The UMB Pulse Podcast
The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is working to strengthen social impact and galvanize innovation. This season of “The UMB Pulse” podcast is featuring stories about how UMB is taking creative action to overcome barriers and solve social problems. Be sure to tune in – new episodes drop on the FIRST FRIDAY of the month! “The UMB Pulse” is produced by the UMB Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Co-hosted by Charles Schelle, lead social media specialist and Dana Rampolla, director of integrated marketing.
The UMB Pulse Podcast
From Social Work to Global Leadership: Jody Olsen on Service, Empowerment, and the Peace Corps
In this episode of The UMB Pulse, Jody Olsen, PhD, MSW '72, a distinguished leader in global public service and former Peace Corps director shares her journey from aspiring social worker to influential advocate for women's empowerment, cross-cultural understanding, and global citizenship.
Olsen, an alumna of the University of Maryland School of Social Work, shares in detail about her experiences leading transformative Peace Corps programs, overcoming challenges, and her ongoing contributions to the University of Maryland, Baltimore community.
00:00 Introduction to Dr. Jody Olsen
02:37 Early Life and Career Beginnings
05:09 Navigating Leadership Challenges
09:04 Impact of the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe
17:20 Women's Empowerment and Mentorship
36:36 Global Community Building and UMB's Role
43:33 Memorable Moments and Reflections
49:31 Advice to the Younger Generation
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On this edition of the UMB Pulse, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Jody Olsen. She's a proud alumna of the University of Maryland School of Social Work, and she is a distinguished leader in global public service. Jody served as the 20th director of the Peace Corps, where she oversaw transformative programs that strengthen communities worldwide. If you're not familiar with the Peace Corps, it's a federal program launched by President John F. Kennedy that deploys volunteers and promotes peace and world understanding by helping Americans assist communities solve local challenges tied to health, education, agriculture, and the environment.
Charles Schelle:Jody is also a founding member of UMBrella that's UMB's initiative to support the empowerment of women in the workplace. She continues to help UMB on the world stage as former director and current senior fellow of the UMB Center for Global Engagement. With a career spanning decades of service and leadership, Jody continues to inspire through her advocacy for women's empowerment, cross cultural understanding, and global citizenship. She is also an incredible storyteller as you're about to hear. So sit back, relax, and enjoy our conversation with Dr. Jody Olsen on the UMB Pulse.
Jena Frick:You're listening to the heartbeat of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the UMB Pulse.
Dana Rampolla:Hi, Jody. Welcome to the UMB Pulse.
Jody Olsen:Well, it's an honor to be here. Thank you, Dana. I'm thrilled.
Dana Rampolla:We are excited to have you. Charles and I were fortunate enough last year you came and visited the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where we are recording from, and visited us and shared a lot of really interesting information with us about your life journey. And we, right away, we were like, Oh, we've got to try to get this lady on the Pulse. She's terrific. And you have such a unique history and trajectory. So we really look forward to our conversation today. Well, thank you. And for me, it's especially wonderful to be at the university of Maryland, Baltimore, because as you know, my journey, the very early parts of my journey began on that campus. And I love UMB.
Charles Schelle:Well, you said it right there. So to kick things off, let's talk about that journey and how it started. You've had that incredible career with the Peace Corps, but what initially drew you to public service and how did your time at the School of Social Work here in Baltimore prepare you for that path?
Jody Olsen:Well, let me go back to when I was 11 years old in Salt Lake City, Utah. My aunt ran Lutheran Social Services of Salt Lake. And back in those old days, you can take somebody to work. And so she took her niece, me, and I was at Lutheran Social Services for a day talking to, to social workers, seeing people. I came away from that day with my aunt at Lutheran Social Services saying, I'm going to be a social worker. 11 years old. And it, one, she was a hero to me. Two, it helped set my path for social work. So we go forward many, many years, and I again graduated from the University of Utah, became a Peace Corps volunteer. We, um, moved to Baltimore, my husband and I, and new baby. And I knew I was going to be a social worker and where was the School of Social Work? It was just about eight blocks from where we were living. And so I began in the School of Social Work in 1970 and it was such a joy. Uh, Dan Thursz was the dean, it had a lot of advocacy to it, which is what I wanted. I wanted, uh, advocacy and leadership and policy and the school shaped that for me during my two years there. And I am forever grateful. for that social work training. And I might just note that all the rest of my life, people laugh and say, Oh, there goes the social work part of Jody. And I will be, even when I was in leadership meetings at Peace Corps and we would talk about a difficult topic and someone would say, Okay, Jody, little clinician here, a little, we need a little clinical work. And so it became I was, see it became a joke, but a joke in the way that people understood what had shaped me, namely social work, and that I was carrying that forward and honoring it in everything I did. And sometimes people would come into my office and go, okay, I need the social work part, Jody. So it, it really has been a core for me, an anchor for me for all these decades of work.
