​Every summer, the Tufts University European Center organizes the Tufts in Talloires program, a six-week academic program for Tufts undergraduate students. Its students— 75 in summer 2018— receive a unique combination: two credit bearing Tufts University courses from a range of disciplines, plus the opportunity to live with a French host family and get firsthand experience of French culture. With a nod to Donald MacJannet’s belief in learning by experiencing, all the classes offered in Talloires connect in some way with the local region to give students an experiential component to their coursework. As students have become more globally minded, the popularity of our program has grown. The Tufts in Talloires Program has become an important (and sometimes the only) vehicle for students to live abroad and to discover the world beyond what they’ve always known.

The MacJannet Foundation has been instrumental in making this possibility a reality for many students through its generous annual support of the Tufts European Center’s scholarship fund. Last summer, the MacJannet Foundation’s grant of $36,525, combined with other scholarship support from Tufts, helped the European Center offer financial support to 29 students who might not otherwise have been able to travel to Talloires. These “MacJannet Scholars,” in turn, help ensure a more diverse student community for the Tufts in Talloires Program, something that enriches our own community while also teaching our French neighbors and hosts about the richness and diversity of American students.Every year, we on the Tufts staff see how six weeks in Talloires can have a profound and long-lasting impact on students’ lives.

By Guy Benveniste
I was born in Paris into a large immigrant family that had fiercely adopted French culture and language. My parents spoke French; my father did not know English. My numerous cousins, aunts and uncles all spoke French.

In 1936, when I was nine, my mother’s sister moved to Paris from Prague and enrolled her two children at The Elms, the MacJannets’ school outside Paris. My aunt arranged with Donald MacJannet to allow me to attend some classes and activities at The Elms on Thursdays and Sundays, when the French schools did not hold classes. That summer, my cousins went to the MacJannet Camp in Talloires, and I joined them there for the summers of 1936, ’37 and ’38. I also went skiing with a MacJannet group led by Donald’s brother-in-law, Emory Foster, in Caux and Font Romeu in ’37 and ’38. By then my English had improved. (I learned to sing “Our Indiana,” the fight song of Indiana University, from one of my camp counselors.)

By Selma Odom and John Habron
Talloires, spring 1958: Charlotte MacJannet and Priscilla Barclay, two elegant educators in their 50s— one born German, the other English— greet colleagues at the opening of a course organized by the International Union of Dalcroze Teachers.

They have gathered in the garden at the crumbling 900-year-old Prieuré, which Charlotte and her husband Donald MacJannet had recently acquired. Here Charlotte guides performers and teachers from Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, France, England, Austria, and Denmark through a ten-day exploration of “the body as an instrument for artistic expression.”