Despite the events of Sept. 11, students and faculty at Iowa State are showing a continued interest in lending time and talent to countries in need by becoming Peace Corps volunteers.

ISU Peace Corps Campus Representative Amy Best said members of the ISU community are showing a daily interest in the Peace Corps.

“Although potential volunteers now have more questions about their safety abroad, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people interested in serving their country by imparting skills to people in the developing world and building bridges of cultural understanding,” said Best, graduate student in sustainable agriculture.

Following the attacks, President Bush presented a call for patriotism through becoming volunteers to the United States. Bush said he wished to improve international relations by doubling the numbers of Peace Corps members abroad and steering volunteers to countries that he believes misunderstand America the most.

The Peace Corps service commitment is 27 months – three months of training and two years of service. Bush has asked the Peace Corps to reinvigorate its mission of imparting skills in agriculture, business, education, health and nutrition, and the environment.

“After 40 years of service in 135 countries, the Peace Corps is well poised to grow and expand its mission of service and cross-cultural understanding,” said Acting Deputy Director Lloyd Pierson, in a statement released on the Peace Corps Web site. “We are honored to support the president’s goal of expanding volunteer service overseas, and are eager to give U.S. citizens the chance to represent America in communities around the world and to bring their experiences back home.”

There are currently 25 students from a variety of majors – including the colleges of Liberal Arts and Studies, Agriculture, Engineering and Business – currently serving all over the world in the Peace Corps. More than 500 members of the ISU community have served since the Peace Corps began in 1961, Best said.

So far this academic year, eight ISU students and faculty have applied to serve in the Peace Corps, Best said.

Following a lengthy application process, Jeffrey Hansen, senior in marketing, was accepted into the Peace Corps and was extended a nomination for the assignment of his destination.

“The attacks on [Sept. 11] did not change my decision to join,” Hansen said. “I had made that decision several months before the attacks.”

Hansen has chosen to take part in a program teaching business and business English in Eastern Europe and will be leaving in August.

“I feel that if we let the events of [Sept. 11] turn our country to more of an isolationist approach to the rest of the world, than we have learned nothing,” Hansen said.

“Whether it’s terrorists thinking that everyone should be killed who does not agree with them, or Americans who won’t cater to the needs of international peoples, ethnocentrism is the cause of a lot of misunderstanding, miscommunication and hatred,” Hansen said.

“If . going into the Peace Corps helps me overcome my own personal ethnocentric ways, and in return helps someone from another country better understand and appreciate our American ways, then I will have gotten a lot more out of the Peace Corps than any . desk job,” he said.