Dana Rampolla:So once a social worker, always a social worker, is what I'm hearing.
Jody Olsen:That's true. That's true. I am grateful for, particularly for group work classes.
Dana Rampolla:Back in 2006, you shared that you faced a pivotal moment when you weren't chosen as the Peace Corps director. So talk a little bit about how you navigated that disappointment and then what leadership lessons you took from it that propelled you to ultimately being.
Jody Olsen:I was deputy director at the time, and, uh, I had been deputy for four years under President Bush, and the then director, Gaddi Vasquez, left. And I knew I wanted to be director. I had been Senate confirmed. It was going to be easy for the White House to select me. And they invited me over and said, Oh, I bet Peace Corps needs a social worker. I mean, sorry, needs a Peace Corps director that, you know, was a Peace Corps volunteer and did all these good things. And so I went out of the office, the White House personnel office, feeling very smug. I'm going to get this job. Well, then two days later, the White House called me and said, we want to give you a heads up. We're choosing somebody else. And. The next day the announcement came out that Ron Tschetter was being named Peace Corps director, who happened to be a returned Peace Corps volunteer also. And at that moment, I remember my insides fell, my dream, my dream was dashed in that moment. It was never going to happen. It could not happen. And I sat there and I thought, what do I do? I can get angry. I can resign. I can do a bunch of things. And then I thought, no, this is what I'm going to do. I love Peace Corps. So I found Ron Tschetter's email. And ten minutes later, I sent him a note and I said, I know you know that I wanted this job. I wanted to be director. But I want to tell you, I'm here for you. I will do everything to support you. Congratulations. I'm excited for you. Let's go forward. That was hard, that was really hard. So he came and became Peace Corps Director about two, three weeks later. And he and I had a fabulous time. We became good friends. And I appreciated that we always have to keep a larger sense of what is meant to be and who we are. It's not about the person. And I knew I could keep giving. And I was even more enriched by being able to be a deputy to Ron and let go of yourself. I learned as a leader, let go of yourself. It's not about you.
Dana Rampolla:That's great advice. No matter what age you are or what path of life you've found yourself down, you know, that's terrific. Thank you for sharing that. How many years did you wind up working under him or with him?
Jody Olsen:I worked with Ron for about three years until, uh, the the next president came in, Obama came in, and I then actually got to be acting director for eight months. And so I, I got to practice in that chair after Ron Tschetter left. But it is again, you, when you believe in an organization, you believe in a purpose. Let yourself go.
Charles Schelle:Yeah, as you said, you know, it takes, it takes some grace under pressure., or grace under fire sometimes, to, to realize what the mission is and, and what your role and everything is. And winding the clock back, to, , the eighties, , in your book, A Million
Miles:My Peace Corps Journey plenty, plenty of great stories in it. And one chapter , "And the Wall Came Tumbling Down," tells about your story and your, , time in Eastern Europe when these countries were trying to transition to democracy. Could you share a story from that time that highlights the Peace Corps impact to those folks out there?
