During the summer of 1964, a group of 153 recent college graduates spent two months in Hanover for a course in language training before being deployed with the Peace Corps in Africa. This past weekend, 35 members of that group held a reunion meeting to refresh their language skills and discuss their experiences and ways to continue their activism.
"They've all been hankering to get together," William R. Kenan Professor of French and Italian John Rassias said. Rassias also serves as President of the Rassias Foundation and was the group's language instructor.
Rassias helped the group learn the basics of French and several African languages before the volunteers were deployed to Africa. He said his method, originally developed for the classroom, has been used throughout the Peace Corps since 1964.
"One-hundred and eighty-five thousand volunteers have been trained in this way," Rassias said. "It was a perfect adaptation. We jumped in, it worked, it clicked."
Rassias added that language classes currently taught at Dartmouth have changed little since his method was developed decades ago.
"The theme, the spirit, the approach, has not changed," he said. "It has been tweaked to add activities, but the basic philosophy is there."
According to Rassias, the volunteers' passion for activism has also not flagged over the decades.
"The intensity, the energy, all of these things that they lived in 1964 and for three years in Africa, have stayed with them all these years," he said.
Catherine O'Steen, who worked as an English language teacher in Nkongsamba, Cameroon, helped organize the reunion.
"I was in charge of getting people on the list, collecting money, helping people organize and work with the Rassias foundation," she said.
O'Steen recalled the difficulty of the language training and said Rassias' enthusiasm helped the volunteers cope with the intensity of the program.
"It was tough; we did language eight hours per day; most of us couldn't help but learn something," she said. "[Rassias] himself worked and taught classes. His energy and his total love for what he does and his total belief that it's possible for anyone to learn a language was inspiring."
Nevertheless, O'Steen said the highlight of the weekend was meeting up with friends she has not seen in so many years.
"For me, reconnecting with everybody, and finding out how outstanding a lot of the group is, and finding out how much people are still doing to improve either our smaller world or the greater world were the best parts," O'Steen said.
Even though none of Rassias' students from the summer of 1964 attended Dartmouth, he noted similarities between the volunteers he taught then and his current Dartmouth students.
"I think that this is the kind of student that we get here," he said. "They look forward to studying abroad, and I think they get the bite. They get the mood to help others in dire need."
