As a further extension of his cultural enrichment program, Kent State Normal College President John McGilvrey introduced a bold innovation for students: a series of educational tours.
Beginning in 1922, he led tours to sites of cultural and historical interest. These tours featured faculty lectures, and students earned credits in history or geography. The first excursion, with 120 students, graduates and friends, was a tour of the Washington, D.C., area. The success of this tour led to a successful tour of the eastern seaboard in 1923, two more trips in 1924 and the announcement of three trips (Montreal, Yellowstone and Washington, D.C.) for 1925. Additionally, the brochures for the 1925 trips announced plans for a trip to Europe in 1926.
McGilvrey’s Progressive Plan
In his time, McGilvery was an exceptionally progressive educator and a strong believer in experiential learning. These educational tours were intended to culminate, in 1926, with the establishment of a groundbreaking foreign exchange program. In this program, Kent State students would study abroad and students from overseas would come to study in Kent. This European exchange program was rooted in McGilvrey’s conviction that a well-rounded student’s education should be expanded and refined through experiences as well as traditional learning. To McGilvrey, studying in a major European institution was perhaps the ultimate opportunity to enhance and enrich the student experience.
A Major Setback
On Jan. 25, 1926, McGilvrey was in New York, stepping off an ocean liner from a trip to England, where he had negotiated a four-year exchange program with Cambridge University. In this agreement, 200 students from Kent State would spend the summer studying at Cambridge, while a number of students from Cambridge would learn about American education methods in Kent. McGilvrey was exhilarated and confident this arrangement would “put Kent on the map.”
Unfortunately, he was met on the dock by Kent State’s treasurer, William Van Horn, who informed him they had both been dismissed from the university by the Board of Trustees.
McGilvrey’s intense passion, impulsive nature and bold, progressive plans had made enemies of some of the more conservative members of the board. After a series of meetings, the trustees took advantage of McGilvrey’s trip abroad, the university’s winter break and the death of his strongest supporter on the board to remove him from office.
McGilvrey’s departure, followed by the Great Depression and then the beginning of the Second World War meant that decades would pass before another plan for overseas study would come to Kent State.
New Beginnings – and a Fast Forward
Shortly after the war ended, Kent State President George A. Bowman appointed a professor as advisor to international students. Then, in 1972, President Glenn A. Olds hired a professor with the goal of opening Kent to the world as a major international center. These steps helped build the foundation of Kent State’s first study-abroad programs in Geneva, Switzerland, and Florence, Italy. These flagship programs quickly rose to prominence among the nation’s most successful study-abroad programs, attracting students to Kent State from all over the country.
And Kent State’s overseas study and faculty-student exchange program continued to grow. President Michael Schwartz strongly supported international programs and signed agreements during the 1980s and early ‘90s with universities in Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Japan, Greece and Germany.
World-Renowned Global Education
Today’s education-abroad programs, through Kent State’s Office of Global Education (OGE), quite literally offer the world to Kent State students. In addition to Kent State’s overseas campuses in Florence, Prague and Xi’an, China, the university maintains partnerships and associations with hundreds of institutions worldwide.
“At Kent State University, we are committed to granting access to students from all over the world and to make the whole world available for our students,” said Kent State’s vice president for global education, Marcello Fantoni, Ph.D.
This year, OGE is marking the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Kent State’s program in Florence with a celebration that will continue into 2023. Kent State Florence is the largest American program in Italy, hosting more than 800 students annually.
In February, the office was recognized with the prestigious Senator Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization. The Simon Award is the nation’s top prize for excellence in global education.
Sarah Malcolm, executive director of the Office of Global Education, acknowledges this award as well-deserved recognition of Kent State as a leader in international education – and the support on campus that made it possible. “Our long history of internationalization would not be possible without the support of Kent State faculty and administration that paves the way for nearly 1,500 students to study abroad each year. This places us in the top 100 U.S. universities for study-abroad participation,” Malcolm said. 
“The internationalization efforts of Kent State’s early administrators helped build the foundation of our success today,“ she added.
One hundred years after President McGilvrey first implemented his then-radically progressive idea to enhance the student experience, Kent State University has realized his dream to its fullest.