Jody Olsen:Uh, let me give one, uh, particular story, uh, you're right, Charles, this was about 1989, 1990, and anybody that goes back to the history books knows that it's when the wall fell, uh, East Germany ceased being a country and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe became closer and closer to the West and left the East. And one reference I'll make is in Romania. Romania had been under a very strong dictatorship for a number of years under the Ceausescus, and it was grim, grim, and nobody even knew what was going on in Romania. It was so locked down and a frightening place to be. Well, the Ceausescus met their demise, I believe, on Christmas Day when they were both killed, and so suddenly Romania had to decide what it was and who it was. And they invited Peace Corps for us to visit. So Paul Coverdell, the then Peace Corps director and I, chief of staff at that time, went to Romania. And we visited, uh, orphanage. And because the country had been encouraging children, but not necessarily staying with their families. And so they had, uh, many orphanages and the thought was that we would work in orphanages to help work with the children. Well, we were visiting this orphanage and the walls had just been painted beautifully white, but there was nothing. There were no toys. There were no, nothing on the walls. It was stark, stark, stark. And so the headmaster, as we finished the tour, came back and he looked at Paul and me and said, I'm so sorry, you see nothing on the walls. There are nothing on, there's nothing on the walls yet. Because we took down all the photos of the Ceausescus. We took down all the awfulness that we have been living the last few years. But we don't know what to put on the walls. And so they're white because we can't decide yet. What goes on the walls of an orphanage? And then he looked at me and he said, This is like our mind. We've taken the past out of our mind. But we don't know what to put in our minds. Our minds are blank. Our minds are empty. You can help fill what we need to put in our minds, and I'm always have been in awe with that because I appreciate the opportunities for growth, but how when you have that kind of a change, your mind's empty, and you're susceptible, and it's important to be there in a way that gives you the growth and the strength and the building of democracy that can be so important.
Dana Rampolla:Can you share some specifics of what you did?
Jody Olsen:Well, in Romania, it was again working in the orphanages, but very quickly we moved to English, but let me give a Poland story, which is a one where we could see what actually happened. In Poland, we met with the Minister of Education, uh, right after the fall. It was the third week in October of 1989. And he said to us, two things. One, people have been coming in these last few weeks and promising us things. And then they don't come back. Second, he said, don't see us as we are now, because as Poles, this is not who we can be. Be with us. We're not who we are now. So we described in that evening, in his cold little room with one light, setting up an English program to retrain teachers in Poland to teach English. Well, by a luck little over a year later, we were able, Paul and I were able to go back to Poland, and we were meeting with the minister and the deputy minister and the ambassador, and sorry, the first story was with the deputy minister. So we were in the room in the ambassadors, American ambassadors room. Talking about all the good things that were happening and Peace Corps volunteers there are 120 volunteers there at the time and all of a sudden the deputy minister stood up and he said, Minister, Mr. Minister, Mr. Ambassador, I have something to say, and he walked briskly over to the wall, the ambassador's wall, which had a huge map of Poland on it, and he said, Let me point out 13 English training centers across this country, where we are taking high school graduates, where they're getting the AA degrees in English, and we have two or three Peace Corps volunteers in every one of these centers, and they are helping write the curriculum for us. And then he turned and he looked at Paul and me, and he said, It was just over a year ago that you were in my office, and you made a promise that Peace Corps would not let us down. You promised. And because of that promise, I was able to go ahead and create and get ready and get money for these centers, because your volunteers came and taught. And look where we are today. Paul Coverdell, the Peace Corps director, who's very straight laced. I looked at him and he had tears in his eyes. I went, oh my heavens. But that's what you can do when you work with people and have people believe in themselves. That part was also very important to me to write for the book because I was watching the beginnings of democracy. I was watching people who were finding their own voices. The mayors in Poland who said to volunteers, we've always had responsibility. We've never had any authority. Now we can really create, create a city. We can create a community. We can build what we need to build. This is a first. And so I hope that this particular part of the book reminds all of us of how to trust ourselves and as communities what we can build.
Charles Schelle:Yeah, that's fantastic. And especially With all the conflicts going on around the world, and there's a lot of change happening in countries around the globe that shows you that if we band together and help one another, that the world will be a better place as as corny as that sounds. It's true that we can make it a better life for someone else, and they just need a little inspiration and trust to make that happen.
Jody Olsen:Right? Because we can help them trust themselves. We don't tell and should not tell people what to do. It is working with them to help be a catalyst for what they know they can do for themselves.
