West Virginia University students are going out into the world with a spirit of service ingrained in them, a new ranking shows.

WVU is among the Peace Corps’top 20 volunteer-producing schools for the Mid-Atlantic region. WVU was No. 20 in the 2004 rankings, which are based on the number of graduates joining the Peace Corps.

This is very exciting news for West Virginia University,said Kim Colebank, interim director of the Office of Service Learning.Our students strongly believe in the culture of service that this institution instills, and it is so important that this sense of responsibility doesn’t end with graduation.

There are currently 14 alumni serving with the Peace Corps in 13 countries, including Paraguay, Gabon and Nepal. Since 1961, almost 200 WVU graduates have served worldwide.

The region should pride itself on the number of residents serving in the Peace Corps because it is the second most productive region nationally, said Lynn Needler, manager of the Peace Corps’Mid-Atlantic Regional Recruiting Office.

The region includes top volunteer producers such as the University of Virginia (1), University of North Carolina (2), and Georgetown University (3) as well as such WVU athletic rivals as the University of Maryland (4) and Virginia Tech (8).

Average Peace Corps volunteerism from institutions increased nearly 27 percent from last year. This increase has brought the total number of Peace Corps volunteers to 7,533 working in 70 countriesthe highest number since 1974. Volunteers work in such fields as education, health, HIV /AIDS awareness, information technology, business development and agriculture.

Each year Peace Corps has 4,000 job openings in business, education, health and nutrition, community development and the environment.