes. that is very important. i think the relevance. i think in terms of what is negative, i will not name names, but i will simply say that some of the most agonizing episodes of our time, and i am not sure it is negative, but it can be viewed as negative, is when you have to make a decision about pulling out of the country. there are various reasons to pull out of the country. it can be security, emerging conflict, political stability. it can be a painful decision. at the end of the day, it is the director who is responsible to make the decision. particularly in countries where you have countries to find, as the leader of the agencies, you have to clear in your decision making and you have to be willing to articulate to the host country why you have to close, suspend, or modify a program in order to not damage, frankly, the great effort you have built over 10, 20, 30 years that has to be pulled for an anticipated exposure. those exposures have to be booked at very carefully. >> i do not think there is any question the peace corps has been a force for tremendous good, and in terms of development. we are fortunate to have aaron as a director. he has extraordinary experience amongst all the directors. we have all seen it in anecdotes. the challenge though it is in the work of development by its nature. it has a very long time horizon. we are driven by the constant assessment, having quarterly reports, but the metrics used for approving new work. and afterwards, with public money, that is important. but i would put a bit of a marker in the conundrum of the peace corps. that is how you measure it in this way. we all of a story similar to this one. when i went to kenya after the bombings in 1995, i spoke to the minister of education. he said, "the first american i ever met and the best teachers i ever had was my peace corps teacher." i went back to my office and looked him up. he was in south massachusetts. i told him stories on the phone. he said, "i will have to look at the picture. there were 62 kids in my class." here is the development question. when the measure the success of that peace corps volunteer? is it after his 27 months of service? or is it 30 years later, in this random encounter with a peace corps director and a minister of education? this is not to say that we should not assess and measure. course we should. but there is by definition an important matter which should hold on to in terms of the peace corps. that is the personal element or the bonds of friendship. that is one of the key goals in that transference. that is a very good question. >> is the teacher the peace corps teacher? >> i am a big believer in workers up out of a job. >> in a globalized economy in which we work and live, we need to have a better understanding of people across the world, outside of our borders. and it is important that they understand us. i never met a white person until i came to america. and i had no impressions. but i do remember we would hear stories about this all the time. i remember seeing peace corps volunteers. but i never met them. so in this world wide economy which we are now such active participants in, we need to understand how other people think and what their cultural background is, their philosophical outlook. the question is a very important one which i alluded to in my opening remarks. that is peace corps volunteers are very often type eight types. they want to have accomplishments under their belt. they are anxious to get things going. i tell them, "you are a participant, a catalyst, a facilitator in this whole fabric of activity that is going on in the world. you may not be able to see the product of your labor, but i do, at least a larger part did you do." i think that gives a lot of comfort to volunteers. there is not only the geographical expands but the temporal expense of time. you can see what volunteers do. and they do this in very modest one on one achievements, which is really soeartwarming. because that is how volunteers make progress. they reach each part, one heart by one heart. if i may, i will say two other things, one positive and one-. i am always so impressed with how fluent volunteers become in the language of their country. and we have the best course of- speakers from these volunteers, most of whom are young. they pick up the language like that. i went to hungary in 1991. hungarian is a very difficult and which. the volunteers in hungary said there were volunteers there who are amazingly good hungarian speakers. we have now people who can speak another language, who understand the culture. when i went to russia, i was amazed by the can-do attitude that peace corps volunteers in fused to the people that had just emerged from the heavy yoke of totalitarianism, who felt their spirits were crushed. this was 1991. they felt they could not do anything on their own. yet we had this wonderful young people from america who would tell these former russians, ukrainians, albanians -- albania was not a part of the former soviet union, but it was behind the iron curtain. people at the republics of the former soviet union would find they could have control over their lives, that they can start a new business if they wanted to, and that things will come together. i think the can-do attitude is another very wonderful thing. i will say if there is anything negative, it is that sometimes cultures are hard. different cultures are very embedded and very, very complex. and sometimes, you know, we introduce a new element. and i think we need to be careful of unintended consequences when we go into a society and tried to encourage them, inspire them to do all sorts of different things. there might be unintended