Dana Rampolla:Jody, I know that also another area that's important to you is women's empowerment. You were one of the founding members here at UMB of UMBrella. I'm wondering if you could take a minute to talk about some barriers that you may have faced as a woman in your leadership role, and if there were any mentors or allies who kind of supported you, influenced you, helped you along the way.
Jody Olsen:I was very lucky to feel that I had mentors all along the way and the, a couple of the faculty at the School of Social Work were very helpful for me and had me keep going and, you know, juggling a baby and pregnant with a second. And how do you hold all those pieces together? And again, this was the 1970s and I remember when we were meeting right about that time with the governor's office about nursing homes and because I was on the governor's nursing home commission as an assistant, and I walked into the office and he looked at me and he said, Oh, how far pregnant are you? I said, well, I'm seven months pregnant, just about ready to deliver. And he said, well, you know, legally in Maryland, you can't work after the third month of pregnancy. I was surprised. I looked at him and I went, okay, what are you going to do about it? We went on. Uh, but it was such a jarring moment of being discriminated against, but not wanting to scream and yell about it. I mean, I was so taken aback, but I thought, okay, I'm sure that nothing's going to happen and we'll all just move on. So let's just acknowledge it move on.
Dana Rampolla:So nothing did happen?
Jody Olsen:Oh, no, nothing happened. But the, uh, one of the key mentors for me was Loret Ruppe, who was a Peace Corps director for eight years in the '80s. And it was an example of a woman who, um, came from a very wealthy family in Upper Peninsula, Michigan, whose husband had been a congressman for 12 years, mothered five girls in about seven years, and hadn't officially worked, as the term went, before she became the Peace Corps director, put in place by President Bush. And we all went, oh my heavens, this is going to be terrible. I'm sorry, not by Bush, by President Reagan. And She doesn't know what she's doing, you know, and we, we all had a picture of what a woman with that background would be. Well, she became one of the strongest Peace Corps directors, fighter for Peace Corps, overcame the, some of the folks in the Reagan White House that were what we would call neocons, and fought for the independence of Peace Corps and actually got the independence of Peace Corps through Congress. I worked for her for three years and then became one of her closest friends for the next four years. And her steelyness, combined with her charm, she never gave up. And later, when I became Peace Corps director, I was thinking, Loret, Loret, what are your words? She unfortunately died early of cancer, but I just put her in my head with the steeliness and yet the gentleness and the smiles that are necessary, not combative. But firm and steely. And I always took her with me after the 1980s.
Dana Rampolla:Wonderful. So not only a social worker, but a true-at-heart politician, too.
Jody Olsen:Oh, yes. Yeah. No, I come from a political background. I have a pretty good idea what politics are about and what you're saying, what you don't say. And, you know, and as a woman, it's important to really understand that. Let me give a quick a story from when I was deputy director and I was in Mauritania. And in Mauritania, a Muslim country, middle of Sahara desert, and you picture all that that is. And we were in the evening out in the desert visiting with a group of volunteers. at a volunteer's mother-in-law's house, a Mauritanian house. And a staff person came to me, this is now about nine o'clock at night, and says, oh, the minister of education is in this little village visiting his family. And he's in this little, one-room hotel, and he would like to meet you because you won't have a chance to meet in the capital city, Nouakchott. So can he just officially meet you here? And then the staff person said, 'Don't worry, it's after hours.' He might be in jeans, so he's not wearing his outfit. So, you know, you don't need to dress up, you don't need to do anything, this is just a casual say hello and say thank you and praise him and he'll praise you and we do those usual things. So, I said sure. And so now it's ten o'clock, a little after ten o'clock, and the Peace Corps car drives up to this little itsy bitsy hotel. And let's say I'm not looking like I would've looked if I was at ten o'clock in the morning in Nouakchott. And we got outta the car and I turned to the, to the staff person and I said, well, should I wear a headscarf? And he said, oh my heaven. No, this is all after hours. So I started walking to the hotel door and then I returned and I said to the staff person, 'no, I'm gonna put on the headscarf.' That's important to put on the headscarf. So I put on the headscarf, we went in, there he was, casual, stayed an hour, chatted. I was drawing up my 40 words of Arabic and a few words of French from my own Peace Corps time, and we had a wonderful time. All right, well, the next day, the staff person came up to me and he said, let me tell you what the minister said to me after you left. He said to me, Thank you. Thank Jody for wearing the headscarf. He said, I know she didn't need to, but she did it out of honor and respect. And