Viking_Yearbook_64

There were 188 students during the year who came and went, virtually in– visible to the student body-although their very presence here constituted an accolade for Portland State . They were the Peace Corps volunteers sent by the national office because Portland State is recognized as one of only three or four institutions in the na– tion equipped to background them for their work in the Middle East. No one could have foreseen on March 1, 1961 , the date the late President John F. Kennedy set up the United States Peace Corps, that Portland State College would play an active part in the program. But this was the year it happened . They came in three groups, very d ifferent in personnel and work focus . The first had 39 women and 2 men, ranging in age from 21 to 69. The second had 40 men and only 7 women all between 19 and 30 . A third group of 100 volunteers trained at Portland State during summer of '64. The unrelenting 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. sched– ule maintained by all the volunteers explains why their presence on the PSC campus went unnoticed by most of the student body. peace corps 39