Charles Kegley worked in Training Programs for Volunteers headed to Venezuela at Kent State in the 1960's

Charles Kegley, Papers,

INVENTORY Prepared by Kenton Daniels in April 1995 Revised for the WWW by Brian Leszcz in March 1997 2 record storage boxes, 2 cubic ft. 11th floor



Professor Charles F. Kegley, the chair for the Department of Adult, Couseling, Health, and Vocational Education in the College of Education, donated these papers to the Kent State University Archives in 1994.



Biographical Sketch:

Although a respected instructor, Professor Kegley was known for his international work; from 1960 onward, he actively participated in a variety of overseas projects. His lengthy Peace Corps association began in 1962 when he became the assistant project director for the first group of trainees heading for Ecuador (Ecuador I) at the Puerto Rico training facility. For a time, he also worked for A.I.D. on a university contract in East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania). In the summer of 1966, largely due to his efforts, Kent State became the site of a ten week Peace Corps training school for programs in Venezuela and Bolivia. Lauded as an innovative project, the volunteers comprised the, "...first group of blue collar workers that a university has attempted to train for Peace Corps" (July 6, 1966). Only a few had college backgrounds, and some were high school dropouts. Twenty-two staff members, including twelve instructors from KSU, provided classes in language, technical studies, area studies, American affairs, world affairs, communism, and health education. Professor Kegley served as the project's director, and, after its completion, he continued to function as the university's representative to the Peace Corps. Throughout 1967 he pushed to make KSU the training center for another Latin American program, but his efforts were never realized.

In 1970, Professor Kegley became a training director for a Peace Corps program in El Salvador; it was an "in-country" assignment. However, on May 20, 1970 he officially resigned in order to head up the fifty-two member University Commission to Implement a Commitment to Nonviolence (Kegley Commission). Soon after the tragedy of May 4, 1970 President Robert I. White asked him, as commission chairman, to diligently pursue, "...means for reopening the university and retaining a non-violent atomosphere" (May 20, 1970). For materials related to Professor Kegley's role in this commission see Boxes 102-104, May 4th Collection.

Throughout the sixties and into the seventies, in addition to his personal and professional committment to Peace Corps, Charles Kegley was also extremely active in the area of international education at KSU. The late 1960's was an active time at KSU for international programs. Special linkages were established at the University of the Americas in Mexico City (1967), the University of Louvain in Belgium (1967), Sung Kyan Kwan University in Seoul Korea (1968), at the University of Ibadad in Nigeria (1969), and Pahlavi University in Iran (1969). During the academic year of 1969-70, KSU had approximately four hundred students and ten faculty members studying and teaching abroad. As a cooordinator, director, and liasion, Professor Kegley played an important role throughout this period of expansion. Until March 1970, his international program work was done through the Office of International Studies; after March, the office changed names to the Center for International and Comparative Programs (C.I.C.P.).