that means so much to me, but more importantly, it means so much to our country and our culture for him, for her to choose to wear the headscarf. What I took from that was, as a woman, around the world, cultures, countries, societies, have different roles for women. And where we are, I'm speaking for myself now, an American woman playing a leadership role. in a different society. And I understood that I was not a woman first. I was the Peace Corps senior leader first. And my role in meeting with leaders from other countries was about Peace Corps. It was not about me being a woman. I happened to be a woman and I was proud of being a woman, but I needed to honor Peace Corps first. And so it meant that I would do my best to honor the traditions of the country. Even if those traditions did not have a women's role the way I thought a woman's role should be, but it wasn't me at that time to teach about women's roles. It was me at that time to honor the culture, the leaders, the country, and put myself as a woman in the background so I could keep Peace Corps in the foreground. And that's been really important to me to always remember, and when I, excuse me, when I worked with Congress also, how do I honor the congressperson? Me as a woman is second, it is Peace Corps comes first. And I think that women and women leaders can do more for that role by not accentuating that role, but by being something, a person that blends into a larger whole that that person is representing.
Charles Schelle:It sounds like, , that that's your big takeaway for learning about women's empowerment through like different cultural context, right?
Jody Olsen:Yes.
Charles Schelle:Recognizing and respecting the culture, as you said, and, acknowledging what your, what your mission is, because if you're there, basically on a business trip, you still have to , get business done, right?
Jody Olsen:Right. And even if it's wanting to bring in more Peace Corps volunteers or opening a new program, the minute that I walked into the room, Oh, my heavens, there they go in the USA of a woman as a director for whatever they wanted to say or think. Well, I needed to get rid of that as a first thought and Peace Corps as a first thought, because I think it helps what the takeaway is, is valuing women. Because you're there equally talking about whatever it is you need to talk about. You're having an equal conversation.
Charles Schelle:Right. And, and speaking about equality, there's a 2023 Global Gender Gap Report where the United States ranks only 43rd out of 146 countries for gender equality. So, based on your experience as former Peace Corps, uh, Director, why do you think that is? Why do you think the United States falls so far behind other developed countries in that area?
Jody Olsen:Good question. Part of it is, how do we think about what equality means and what is it? How do we have a conversation that tries to take gender stuff out of it? At the same time, and this is where I'm going to put in a plug for University of Maryland Baltimore, to know which is professional schools, and a lot of the professional schools are schools that traditionally are male, um, dominated when you think of medicine and pharmacy and law in particularly. And yet the University of Maryland Baltimore has more women students in every one of the schools than men at this time. But what I found when I was on the faculty there, um, you know, up until about eight years ago, was a sense of none of this matters is how we treat each other equally as professionals talking to professionals to service healthcare in the state of Maryland. And I know that some people are going to disagree with me and probably many people are going to disagree with me, but I feel creating a room of comfort for everyone is where the value of the woman comes. Space together is not a competition and it takes time to help overcome that and feel comfortable that a woman can play an equal role, which she can't, by the way. But to do that, don't set it up as a competition. And I feel that part of that renewal of that, I always felt at the University of Maryland, Baltimore at UMB, and it was a gift I tried to then give back again with Peace Corps when I became director. of just treating people as individually wonderful people. Now, that sounds a little strange. It's kind of not a way that we try to come out, come at furthering women's rights. But we, for me, we have to get rid of the competition and help both men and women feel comfortable with each other to More equal what we do in the workplace and the jobs that we get.
Dana Rampolla:Jody, would you say doing that is just kind of purporting that it's a place of normalcy, not drawing attention to it?
Jody Olsen:You got it. It's a place of normalcy. Dana, you said it really well, that it's not about me being a woman. It's not about you being a man or whatever. We're two people working to solve this problem. And as we don't think about it, then it's easier to choose the best person, the person who suits that situation, and not think about Oh, I need to get five more women just because I have to meet a goal. To me, that's a disservice to the women and a disservice to the men. It's building comforter, comfortableness in making it almost neutral. I mean, we're not the same. I know that. It's creating individual respect regardless of whom that person is. You can tell I come from a Peace Corps background.