consequences as well. >> interesting. let me ask if any of you would like to speak to the role of the peace corps in the foreign- policy of the united states. we were always being asked if we were spies. ghter] we were not, at least as far as i know. [laughter] some of that still goes on, but we were also, as volunteers, kind of been contrasted with the folks in the gated communities of the embassy. that was when i decided i did not want to be a foreign service officer. i wonder if any of you would like to speak to the role that the peace corps plays in the foreign policy of the united states. >> i think we have a wonderful by president obama for americans to serve both internationally and domestically. the peace corps is a response to that call. that is an important part of our foreign policy. i think that various countries seek peace corps volunteers working within their community, shoulder to shoulder, living under the same conditions the average person in those villages live. that gives them a perspective on america that could not gain any other way. this is a tremendous experience. everywhere i travel, we have seen this time and time again. i think the other thing that is important is that peace corps is an independent agency, but our biggest supporters and cheerleaders are the u.s. ambassador around the world. they recognize the balance here -- they recognize the value of peace corps volunteers. they do everything to make sure the have the space to do the great jobs they are doing in all the sectors where we work. and that is really remarkable, i think. when you look at our partnerships with the government, with the nonprofit sector, with the business community, look at the way we develop young leaders in the countries where we surf, and that we give americans a chance to engage and develop leadership skills that will be so important to our nation in this global connection that we all talk about, i think this is an investment that we need to continually build on as we grow. >> the only thing i would add is that i think the genius of the peace corps is that it is not part of our foreign policy apparatus. i think it is brilliant that is separate. i think it is brilliant it is not part of the communities. there is no other reason than security for the volunteers. there is no misunderstanding of that. i think it is brilliant that our volunteers are serving in areas that really do not have geopolitical -- going to ghana and places where our relationships are not of a foreign policy imperative. i think from that genuine, authentic service, going in peace and friendship, comes very good relations around the world. decidedly not an affirmative statement about american foreign policy, western values, any of those things that were really the inspiration for that. >> before we turn over to the audience, i want to ask one more question. i want to discuss the comment you made earlier, mark, about the future of the peace corps. you said we need to be thinking now about how the peace corps should be different in the next decade and the next 50 years. you mentioned having it be bigger and in more countries and so on. but should the peace corps be doing different things? should there be a different emphasis? do you want to pick up on that? i will let everybody else. >> the ps course is the power of an idea, a brilliant idea, a brilliantly executed by secretary shriver. everything about the peace corps is change and renewal, right down to the five-year rule. you can only work for five years. you bring in the new. certainly, i think the energy of the founders, president kennedy and shriver, would say is it right for the next 50 years? is it really 27 months for everyone? isn't it a scandal that we have 10,000 applicants of americans who are wanting to do this? i do not know if they are already to the peace corps volunteers, but we say no to thousands of them. everyone of us went into congress to get more money. that is less money than the military marching band. i like the military marching band. but it is a matter of priorities. we can scale up with volunteers. we can look at the length of service. we can raise greater collaborations and partnerships. the world is different than it was 50 years ago. if anyone would have wanted us to say, "keep mission central," look at different areas, use of technology, it would have been president kennedy and sergeant server. there are a number of different ways we can honor the past and say true to our core mission, but do it in innovative ways with the kind of volunteers we are attracted, the world in which we live, the technology they could use, the length of service they could have, and working to be at the very poor front, after 50 years of service, to bring a broader international service agenda around the world. >> how would you want things to change? >> i have a question for the current director. and this is actually allowed. and these are the kinds of questions that are being discussed, when you are in that position. our volunteers allowed to have cars? no. are they allowed to have scooters'? >> no motorcycles. too dangerous. >> these are some of the things that are being continuously debated. they are the subject of robust debate. you want to facilitate the volunteers ability to get the job done, but do you -- but you do not want to take them so much out of the environment in which they are in that it distinguishes them as somehow being different, and thereby distancing them from the local nationals that they are supposed to work and serve. so i think these questions are very timely. mark, you raised wonderful questions. the tug always is how do you change but still hold dear the common culture