Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-149
Susan Goodman (nee Teller) served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey from 1964 to 1966 as a teacher. Part of the Turkey IV group, she taught intermediate and advanced English in the Middle East Technical University in Ankara before being transferred to a primary school in Polatli, a village near Ankara. There, she taught English to 7th graders for about 5 months. Although Goodman loved Turkey and learned a lot through her experiences, she recounts two situations in which she believes Peace Corps treated her unfairly. Goodman was involuntarily transferred from the university because she failed students for plagiarism on exams, spoke up at faculty meetings, and allowed students to discuss religion in class. She believes that Peace Corps was trying to appease Turkish officials after the Peace Corps director had claimed diplomatic immunity when he killed a Turkish woman in an auto accident. Later, after she was strangled by her former Turkish boyfriend, she was denied visitors in the hospital and then summarily shipped back to the U.S. without the opportunity say good-bye to friends and colleagues. Goodman also discusses carrying papers on the Palestinian situation into Turkey and meeting with what turned out to be Turkish Maoists on a return trip to Turkey after the Peace Corps. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, September 17, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).