Dana Rampolla:Well, I'm just going to say, I'm going to go on a little bit of a limb here asking you, do you feel as if that is the vantage point that the Peace Corps currently operates? I wonder, I feel like we're in a place right now, societally, where we are keeping tabs, we are counting numbers. What's your perception as an outside view, looking back?
Jody Olsen:Well, as a Peace Corps volunteer, and there are 250, 000 returned Peace Corps volunteers right now, and actually now in Peace Corps, about two thirds are women, and one third are men. Uh, in the beginning, it was two thirds men, one third women. So there's been an evolution. But I think to your question, Dana, is when a volunteer goes into a community, that volunteer becomes part of that community. You learn the language, you live with the host family, you eat the food, you take the kids to market, you teach them in the classroom. It doesn't matter whether you're a man or a woman, and the community is watching you. So as a woman, if you're a woman volunteer, you're being a A cultural person. Well, what happens to the volunteer, what happened to me, is I gained respect for myself in a way that I didn't have to put it out there because I had gone through the Peace Corps experience. All right. For example. I was in an Arab society, and women wore veils. Peace Corps volunteers didn't wear veils, so I didn't wear a veil, although I looked like this all the time. In other words, I covered all of my body, but no veil. Um, but, and I had many conversations with women about wearing veils. And I had conversations with men about why women wear veils. And they had a lot of interesting perspectives on it, almost none of which I agreed with. But in being part of that, I knew I had to gain respect of the men and I had to gain respect of the women for me to be a good volunteer. And to do that, I couldn't challenge them. I could be me. Quietly. And as trust was built, we had the conversations about veils. But it was never, oh, you shouldn't wear a veil, or, boy, that was stupid to tell women to wear veils for that reason. Never, none of it, ever. Because I had to become part of the community, they had to trust and build respect for me. So volunteers bring that back. And it's about respecting individuals, whoever they are, wherever they are. And find where their story is? Then you can tell your story, and your story might be a woman's story. And I tell a lot of women's stories. But you have to establish the trust first. So you don't go in with, well, we need to make sure we have 80 percent more women. In all of my own firing, hiring, sorry, in all my own hiring, never did I set a quota for anything. Ever. I just quietly attended, and I asked others to quietly attend. Who are the people that are applying? How are you going through the process? What is this looking like when we're coming down to the final candidates? To create an atmosphere of openness. But not put quotas and not put demands. It diminishes everyone.
Dana Rampolla:It sounds like community building has been central, and this is part of community building, is having people there based on what they bring to the table. How can institutions like UMB foster a stronger global or local community?
Jody Olsen:Let me start with the local community and UMB, that I think you are doing increasingly well and I noted from my last years that I was on the faculty, more and more of this. Baltimore City and Baltimore County are potential for wonderful communities and Baltimore City is a city of neighborhoods, so we all know that very, very well. What I think the sense of community comes in as the students and faculty are doing the practicum, the practicums, the, all the work that needs to happen in the hospitals, in the clinics, in the schools, all over the city and the county where the students are practicing being their wonderful selves as lawyers and doctors and dentists and etc. Uh, as The classroom, before the students go out, talking about the community, and helping students see that clinic, or that school, if they're going to be doing social work, or even come in and do some dental work, uh, and nursing work, that they have in their head, this is a community. These are people and some of these people are struggling and they're having a hard time getting their kids to school and that woman has to take three buses to get to the clinic. What does that mean? It's helping prepare a mindset for the respect in that clinic, in that school, in that doctor's office, for those who come in and that they belong to a community. And while you're there, you belong to that community with them. You're part of that school. You're part of those mothers and fathers and those kids and those teachers. You hear and see and feel. And I think that We at UMB create a stronger presence and are more effective when we provide enough holistic approach to be aware of what's happening to our clients or our patients outside of the moment that we're interacting with them. That's key. Secondly, And I think this is what the university has done a wonderful job at doing, at being, doing, shaping, is bringing the schools together. And I know that when I was there, we were working, that brings, you know, the social work and dentistry and law. And that discovering that in a school, that the dental students would come in one day, the social workers were there two days, the nurses were there on a Friday. Why don't they become aware of each other? So that as they're covering their approach, one, they can even get together and say, Oh my heavens, if the nurse did this, and then the doctor did this, but at least be aware so that they're pulling it together to be part of that community. And it. It is an important way that I think builds trust with patients and clients and the families and they accomplish more and they learn more. Now internationally, as you know, when I was there, we began a