DAAP and Peace Corps Fellows Program connects global experience to local impact

DAAP and Peace Corps Fellows Program connects global experience to local impact

Returned volunteers bring community-based learning into Cincinnati through planning and co-op work

For students in the School of Planning at DAAP, understanding communities begins with experience.

Through the Peace Corps Coverdell Fellows Program, returned volunteers bring firsthand knowledge from around the world into the classroom at the University of Cincinnati, applying those lessons to local organizations and community-based work across the region.

The Peace Corps, founded on a mission to promote world peace and friendship through community-based development and intercultural understanding, has been sending volunteers abroad for more than 60 years. At the University of Cincinnati, this experience continues through the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program, designed for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) who want to build on their service through graduate education.

Within DAAP's School of Planning, students complete their coursework while working in local organizations during the academic year, followed by full-time co-op placements in the summer. Rather than separating theory and practice, the program blends them.

As the program marks 20 years at DAAP, the college spoke with School of Planning Professor Johanna Looye, one of the Peace Corps program coordinators at UC, to explore how these experiences shape students and redefine what it means to work within social systems.

Before arriving at UC, fellows have already spent one or two years living and working in communities around the world, from Liberia to Morocco to Paraguay. That experience shapes how they approach people, projects and problem-solving.

One student, Robert Eastman Johnson, who served in Morocco, worked with local ceramic production, where kilns relied on electricity, an expensive energy source with environmental impacts. His experience led him to develop a more sustainable system using local waste, including olive oil wastewater and household garbage as renewable energy sources, which later became the focus of his Fulbright research. He went on to put this work into practice by returning to Morocco.

While the fellows arrive with global experience, Cincinnati becomes their laboratory. Through internships with organizations like the Center for Great Neighborhoods, Price Hill Will and Smart Money, students engage directly with communities, often focusing on housing, neighborhood development and local economic structures.

Her own journey spans multiple countries, including Chile, Ecuador and Brazil, where she conducted research and built long-term connections. These experiences shaped her understanding of development, culture and the complexity of social systems.

That perspective now informs the program she leads. Alumni have gone on to work in community development organizations, government agencies, transportation departments and international development roles.

Some remain closely connected to the organizations where they interned, such as Kate Green, who began her work at the Center for Great Neighborhoods and continued building her career in community development.

As the program prepares for a new chapter under Hayden Shelby, the mission will remain the same, but there is space to expand engagement, strengthen community connections and bring new energy to the program.

In a world where social systems are increasingly complex, programs like the Peace Corps Fellows Program offer a different approach, grounded in experience, humility and connection.

Because in the end, impactful work and real change don't begin with solutions, they begin with understanding.

Your career is next

Through one of the nation's most robust co-op programs, UC students don't just learn about their future - they live it, alternating classroom study with real, career-shaping experience in industries around the world.

Students: Earn while you learn at UC.

Employers: Find your next hire.

Article written by Carolina De Salvo.

Featured image at top of a pottery kiln. Photo/Robert Eastman Johnson

Related Stories