Peace Corps' Standards Nebulous But High

Peace Corps officials are distressed by the ubiquitous pictures of Peace Corps surveyors, Peace Corps masons, Peace Corps mechanics--all implying that Peace Corps volunteers need specialized training. Actually, eighty-five percent of the volunteers now active have only bachelors degrees from liberal arts colleges. Very few have special skills. The Corps' officials stress that special training and abilities are much less important than other qualifications. They believe that a volunteer can be taught almost any skills his job may require during the twelve-week training period.

Adaptability Important

What qualifications do interest them? The men who run the Peace Corps know exactly what they want, but they have trouble explaining it in specific terms. Personality is all-important. The Peace Corps wants people with high motivation, intelligence, energy and adaptability. Because so much of its work is essentially human-relations, it looks for people who are warm and outgoing--not outgoing in a blackslapping sense, but able to involve themselves in the problems of others.

Any one who contemplates living on the level of villages in an under-developed country must be able to endure discomforts and frustration. He must be able to live simply, to enjoy the food of the country. As one Peace Corps official put it, "It's all a kind of maturity. A person must be able to see, understand, and accept."

Foreign Culture Considered

Some requirements are determined by the culture of the country to which a volunteer may be sent. Turkey, for example, has strict separation of the sexes. If a volunteer who fancies himself a Casanova disregards this, he will will make a lot of people very angry. Similarly, Turkey might be no place for a very 'social' girl.

The Peace Corps looks for individualism, but not for too much. People who will balk at the restrictions of a foreign culture or at the supervision to which Peace Corps workers are subjected in the field are usually weeded out. The same fate usually befalls applicants who would get restless before their two years were up.

Few Dropouts

Inevitably, a few people get into the program who shouldn't be there; but remarkably few. Five out of every six applicants fail to reach the training program (although at a place such as Harvard, five out of six make it), and more are dropped during training. Only one and one half percent of those who reach field assignments are sent home because of failure to adjust.

In order to obtain such a low rate of attrition, the selection process must be tough despite its lack of specificity. Applicants are selected initially on the basis of written applications and interviews. Using these, the Peace Corps selectors try to form a composite picture of each applicant. They examine his record for his intellectual capacity, his sense of community participation, tolerance and leadership potential. Any specific skills he has are important and will probably guarantee him his choice of assignments.

Rejection Seldom Automatic

There are a few reasons for which a person will be disqualified without further investigation. Even criminal convictions, as such, can be overlooked if the applicant seems good Peace Corps material. Of course, some forms of offenses would indicate that an individual's character was not the sort wanted in the Peace Corps under any circumstances. But some minor offenses may just intimate a certain adventurousness.

The Peace Corps has adopted much the same sort of attitude toward admissions as the good liberal arts colleges. It seeks the person who will be outstanding as an individual, whether or not his record has been uniformly good, and it is willing to gamble.

Selection continues through the entire training period. Psychologists observe the trainees constantly and meet with them twice before they are finally shipped to their field assignments. Peace Corps training is supposed to give volunteers confidence in themselves and in their ability to meet unexpected situations, as well as to teach them languages and specific skills. The same parts of the program that impart this confidence enable psychologists to see how well the trainees stand up under stress.

Training also provides the final test of how well people can fit into the Peace Corps program. Sometimes it happens that a trainee has no real concern for the job he must do, that he has simply made a mistake. Or occasionally it becomes apparent that someone has too much individuality for the Peace Corps. In either case, the person will be dropped.

Selection during training, like the original selection, is basically a matter of personalities. In one case, the selectors decided that three people training for teaching jobs in Turkey did not belong in the program. One would probably not last two full years, and the others would show equivalent weaknesses as volunteers. All three wanted to go badly enough to do it on their own even after they were dropped from the program. They have been teaching in Turkey ever since. But the first is preparing to go home after one year, and the others have progressed just as the psychologists said they would, not badly, but not in a way the Peace Corps wanted.

A 1961 Harvard graduate now teaching in Nigeria characterized the selection process this way: "It is quite unnerving to arrive at the training site and be told that all obstacles are still before you and then to be subjected to a marathon of psychological tests and interviews. In a short time everyone is extremely careful to avoid appearing concerned about the Sword of Damocles hanging overhead--a sure sign that all are concerned. It is really unavoidable. You are constantly agonizing over the answers you made to the last questionnaire, wondering whether an occasional flippancy (absolutely irresistible! I assmume you're acquainted with the inanities that psychologists slip into) is going to make a red light blink on the grading machine and a pink slip pop out. Of course, it turns out not to be that bad. Nonetheless, some ten people were culled out over the training period. In most cases, the wisdom of 'selecting out' was apparent, but a couple were puzzling. The selection board of our program met twice, at four and eleven weeks. Each time there were victims. I think it would be kinder of the Peace Corps to make its selections earlier in the program; ideally, it might be done before anyone arrives at the training site. As the date for final selection approaches (in our case, two days before the termination of the program) the tension is very great, and everyone is aware that his twelve weeks training and his plans for the next two years are in the balance. In sum, I wouldn't call that aspect of the training program at all pleasant, though there's no denying the necessity for it.