Dummerston residents Beatriz and Alvino Fantini were recently honored for their decades of service to World Learning and School for International Training. Between them, the husband-wife professors emeriti have dedicated more than 100 years of service to The Experiment in International Living, the program that led to the creation of SIT and World Learning.
Acknowledging the work Alvino Fantini has done to preserve and document the history of the organizations, World Learning board chairman Lawrence Cooley announced that the institutional archives, which are housed on the SIT campus, will be named The Alvino E. Fantini Institutional Archives.
“Bea once said, ‘I am a product of education abroad. Its rewards are immeasurable,’” Cooley said. “Bea, yours and Alvino’s contributions over these many years have rewarded us in immeasurable ways.”
Alvino Fantini began his association with SIT and World Learning as an Experiment program participant to Mexico in 1954. Nearly 70 years later, he said he remains in touch with his Mexican homestay family. “It changed my life,” he said of his study abroad experience. “It changes lives. We hear it over and over again.”
Today, he has a PhD in linguistics and language education, holds degrees in Latin American studies and anthropology, and has published widely on international education and intercultural learning. He also helped transform the Sandanona estate into the current SIT campus.
Beatriz Fantini, the daughter of a Bolivian diplomat, was born in Italy, has lived in Peru, Venezuela and Argentina, and speaks Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. She joined SIT as a Spanish teacher and Experiment co-leader in the 1960s. “I provided the first foreign accent to the institution,” she joked. “Now we have many.”