and touchdown values which characterize the agency as well as the volunteers. i think the peace corps volunteer culture is one of the strongest of any agency i have seen. most volunteers -- there is a very strong culture. how'd you preserve that and tackle some of the issues like technology? that is a real issue. >> we have obviously given a lot of thought to this recently at the peace corps, because we are looking at how can we support the next generation of peace corps volunteers. how can the next generation of peace corps volunteers be most effective? one of the great advantages we have now and in the future is that we recruit change agents. the people we recruit are highly motivated, very talented. they are the best and the brightest of our colleges and universities, people who have experience who could go back to the peace corps later in their career. we start out with critical raw material. the second thing is that we have a way of looking at the priorities of any given recipient country to determine what their priorities are. they are also more demanding. that is changing in the world of development. they are looking for people with higher skill levels. this is not 1960. when we went to liberia, they did not have a national development plan. now they do. the thing about the peace corps is that we take the generalist volunteer. the service is around 85% of our volunteers. we train them to be marked finance supporters and promoters, to be teachers of english as a second language, which is the fastest-growing area worldwide for the peace corps. the other thing is getting back to something about linguistic skills. we train in 250 different by bridges. we have tremendous resources we can call upon to adapt to the new century and the new generation of peace corps volunteers. i am confident will be able to do that. we are going to look at the length of service, the fact that we are good to be thoughtful in terms of how we sharpen our tools to support volunteers. >> i would offer that one of the aims of the peace corps going forward is that the peace corps increasingly look like the panel sitting in front of you tonight. the reality is that the peace corps has, notwithstanding the great efforts of the current director -- we made it a very high priority, my predecessors and successors -- the reality is that the peace corps has a long way to go to get to a place where it truly looks like america. the reality is that the america 1961 was a different america. we are a much more divse society. the peace corps is the face of america going overseas. i think we would be extraordinarily well served by embarking on a very aggressive effort. the secretary made an effort to one of the challenges we found when we did some of the field testing here in the united states, inquiring of people of color why is it that you are disinclined to go into the peace corps. the most frequent response was economics. first-generation college graduates cannot do it. they cannot afford it. the cannot go off for two years. they have to get a job. those are the obstacles people cited as reasons the could not going to the peace corps. that is a reasonable, viable, and thoughtful explanation, not lacking the desire and determination or willingness to serve, but having economic and other social hardships that exist within this community is sometimes. i would simply urge that the development and training are critically important. but i think that one of the greatest values the peace corps can bring -- i will never forget being in morocco and having someone said, "you do not look like an american." he said, "your skin is dark and your hair is dark." it is a different shade these days, but it was all dark back then. he said, "you do not look like an american." it gave me a platform to talk about the diversity of america. i think this is a critical component going forward and will be important in the future of the peace corps to have a depiction of the face of america in ways we have not seen in the past, for the benefit of the united states of america. >> i want to invite members of the audience to go to the microphones and ask questions of the panel. one of the great traditions of is john f. kennedy jr. forum that all speakers agree to take questions from the audience. the audience in turn agrees to ask questions. i will remind you of the rule for asking questions in the forum. please identify yourself. please keep your question short and concise. and please make sure your question and with a question mark. [laughter] their arkansas four microphones, two upstairs and two down here. >> i am suzanne. i am from [unintelligible] when you were a director, dr. vasquez -- doctor? [laughter] director? i now also work in the field of international development. security issues around the world are increasing tremendously. so my question now is -- how is peace corps responding to this? how are you deciding now which countries you will go in? are you expecting them? it sounds as if you are expanding to include some more "higher risk" countries like colombia. i heard you are going to haiti. having lived in haiti last year, i am curious about how that is affected by -- even now the technically peace corps is not part of foreign policy, it is in a way. how the decisions being made involving security and where you go? >> first of all, the security and health of our volunteers, as you know from your service, is first and foremost for the peace corps. we are only going to countries where we find an environment that is practice of -- that is permissive, where we can safely put volunteers to do the work. we looked at colombia very carefully. we are going to an area where volunteers