Francisco Lozano (left) and Nacho Morzone (right) with Rotary members and Reinhardt staff Alana Williamson and Whitney Spear.
International students have attended Reinhardt for decades. Some of these Eagles are due to a sponsorship by the Georgia Rotary Student Program. Launched in 1946, the program seeks to foster peace through young leaders from around the globe. “Rotarians are always looking for opportunities to make the community and the world a better place. But we’re not going to talk about it, we are going to experience it by learning peace through friendship and experiencing culture” says Rotary Club of Canton president Francisco Lozano.
Ignacio “Nacho” Morzone can be seen around the Reinhardt campus this school year after being selected by the Rotary Club program. He is from Argentina where he attends the National University of La Plata, the second-largest university in the country. Seeking a cybersecurity career, but finding all the books on computer science in his library were in English, he applied to come to the U.S. to work on his English for a year of studying abroad.
Morzone says overall studying abroad has been a huge experience and will be useful for his career in computer science and cybersecurity. He’s happy he was selected to attend Reinhardt, “The entire place is absolutely awesome and people are friendly.” He has enjoyed experiencing his first baseball and football games and looks forward to spending the holidays with his host family in Canton.
Francisco Lozano from Mazatlan, Mexico knows the benefits of a Reinhardt education firsthand because he is an alumnus himself. He attended Reinhardt in the 2002-2003 school year, took business classes, and had an internship. Like Morzone, Lozano appreciates the school the Canton Rotary selected for him, “I didn’t know anything about Reinhardt, but then I fell in love with it. I like the sense of community being in a town such as Waleska. It’s small enough to be important as an individual, yet it’s large enough to have access to great education and good opportunities. It’s a perfect balance, and for someone who is coming to America for the first time, it is the best introduction to a new environment. Reinhardt is a very caring place, especially to embrace people from other cultures and really pays attention to the needs of each student and ensures that everyone succeeds.”
Lozano describes his hometown as a tropical paradise by the ocean. He says he missed the beach until experiencing autumn in northern Georgia, “I saw the landscape as those beautiful trees at Reinhardt changed color, yellow, orange, red, and the skies were bluer. There was magic in the air.”
When his study abroad ended, Lozano returned to Mexico to complete his degree. A few years later, the company he worked for in Cherokee County sought him out to return for full-time employment. Despite thinking the move was temporary, seven years later, he was still in Georgia and had grown roots. In 2013 he applied for citizenship and became a U.S. citizen in 2019. He now lives in Woodstock and works as the business intelligence and data analytics manager at Arylessence in Marietta. “A lot of things I learned at Reinhardt I am now applying in my current job.” Lozano is also a board member for the Children’s Haven in Canton where he helps promote the health and happiness of children impacted by abuse and neglect.
Lozano’s charitable work has also circled back to the reason he came to Georgia 21 years ago. He is now President of the Rotary Club of Canton, which includes helping bright students like Ignacio Morzone get an education at Reinhardt.
