MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL — The Peace Corps welcomes a new University of Minnesota-Twin Cities graduate program to Master’s International. The program in the university’s Institute of Technology (College of Science and Engineering) will offer Peace Corps Master’s International students the opportunity to combine graduate studies with Peace Corps services abroad to a earn a master’s degree in civil engineering.

The program, focused on environmental engineering and water resources engineering, will include one year of study at the University of Minnesota and 27 months service with the Peace Corps. This is only the second Master’s International program in Minnesota. The University of Minnesota also offers a Peace Corps Master’s International program — introduced in 1994 — in natural resources science and management within the university’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences.

“Peace Corps is excited to build upon our already-strong partnership with the University of Minnesota,” said Eric Goldman, Peace Corps program manager for Master’s International. “The new civil engineering program will enable Peace Corps Masters International students to put their University of Minnesota education to work in communities worldwide and earn credit for their service abroad.”

Participants in more than 60 Peace Corps Master’s International programs typically finish one year of graduate school in the U.S. before earning additional academic credit while serving as Peace Corps volunteers abroad.

“We are thrilled to offer this new program,” said Julian Marshall, a University of Minnesota civil engineering assistant professor and McKnight Land-Grant professor of urban sustainability. “More and more, students want not only to learn skills, but also to apply those skills to real-world problems.”

The University of Minnesota is one of the top Peace Corps volunteer-producing schools in the country, and has consistently been in the top 25 of Peace Corps’ Top College annual ranking for the last 10 years. Altogether, 1,269 University of Minnesota alumni have served in the Peace Corps since the agency’s founding by president John F. Kennedy in 1961.

For more information about the new program, visit www.ce.umn.edu/graduate/peace_corps. Additional information on Master's International is available at www.peacecorps.gov/masters.