program, the Global Engagement Program and working with Virginia Rowthorn, who runs the program now, we started sending groups of students overseas. But the criterion was there had to be a student from each of the six schools. So the social worker, the doctor, the nurse, the pharmacist, the law, the drug, anyway, I think I got all six. Anyway, we all, all the students went together and we would have two faculty each for two weeks. The students were there for six weeks. So what meant me as a social work faculty, I was overseeing the medical student. During the two weeks I was there, for example. Well, these six students, whether they were looking at maternal health or malaria, they had to do it equally. There was no student that was in charge over any of the others, and they had to write the final report. integrated and together. I found that an extraordinary program. The students did too, what they learned from each other. Just a quick example, we were driving into a small town in southern Malawi, and the dental student said, Oh, this looks like three of the health issues in this community. And the nursing student and the medical student turned to the dental student and said, What? How do you know? And the dental student said, Well, I just look at their gums. They're all chewing a sugar cane. And I can see by the teeth and what is happening with the gums. These are the problems that they're having. Well, everyone else on the bus. It was, oh my heavens, we're all part of the same story. And so as that philosophy has continued with the Global Engagement Center, it has created a wonderful sense of international community health for the students at UMB and for the faculty at UMB. So I already think that UMB is one of the national leaders in the concept of community health. And how we provide a holistic, integrated way in training health professionals.
Dana Rampolla:Sure. We do a lot of interprofessional education, teaching people how to do that, too. So I don't think it's going away.
Jody Olsen:No, it's the, it is a particular strength, and I think it can be a particular strength at UMB because of the uniqueness of the university and what the university is there to provide. I don't think there's any other university in the country that is designed and set up the way UMB is.
Dana Rampolla:Jody, we're, before we sign off, I'm wondering if you have one very memorable moment from your time as director that truly encapsulates the spirit of the Peace Corps. You've shared a lot of stories, which all do that, but is there anything else or maybe another time that really stands out that you'd like to share with us.
Jody Olsen:When I was director the key moment I was director for three years and it was During a very difficult time at night, uh, 2018 to 2021, but critically, and it was COVID and there was. As many of us think back to March of 2020, which is when we all appreciated that this truly was a global epidemic and that people were withdrawing and being asked to withdraw. Well, I had to make the fateful decision that had never been made in Peace Corps before, was to bring home all 7, 000 Peace Corps volunteers from 61 countries. And not only from 61 countries, but from villages that were scattered all about these 61 countries, some of them like Mongolia, big, huge countries. And so you don't know when you make that decision. And I made it without checking, well, we made it internally in a group process, but I was the one that ultimately made the decision. And you don't know what's going to happen when you make a decision like that. And we brought them all home in nine days. Nobody got sick, nobody got lost, and nobody got hurt, which truly was a miracle. Lots and lots of lessons. I devote a lot of time to that whole experience because it was wrenching. Most difficult decision I made in my life. But among the takeaways, there's a particular part of that whole journey. That really stands in my mind, that for 60 years, Peace Corps had been in villages all over the world, sharing who we were and learning, building trust, building respect, as we taught, as we worked in clinics, as we worked in gardens, all that we were doing. All of a sudden, All those volunteers have to come home. What I didn't fully appreciate until that moment was the gift that hundreds of thousands of people all over the world gave Peace Corps volunteers. They said, you've been part of our lives for 60 years. You trusted us. And we trusted you. We're different people because of all of the service you have given. The least we can do at this moment is to believe in you and believe that you're going to return and make your parting as easy and as effective and as safe. as humanly possible. Presidents of countries got involved. They reopened borders for a few hours for us to get out. They helped find charter planes to get in when the borders were all closed. They helped do all the paperwork for us when the electricity went down. They fed volunteers as they made their journeys. They offered free taxi service. Free overnight service, food, safety along the way. Hundreds of thousands of people in all these countries said we care about you because you cared about us and you will come back and care about us again. That moment was my appreciation of global respect and global trust and global love. Community by community, person by person, student by student, president by president. Because of when we give and when people give back, then we can handle global emergencies. And I carry that and it comes back to the question you asked me earlier. What is a community and why do we build a community? We build a community for all that strengthens us, but we have crises, we have emergencies, we have needs. And that's when the community gives back and the world gave back to us when we had to bring the volunteers home. And I'm forever grateful for countries, families, headmasters, farmers, all over the world.
