Most people know the Palace of Versailles as a popular French tourist destination.
For Marcello Fantoni, Ph.D., Kent State University’s vice president for global education, Versailles is where he serves on the Scientific Committee of its Research Center, helping to shepherd art history research on a global scale.
Fantoni was selected for his role on the Versailles committee due to his lengthy career in Italy as a professor of European and Italian history, art history and architecture. Since becoming Kent State’s vice president for global education in 2012, Fantoni has found that his role at Versailles serves him well for making important global education connections.
“It really fits very well into my current position because it allowed me to have good connections in many European cities with scholars, universities and study centers,” Fantoni said. “To organize study abroad or develop international partnerships, this network is very valuable for us.”
For Kent State, global education means having a strong presence worldwide to turn out the best prepared students for returning to work in Ohio or beyond.
“Today, Kent State University is a global university. We have a presence in every single continent of this planet,” Fantoni said. “If we send our Ohio students all over the world and they bring their experiences back, we create the conditions in Ohio for much healthier and stronger development of the entire state.”
Fantoni, a native of the Tuscany region of Italy, began working for Kent State in 2005, first serving as director of Kent State Florence in Italy and then serving as the university’s European manager overseeing Kent State’s locations in Florence and Geneva, Switzerland. Fantoni received his master’s degree from the University of Florence, a doctoral degree from the European University Institute and a postdoctoral degree from the University of Florence
Fantoni has served as a member of the scientific committee at Versailles’ Research Center since 2007, and Kent State is the only U.S. university to have a representative on the committee.
The committee’s mission is to serve as a consultative panel to offer opinions on the research center’s planned activities and to examine and assess projects and planned activities presented directly by researchers or teams of researchers.
At Kent State, Fantoni works diligently to ensure that all Kent State education-abroad experiences for students will elevate their education and help to better prepare them for careers in a world where jobs are increasingly global, no matter the field.
Kent State students, he said, come home from education-abroad experiences better prepared for today’s global workforce.
“When you come back and have more tools in your brain, more options for solutions, you are a more talented, more versatile professional and this is what the market wants today,” Fantoni said.
Under his leadership, Kent State has formed new partnerships in Brazil and South Korea, and he has overseen the establishment of an office in Kigali, Rwanda, for the expansion of Kent State in sub-Saharan Africa, both as an education-abroad program and to attract increasing numbers of students from Africa to attend Kent State.
He said that further expansion of programs and exchanges with India and other Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and South Korea are in the future.
“The future of higher education is global,” Fantoni said.