can teach in a safe environment. haiti is a large country. there are lots of places we can work with poor communities in haiti were volunteers will be perfectly safe. let me say that before we go into a country conduct a careful, in-depth assessment, working on the ground in that country, whether it is on the american side, the un, international donors, or the world bank. we look to make sure volunteers are going to be safe, first and foremost. that is one of the thing all of us have had to be responsible for. >> i want to comment on that. you were obviously director during one of the most challenging times. >> yours is a very important question. it was a question i was asked by many parents after 9/11. i should point out that 60% of volunteers of the peace corps today are women. the split is 60-40. whether we like it or not, the reality is that the level of concern, country to country -- the questions come quickly and directly to the peace corps director. for us, we established the office of volunteer safety and security, which conducts the survey is the director has alluded to. i think we have a very credible process. some of you may remember during my tenure the big day in news, a seven part series on the safety and security of the peace corps. when i interviewed with the reporter, i asked why the interest in the peace corps. he said it was time for somebody to look at peace corps safety and security. that created a good deal of interest on the hill, which generated legislation. it also generated tremendous response from the returned peace corps volunteer community. some of the proposals that were being floated -- for example, let's cluster the volunteers. let us get three or four volunteers to live together in one location. the feedback from the field, the volunteers, was overwhelming against this. the other was mandate whatever peace corps volunteer has to have a cell phone. that induced a reaction globally up, "not going there," from a lot of different reasons we will not going to. the greatest a colder in all of this is the volunteer, who best knows, in concert with the staff and director, what standards for safety and security are best for that country, and which are most appropriate. it is a constant state of vigilance. i think any of us here -- i did not want to speak to the other directors. if there was anything that caused me to turn and toss, it was not legislation or funding. it was always safety and security. i needed peace of mind as director of the agency that our policies and practices at headquarters and around the world were a standard that could meet the test, given the difficult circumstances. i think by and large the peace corps has done a great job of providing relatively good safety and security. >> the question over here. >> my name is karen. i am a fellow at the center. i live in kenya, where i was in the peace corps. i went in in 1965, and i went back to live there about 40 years later. the thing that surprised me the most when i went back was the gigantic ngo community which had not existed when i was there in the peace corps. and i have my thoughts about ngos, but my greatest worry when i saw them was -- was the peace corps a template for the ngos who come in and do for kenya what kenyon's should be demanding that the government do for them? when i hear about an expansion of the peace corps, that makes me very nervous, because i think, and i would like to -- i think what many kenyans would say, and i have talked to many who do not think the peace corps is any different than the other western ngos -- they do not even live that badly. they would say to you, "why are you sending the peace corps here? why don't you use that money and helped to fund programs that kenyans, 40% of whom are unemployed, including many students i teach at the university who can i get jobs when they finish -- why aren't you just giving them money so that kenyans can do for themselves and demand of their government that they provide the services that your peace corps people are providing?" >> a great question. would you start off on that one? >> per se, thank you for your service as a volunteer. it is an interesting question, and i won i think the peace corps has wrestled with on and off. i would observe the question of the scale and the actual finances of the peace corps, the actual budget of the peace corps and what that would really mean if the peace corps did not exist. if you took literally dollar for dollar, i do not think you have anywhere near the impact, the leveraging impact, of a peace corps volunteer's time. the broader point -- i would share your view that what has changed since you were a volunteer, which is one of my observations about the partnerships for the next 50 years, is the explosion of the ngo community. we would all agree it can vary in terms of its effectiveness. the question for the peace corps, going forward, is how can they get into some of these organizations or not? i think the peace corps could provide extraordinary help workers around the world. like any other alternative, much less cost, it wanted to, if we funded to do it. my own view is i think these partnerships are essential to the peace corps, whether or not our volunteers are with them. there are different variants of how that are currently operating around the world. i do not see that changing in the developing world as we see that sector explosion. i think the question for the peace corps is how do we best address it. my own take -- i would respectfully disagree with you that the dollar for dollar exchan would not have anywhere near the leverage of the volunteers have around the world. >> my name is vanessa bradford gary. i am a doctor