This year Cornell ranks No. 3 among medium-sized colleges and universities nationwide on the Peace Corps' annual rankings of Peace Corps volunteer-producing schools. Cornell has 46 undergraduate alumni serving.

Cornell also stands out as producing more Peace Corps volunteers than any other Ivy League institution in 2009 and is No. 11 on the list of all-time producers of Peace Corps volunteers, according to statistics released recently by the federal agency.

The highest ranked medium-sized school was George Washington University with 53 volunteers; second was American University with 51 volunteers.

Since the agency's creation in 1961, 1,516 Cornell alumni have joined the Peace Corps, says Anne Park, the Cornell Peace Corps coordinator, a graduate student in the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs who served in the Peace Corps 2006-08 in the Philippines.

Cornell also offers a Master of Professional Studies (M.P.S.) degree in 15 disciplines in agriculture and the life sciences in which the student spends two academic semesters on campus and then two years overseas on a Peace Corps assignment. Administered by International Programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the M.P.S. program offers the opportunity to carry out an applied project rather than the traditional research thesis for a master's degree.

Upcoming Peace Corps general information sessions are scheduled for Feb. 12, March 5, March 12 and April 9, all at 9:30 a.m. in 100 Mann Library.

For more information about the Peace Corps, e-mail peacecorps@cornell.edu or visit the office in B13 Warren Hall, Mondays, Tuesdays or Thursdays, 1:30-4 p.m.