UT Alumni Celebrate Peace Corps Service with Stories, Reflection

As part of the March 2026 national celebration of Peace Corps Week, the Cactus Café on The University of Texas at Austin campus heard stories of service from around the world. The gathering took shape as an open mic night, at which UT alumni and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers reflected aloud on their time serving abroad. 

The gathering commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Peace Corps, established by John F. Kennedy on March 1, 1961. The program sends American volunteers overseas to promote world peace through community-based development and intercultural understanding. 

Last year, UT Austin ranked No. 5 nationally among graduate schools for producing volunteers. As of fall 2025, 1,737 UT alumni have served in the Peace Corps, with 36 currently abroad. 

“There is a very large population of service-oriented people who really take the school motto to heart: What starts here changes the world,” said Anne Saldívar, UT Peace Corps recruiter and former volunteer in Jordan. “And that’s true whether you’re here in Austin, whether you’re in a small town or ... in your global setting.” 

UT journalism alum Sarayu Adeni served 2010-2012 in the Dominican Republic, where she taught concepts in sexual and women’s health while helping girls become educators in their communities. 

“I was sitting at the back of the room watching these girls teach their younger sisters and their younger neighbors all this important information on how to take good care of their health,” Adeni said. “It was really exciting to see.” 

Adeni said learning happened in both directions during her service, showing her how to build confianza, or trust, with people in her host community. At the open mic night, she commemorated these relationships in her poem “Integration,” which had been published in a Dominican Republic Peace Corps magazine. 

“I’m suddenly realizing that I feel at home (in the Dominican Republic) though it’s not where I was born,” Adeni said. “I’m not speaking a language I was born speaking. These are not my biological parents … yet I feel in these small moments that I have become a part of the community.” 

Similar lessons shaped the experience of UT alum Lisa Baile, who served 1988-1990 in Ecuador. 

Baile worked with local nurses on vaccination, nutrition and sanitation initiatives, including building a latrine system to reduce gastrointestinal illness in the community. Even after she returned from the Peace Corps, her experience shaped a life of community service.  

“It plants a seed of an obligation that I have that I felt in my life to give back,” Baile said. “I’ve got two children, and it’s made me feel a commitment to them to talk about things around the world and our place around the world, and just to remind them of how interconnected we are with the rest of the world.” 

For more information, visit the Peace Corps page on the Texas Global website or read the original story in the Daily Texan.  

All photos courtesy Kaitlyn Bedrick, The Daily Texan.