at mass general. i worked at the harvard medical school. one of the things we are trying to work on -- this is going to play a little bit of the last question. it is the idea of a global health svice corps, creating loan forgiveness and scholarship in order to send people overseas into structured programs and in partnership with the places that we are working to develop capacity, new doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technological capacity, and to be able to make investments. somebody already mentioned this to make our jobs redundant. it is about building our partners. the idea has existed for a while. it has been shot down in number of times. we are trying to reinvigorate it. there has been an explosion in global halt interest. global health is now seen as central to our security, development, economists, overall well-being. it is a two-part question and i apologize for that. one thought is you have mentioned the idea of sending health workers overseas. how often do you see doctors applying, or nurses, or people who have trained and are potentially going overseas to the peace corps? my second question is what do you think the feasibility is? how can we begin to see a program like this take place, either to get the political will going or to get the hill to be willing to do a program like this, or to see -- would this be an extension of the peace corps? i also want to thank you all for gathering, because this is sort of an incredible collection and it is wonderful to hear your perspectives. i will put back to my question. figure. >> first of all, your idea and what you are trying to do is a marvelous idea, and i think you ought to continue to discuss this with the various sources you have been in contact with. i think to the extent the peace corps could participate in that initiative, it would be a perfect partnership. one of the things we are trying to do is to expand partnership the peace corps is engaged with, with u.s. government agencies, with the private sector, and with leading development ngos around the world. we need to be able to provide better training. we need peace corps volunteers to become more effective at the local level. partnerships are an important part of what we are trying to do. getting back to the first question, about recruitment of people who have health care experience and expertise, there is a healthy percentage receive. not many doctors. more nurses. we see retired doctors. many retired doctors -- i met one not long ago who wanted to go to the peace corps. he did not want to have anything to do with madison. he wanted to do something entirely different. [laughter] he ended up being a teacher in the ukraine. we try to accommodate those type of interests. there is a pretty healthy cohort of people in health care. they are going into the peace corps. we try to encourage that. the other thing we do is we train generalists to work at the grass-roots level to work on capacity development, an extension agency in the health- care field, whether is h.i.v.- aids or a malaria. >> as you were asking your question, i was reflecting on a lengthy conversation i had with then-senator bill frist of tennessee, who was a medical doctor who introduced legislation to create a global medical corps that would provide a funding stream and process for doctors and other health-care providers to go overseas, a la the peace corps, to provide that kind of support to host countries. unfortunately, the legislation, for reasons of cost, never really got off the ground. but i suspect that in time this topic will probably emerge again. i will say this. when i was director of the peace corps, we established the peace corps office of global -- the global aids office of the peace corps. we have been applying for funding which the director has done a great job of implementing and maintaining. i as ambassador to the un dealing with food policy had the opportunity to visit countries were people who were living with aids, who are on medication, also have to have, as you probably know from your training, a certain nutritional balance in their life in order to sustain themselves and basically to stay alive. i do believe, and people are starting to write about it now, that we are headed in a direction where we are building a demand for the future that is people living with aids at advanced age. that are going to require more treatment and oversight for the treatment. we may have to shoulder an increasing responsibility for it. that may create an avenue to create the kind of discussion you have talked about. this is a topic that is starting to emerge because we are being successful in the global aids program in. the result is that more people are living longer. it is sustainable. it requires medical oversight and care. that is an issue we will probably hear more about. for your question, i wish we had a better answer. >> into all for being here, first of all. i am brian moore. i am returned peace corps volunteer for three and a half years. i am also one of the lucky peace corps volunteers who was able to marry a host country national. my country director thankfully signed off on it. otherwise, i would not have been allowed to marry my wife. i am also a student of international development here. south the secretary as well as director williams -- and you mentioned the concept of diversifying the peace corps as far as volunteers go, as well as strengthening the volunteer profile. their ability to make change. how does that fit in with a lot of the bills that are being looked at in congress, or the varieties of bills in congress as far as more peace corps? just sort of to paraphrase development guru [unintelligible] he