{"id":23689,"date":"2010-10-28T08:22:03","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T12:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=23689"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:36:03","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:36:03","slug":"alums-were-inspired-by-kennedys-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/10\/alums-were-inspired-by-kennedys-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Alums Were Inspired by Kennedy’s Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Beth<\/a>
Beth and Carl Salsedo met during the first week of their freshman year at UConn in 1964. Photo provided by the Salsedos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beth Prosl and Carl Salsedo were in high school when newly elected President John F. Kennedy announced the formation of the Peace Corps<\/a> in March 1961. When they met as freshmen during their first week of classes on the Storrs campus in the fall of 1964, they immediately felt a bond. They soon discovered that they\u2019d both been inspired by Kennedy\u2019s vision and both had an interest in serving their country.<\/p>\n

Beth says, \u201cI had always been interested in some type of service. Even as a little kid in elementary school, I was fascinated by the humanitarian work of Dr. Tom Dooley<\/a> in Southeast Asia. I had his picture on my bedroom wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Carl, \u201cMy brother joined the Peace Corps 1963 and was sent to Ethiopia. That was a definite influence on me. But the times were different then, and Kennedy\u2019s impact on people our age was huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years after they met, the couple realized their dream. Immediately following graduation, they joined the Peace Corps and were sent to the Micronesian<\/a> islands of Palau<\/a>, then administered by the United States as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.<\/p>\n

The eight main islands that comprise Palau are nestled in the Pacific Ocean some 500 miles east of the Philippines and 2,000 miles south of Tokyo. It was a tropical paradise for Salsedo, who had been a botany major at UConn, and Prosl, a double English and history major with an aptitude for teaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was originally recruited for a coconut reforestation project because of my background in botany,\u201d Salsedo says, \u201cbut I also had extensive experience working in a nursery, so I ended up doing a two-year research project on the medicinal plants of Micronesia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working out of the entomology laboratory on the island of Koror, and with the assistance of Palauan anthropologist Katherine Kesolei, who later became queen of the matrilineal nation, he set out to record the medicines used by the older Rubak (men) and Mechas (women) of Palau. This included learning what the medicines were used for and from which plants they were derived.<\/p>\n

Because the formulas for the Palauan cures had been held secret until then, the first phase of the project was to record them before the old practitioners died without sharing their knowledge. Then the plants were chemically tested for basic substances, such as alkaloids, which are chemical structures common to many drugs with pharmacological effects.<\/p>\n

\"<p>As<\/a>
As young Peace Corps volunteers, Beth and Carl Salsedo married and started a family while in Palau. Photo provided by the Salsedos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the course of his research, Salsedo found that the Palauans have a medicinal plant for almost every ailment, leading to cures for headaches, stomach aches, fish stings, wounds, and a variety of other conditions.\u00a0 Even though there existed a well-staffed hospital in the district center of Koror, many Palauans still preferred the old ways and their native cures.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Beth was teaching English to both children and adults. While her training had prepared her to work with small groups of about eight, she found her days filled with students of all ages. At one point, her classroom was \u2018standing room only\u2019. With a little sleuthing, she discovered that some of her younger charges had been using words, she says, that \u201chad not been part of my Peace Corps training in the native Palauan language.\u201d When she learned the lingo, and began reacting accordingly, the youngsters began concentrating more on their lessons and less on trying to tease their young teacher.<\/p>\n

Prosl and Salsedo were married during their Peace Corps service, and became parents. Although tempted to remain in this tropical paradise after their Peace Corps tour ended, they returned to the U.S. and subsequently found careers in UConn\u2019s Department of Extension<\/a>. Carl is cooperative extension educator of sustainable and environmental horticulture. Beth, who recently retired, was for many years the director of education at the 4-H Education Center<\/a> at Auer Farm in Bloomfield.<\/p>\n

Both Salsedos say that their experience as Peace Corps volunteers was invaluable from many perspectives. \u201cOur Peace Corps training was perfect,\u201d says Beth. \u201cIt prepared us for doing development work, for teaching, for working with multicultural populations \u2013 everything we ended up doing in our careers with the Department of Extension.\u201d<\/p>\n

The year 2010-2011 is the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. As part of <\/em>International\u00a0 Education Week<\/em><\/a>, which will be celebrated Nov. 15-19, UConn\u2019s <\/em>Department of International Services and Programs<\/em><\/a> is sponsoring a panel discussion featuring Carl and Beth Salsedo and a number of other returned Peace Corps volunteers with UConn connections. The program, which will include representatives from the Peace Corps, will be held on Nov. 16 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Student Union.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related story:<\/h4>\n

Peace Corps: The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Salsedos say Peace Corps service was perfect training for their subsequent careers in extension.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[56],"class_list":["post-23689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-12 17:13:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23689"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36336,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23689\/revisions\/36336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23689"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=23689"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}