It was 2:30 am and Robin Rogers could not sleep. She had been receiving messages from over 50 of her former international students who heard about the closure of the University of Oregon’s American English Institute. AEI provided language support for international students, and Rogers had worked there from 2006 until November 2024. It closed that December.
Rogers had not only lost the job that she worked for, for almost 20 years — she lost her daily interactions, laughter and community with students she loves. She would always leave her office door wide open, not only to answer questions that students brought about classes, but to be there to show support and open a safe space for the students.
“It is more than teaching the language,” Rogers says, adding that her specialization was enhancing “confidence and community building.”
Jane Chane studied at AEI from January 2022 to June 2024, taking Rogers’ classes. “I was nervous at first, because other students were good at speaking English,” she says. Coming from Taiwan, where she did not have many opportunities to speak English, made it challenging to speak English at first.
Chane often went to Rogers’ office hours seeking more support or to chat about what she had been going through.
Shortly after Rogers ended her time at AEI, she got a job offer at a state park where she had worked before, during the COVID pandemic. The manager would tell her, “Come back, we want you back,” again and again. Rogers says that made her “feel so good, that someone wants me there.”
Since it is a seasonal job, she had a break from December until March — Rogers thought of what she would do — “What if I go on an adventure that I’ve hoped to do?”
“This will be a perfect time, and I got on the airplane,” she said. She took off on a trip to visit students that she loves.
She at first felt nervous as she wondered “whether people would want to see me or not.” She reached out to her former students through Facebook beforehand; many people reached back, saying they wanted to see her. So many students reached out that she even had one of her friends become “secretary” to manage time to effectively see people within the one month of traveling in Taiwan.
Rogers had last visited Taiwan in 2011 and remembered seeing students’ babies, which had grown up now. “It was nice to hang out as adults,” she said about spending time with her former students in a different age-dynamic.
Taiwan is a special place for Rogers. As a college student, she took a cultural anthropology class and an introduction to Teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), which made her aware of the possibility of teaching English for second language learners. She says she found joy working with international students in college.
When Rogers was 21, she flew to Taiwan as she had some Taiwanese exchange student friends, and started teaching English in the classroom there. Rogers said that people in Taiwan took good care of her, even going to the hospital together with her, which inspired her to do the same for people who come to the U.S and led her to AEI.
Over her recent one-month stay in Taiwan, Rogers said she was overwhelmed with love and care that her former students poured onto her and the gratitude they’ve expressed.
“Even though I went before, I just haven’t done that kind of trip for a long time, and it just feels so far away,” Rogers said, “but right now it feels so much closer — just get on an airplane right now, and you would be right there, and I can just jump right in again.”
As Rogers reflects on her career, she said that she had been focused on social capital by investing in people, which she found herself drained out as she felt she continued to give. Exchange students usually leave the U.S. and go back to their country, and it is rare to see them again.
“Take advantage of the time that you have, and use your resources wisely,” she said.