said, "certainly, more is better. but better is also better. and more is even better after better is better." how is making a better peace corps reconciled with making more peace corps? >> director williams, and also director [unintelligible] mentioned increasing. i am not that sure i support a really big expansion of peace corps, because i really emphasize -- i really think it is important to emphasize the quality of the experience. and we do have times when volunteers arrive on site and things are not ready. part of that is because they are serving in very difficult countries in which there can be political change. we understand all of that. but i think the quality of experience is very important for the volunteer, for the host country. it is their responsibility to provide meaningful employment that will ensure that volunteers are really being tapped well. first of all, congratulations on your marriage. that is wonderful. this is another role within the peace corps. apparently, peace corps volunteers cannot get married while they are in service unless they get a sign off from the director. is that another sacred cow that needs to be revisited, director williams? [laughter] >> sure. was that glenn fricke that you quoted? i think better is always better. the peace corps experience in the future needs to be a growth in quality. we want to make sure we continue to provide a quality experience for these remarkable americans who want to serve. we are using the money we receive from congress to invest in training, to invest in providing better staff oversight, and to invest in an ivy -- an i.t. platform that allows us to connect volunteers worldwide so that we in -- so that when we in -- when we discover a best practice we can share it around the world. there is no doubt about it that my staff and i are focused on trying to get it better, and providing quality experiences for the volunteers. i think those are the kind of investments we want to see. it is important for the future of the peace corps. we need to have a quality program in our expansion. >> i am christopher. i was a peace corps volunteer in guinea a few years ago. i was interested in the comments made earlier about the changing of the terms of service or the duration of service. i would love if that could be expanded upon at some point in more detail, perhaps by director williams. my actual question was more to the question or idea of improving peace corps. the question was inspired in part by the comments earlier about looking to the future and recognizing what peace corps was and celebrating for what it was, but also looking in terms of how we can transform it or keep it abreast of what developing countries need today. i think when peace corps was created in 1961, it was evident that sending over young american college graduates, recent college graduates, was a commodity that we had. we had something that many developing countries lacked. that was an expertise that was needed. today, i wonder if that is still the case. i wonder if in many developing countries sending over primarily young american recent college graduates is going to be in the best interest of those countries. i think we would all say it is in our best interest as americans. it gets us involved in foreign policy and international development aspects of what is going on in our world. but i wonder if the future of the peace accords to look toward creating -- rather than taking teaching jobs, moving toward a technical support role. that would involve attracting people with more experience, perhaps graduate degrees, people with more work experience, and putting them in positions where they can hope the government at a higher level make more substantial changes, or helping them develop their policies in a way that would affect our people. >> i would just offer this. director williams has a more contemporary perspective. >> we established -- as an mentioned, they opened the first program in mexico. mexico made clear they wanted a different kind of a program in technology, science, environmental protection. the average age of the peace corps volunteer in the first group of volunteers who went in -- i can tell you they were definitely not in their 20s. there were north of 30. probably both were north of 40. these were men and women with master's degrees in science is, public health, environmental sciences, and what not. then i had the opportunity to visit with them and to see their program. it was a totally different type of program than what you are accustomed to. that was the type of programming the mexican government was seeking from the peace corps. earlier tonight, the director was telling me the mexican government was looking to expand the peace corps and introduced new areas, though probably someone nontraditional for peace corps, but representative aware the peace corps could go in the future in some areas and some countries. >> i am going to inject a little controversy in here. is that ok? we have tried to -- the director tried that. paul coverdale and i tried to do that in the 1990's by expanding into the former soviet union. you are a returned peace corps volunteer, are you not? if you feel strongly about this issue, talk about it within the returned peace corps volunteer community, because they are a very important constituent base for the director. i listened to them all the time. i would hear from them all the time. when paul coverdale went into eastern europe and i subsequently went into the former soviet union, because of the compelling events of world history occurring at that time, there were some peace corps volunteers that did not agree with that. you are very much a part of a discussion