Draft:Donald Ross MacJannet

Donald Ross MacJannet (born May 28, 1894, died April 4, 1978), an American-born educator, was a pioneering practitioner of international learning and cultural exchange between Europe and the U.S. through several vehicles: a school he operated near Paris between 1924 and 1939; an international summer camp in the French Alps between 1925 and 1963; and the renovation of an Eleventh Century Priory in Talloires, France, which became the Tufts University European Center in 1979. He and his German-born wife, Charlotte Blensdorf MacJannet, created structured educational experiences for youth and adults that promoted the ideals of hard work and discipline paired with experiential learning and exposure to foreign cultures.

MacJannet was born in 1894 in Sterling, MA, the third of five children of Robert MacJannet, a fundamentalist Scottish-born minister, and Irene Waters, of old New England ancestry. Robert died when Donald was 15 and shortly afterward his mother suffered a nervous breakdown, causing Donald to move with his younger sister to Medford, MA, to live with a family friend. He soon became the primary supporter of not only his younger sister, but also of the widow with whom they lived.

MacJannet attended Tufts University by earning a scholarship and then by working part time as a church janitor and a cookware salesman to pay his expenses. When he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1916 with a degree in French literature, his classmates elected him the rare honor of serving as both Class Day and Commencement Orator.

After graduation. MacJannet taught at the St. Albans School in Washington, DC, then joined the US Army Signal Corps as a pilot during World War I. After the war, he moved to France and became a tutor to children of American expatriates then living in Paris. In 1924 he founded the MacJannet American Country School in St. Cloud, outside Paris.

In 1925, MacJannet opened a summer camp on Lake Annecy in the French Alps, catering to the students attending his Paris Schools and later French children as well. Hundreds of children attended the MacJannet schools and camps over the years including such prominent figures such as Prince Phillip, future husband of Queen Elizabeth II, and Indira Gandhi, later the first female prime minister of India.

In 1932 MacJannet met and married Charlotte Blensdorf, who previously in Sweden had started her own school of eurythmics, a discipline stressing training in rhythm, music, and movement. The confluence of their philosophies was reflected in the Camp MacJannet environment.

During World War II the MacJannets fled Europe for America after securing the safety of their campers. In the U.S. they worked in overseas relief efforts and later operated a school at Sun Valley, Idaho. After the war ended in 1945, they reopened the camp in France, which operated through 1963.

In 1958, the MacJannets purchased the abandoned 900-year old Benedictine Priory in Talloires, France, at an auction. After restoring it, they used the Priory to house educational seminars, concerts, and ecumenical conferences before donating the building and its grounds to Tufts University in 1978.

In 1968, the MacJannets and their friends established the MacJannet Foundation to promote student cultural exchange programs and the study of international relations as a positive force for world peace and prosperity. In the early 1970s they set up an endowment for an exchange program between Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva to promote international learning.

The MacJannet Prize For Global Citizenship was named in his honor in 2009 to recognize exceptional college student civic engagement programs around the world. It is jointly sponsored by the MacJannet Foundation and the Talloires Network, an international association of 427 universities on six continents.

MacJannet died at his home in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 4, 1986.