Provided

Elizabeth Leuin '13, front row center, serves with the Peace Corps in Cameroon.

Again this year Cornell ranks fifth among medium-size colleges and universities in producing Peace Corps volunteers, according to the agency’s 2015 ranking of all schools.

Thirty-three Cornell alumni are serving in Benin, Cameroon, China, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mongolia, Namibia, Panama, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia. They work in sectors including agriculture, education, health, environment and community economic development.

Since the agency’s founding in 1961, more than 1,600 Cornell graduates have become Peace Corps volunteers. Cornell held the same rank in 2014 and has consistently ranked in the top five among medium-size schools nationwide for the past three years.

Says Elizabeth Leuin ’13 from her Peace Corps post in Cameroon: “With my host organization, I coordinate a pig-raising program targeted to underemployed vulnerable local youth. In collaboration with host organization GROUPELMA, I am initiating a sustainable agriculture project in response to deforestation and depleted soil fertility.  My coursework in environmental studies led me to consider a career in international agriculture development, but I felt I needed on-the-ground experience.”

In 2014, the Ithaca region ranked No. 1 nationally for per-capita production of Peace Corps volunteers, with 15 Tompkins County residents serving overseas.