as to where peace corps volunteers go, how the resources are being deployed. these countries who were more sophisticated, had more literate populations, wanted for skilled volunteers. but it was hard to maintain that. after a certain time, the mechanism of peace corps tended to recruit younger and more inexperienced candidates. there is an institutional issue here, where the institutions have to change to recruit in a sustainable, long-term, permanent basis, more skilled at volunteers. i am thinking of the secretary of labor. very, very important part of that discussion. >> i am going to ask for two more questions. i will ask for them to be brief. i will take a question here and a question up there. ask them quickly, and then we will -- >> my name is todd schweitzer. i am a first year public policy student from the kennedy school. i just got back from the dominican republic as a peace corps volunteer in june. >> i commend you on your decision. >> thank you sincerely for coming to speak. thank you very much. it is amazing. my question pertains to peace corps response, or crisis core. when it was founded, it was started, and is now under the leadership of director williams. can you comment on the division you originally had four prices court and what peace corps response looks like today and where it will be? >> let me get one more question and we will take them both together. you do not have a question. we can take one more question. >> my name is greg. i am a senior at the u.s. coast guard academy. my question is for director williams and everybody else. you identified change agents as being a product for the united states in terms of sending abroad. what has been done for peace corps in terms of identifying change agents in the country's you go to, in terms of saying this is a member who can make substantial change for the country going forward, and providing resources to do so? thanks. >> u.s. about the decision to create the crisis court. i want to talk about the extraordinary values. >> the history, of course, as alain said, was listing to so many returned peace corps volunteers, who would reflect on their years of service, very much want to go back, but were frustrated that their lives are organized and somewhat encumbered. , another 27 months was unthinkable. if the world needs the skill sets of peace corps volunteers. while they might have been lacking a lot of experience when they first went in, coming back later in life, language skills, cross-cultural skills, cultural skills. there was a group in the united states of returned peace corps volunteers unlike any other. the theory was to change a little bit. change is hard in an organization. there is no question. it was a change of the link of service, my opening point, looking a little bit to peek under the tent of other transport. -- of other variants with the returned community. i think the skill sets are different. i think the theory was to be responsive to needs, to tap the rather unique skills and attributes and attributes returned peace corps volunteers could bring to an area of crisis, but in a way that is less than 27 months. i have been pleased with its progress to date, the difference it has made. >> just 30 seconds. i salute the director for the vision he had to establish crisis core. we deployed crisis corps volunteers to assist after the tsunami in tremont corp's -- sri lanka, thailand we tapped into the crisis court in a way that had never been done before after seeing the devastation of the tsunami and katrina. we deployed peace corps crisis corps volunteers for the first time on american soil. the response from the volunteers lit up the board with hundreds of our volunteers who said, "send me to work down there." i support the organization. >> today, the crisis court is now called the peace corps response. if we did not have the peace corps response unit at peace corps, which would have to invent that. we need to be able to respond quickly to emerging opportunities that present themselves. we have been able to go back into sierra leone and c olombia because we have peace corps response. we had returned peace corps respondents ready to go back into haiti 48 hours after the earthquake. this demonstrates the resilience and interest of the returned peace corps volunteer community. it is important. i applaud mark for doing that. it has really been important. when we see an opportunity to go into the country, whether we have been there for a while and want to go in in terms of a new program, we have a tool we can use to provide experience up from talented volunteers with the language skills of the country. i also want to answer the question the gentleman asked me from the coast guard. had we find change agents in countries where we work, where they can make a difference and have an impact in their country? that is one of the things to constantly search for in the countries where we serve. we are trying to identify the best organizations and the best leaders of those organizations so we can get peace corps volunteers to assist them in their role of making a difference in their society. there is nothing more important. there thousands of peace corps stories about volunteers to work with individuals like that who ended up being leaders in their countries in all sectors. this is ongoing and important from day one, from 1961 on. we have been looking for change agents and continue to support those important individuals to make a difference. men and women who can make a difference in terms of development. >> we have to bring this panel to a close. please join me in thanking the panelists. [applause] for a wonderful, wonderful time. thank you. [applause] [applause]