UNLV joins Peace Corps to program for writers

Monday, Feb. 28, 2000 | 9:58 a.m.

UNLV is banking on the belief that two years in the Peace Corps will provide student writers in its fine arts program with a wealth of material for their future books.

The university and the organization have entered into an agreement to provide students pursuing a master of fine arts degree in creative writing an option to join the Peace Corps starting next fall.

Currently the creative writing master's degree program requires two years at UNLV and one year in a non-English-speaking country -- an option that will remain available to students who don't want to join the Peace Corps.

Those who opt for the Peace Corps alternative will spend two years at the school and two years in the Peace Corps.

"The Peace Corps will give UNLV graduates a lifetime of great material," said John Coyne, director of the Peace Corps regional office in New York and founder of the Peace Corps Writers organization.

"We continually are recruiting volunteers qualified to teach English at the secondary and college levels overseas. And as a writer, I know that all of life's experience is great material for poetry and prose."

UNLV English Professor Richard Wiley, who served with the Peace Corps in Korea in the late 1960s and used that experience for the basis of his novel "Festival for Three Thousand Maidens," praised the partnership as an excellent learning tool.

"Many students still will opt for the more traditional study-abroad programs, which is fine, (but) the Peace Corps track offers them another exciting option which often would take them to parts of the world that other programs generally would not," Wiley said.

For more information about the program, contact Wiley at 895-3471.