Dana Rampolla:I can only imagine the logistics and, and you said you're also a mom, so you had to have come at that with a little bit of a maternal perspective, you know, like I'm responsible for all these people and I'm doing everything I can to secure their safety for their families. So thank you.
Jody Olsen:Yeah. And you're, yeah, Dana, you're right. I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but as a mom and I have in the book, I think a letter that one of the moms wrote me personally about two weeks later. Thanking me as one mom to another and how we were able to help bring her daughter home safely and I cherish that letter because for all the globalness, it's one mom to another. It's one son to another. We're a global family.
Dana Rampolla:Well, Jody, thank you for sharing everything you have. Before we sign off, I would like to ask you one last question. What would you say to your younger self, knowing what you know today? You've had such a tremendous world experience, life experience. I'm sure you couldn't have pictured 30 years ago, this is where you'd be today.
Jody Olsen:What would I say to my younger self? I was shy. I was very shy. Insecure. I would say to my younger self two things. One, be sure to have a mentor. Ask people. Find a couple people you believe in. Talk to them and ask them to be there for you. And two, I would trust myself to take more risks. I was afraid to take risks. Now you want to take the right risks, but I would, as a, tell myself, as a younger person, try it. You know you want to do it. Go try it. It will be okay. So to try and to have a mentor.
Dana Rampolla:Great advice. Charles, did you have any last questions?
Charles Schelle:One of the things that I remember a professor telling me, , was to value experiences to travel because like especially with what the Peace Corps does you're seeing the world and with all the material possessions that you could gain nobody can take away those experiences of experiencing other cultures, of meeting other people, of just knowing what life is like beyond you know, your street or your neighborhood, and I think, you know, if if I could have, I probably should have signed up for the Peace Corps because of everything that it does and just a way to see the world and just to help other people and just appreciate other perspectives.
Jody Olsen:Let me, can I add one part to that?
Charles Schelle:Sure.
Jody Olsen:Because it feeds right into what you were saying. When I was talking to Peace Corps trainees in different countries, part of what I said is that you just, you have a backpack. Now it's a clear backpack and nobody else can see your backpack, but you've got this backpack. You're in this experience for two years. It's a very strange experience, having to sort another language, food, ways of thinking, ways people treat each other. And you're stuffing it with these experiences. Stuff it as full as you can get it. Experience it morning, noon, and night. Live every moment of it. Fill that backpack. Fill it. So you can barely zip it up, because when you come back, you're going to slowly be emptying that backpack for the rest of your life. Little piece here, a little piece there, because it is going to give you what you need for all your life. And it is so important when you're young, and you have these moments, put a much, put as much into it as you can, so that you have more to use for the rest of your life. Because that backpack is yours. It's yours all your life, and you just want a lot in it because it gives you more to use.
Dana Rampolla:Thank you, Jody, for sharing your insights and just all of the experiences with us today. Thank you for your visits to UMB to share on those platforms. It's really been a privilege to learn from your incredible journey.
Jody Olsen:Well, thank you, Dana. Thank you, Charles. And thank you, UMB. I, as I have said through many parts of this conversation, it's, you all have given me a lot of who I am. And it's because of the caring and the feeling of this university and the service through education that it gives the community in the state of Maryland. So thank you.
Jena Frick:The UMB Pulse with Charles Schelle and Dana Rampolla is a UMB Office of Communications and Public Affairs production, edited by Charles Schelle, marketing by Dana Rampolla.
