One on One with Roxanne Lau and Program of Academic Exchange

By Tana Poncsak

Have you ever thought about how those in leadership prepare for such a task? What about world leaders? What kind of experiences help one lead a country? Many reports point the finger at studying abroad. Think about it. The exchange student you host today could be a future global leader.

Program of Academic Exchange, also known as PAX, is one program helping students secure exchange opportunities abroad. And with the onset of a new school year this past August, a new group of PAX exchange students arrived from eleven different countries in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and Kazakhstan. This year 19 students, ages 15 to 17, came to the southeast region with 11 of those students living with Gwinnett host families and attending Gwinnett County Schools.

Roxanne Lau is a regional manager for PAX and is responsible for Georgia and South Carolina. One of the first things on her agenda after exchange students arrive is to hold orientation. Although generally orientations are planned by the coordinator, Roxanne, who has been a part of the PAX program for about nine years and has been involved in student exchange programs for over 30 years, says she likes to plan and hold orientations herself. And what better way to bring all the families, students, and cultures together than with food.

and married to a Korean woman who had a son from a previous marriage to a Korean man, and an adopted daughter who was younger than Yoon-mi.

In 1973 Nathan Butler’s company sent him to Irvine, California until 1975, when he was sent to Fairbanks, Alaska. They returned to Korea in 1977 for a time, as Dow Chemical Company had hired Nathan Butler’s company, Fluor Engineering, to build a plant there. Then they moved back to California in 1978. A year later, Yoon-mi started to attend the St. James Missionary Baptist Church and joined the young adult choir and started a choir for children.

Yoon-Mi trained as a nurse at Santa Anna College and became an LVN, a licensed vocational nurse. In 1991 she attended a friend’s wedding in Boston. She had introduced the couple, and at the wedding, they returned the favor by introducing her to James Hampton, who would eventually become her husband. She had prayed to God to send her the right man and had waited patiently for him to come into her life. He proposed to her when they first met at the wedding, and she thought he was joking. For two years they maintained a long-distance relationship; he was in Georgia, and she was in California. But tragedy struck nine months before their wedding. Nathan Butler suffered a heart attack, and Yoon-Mi administered CPR for the first time after her nurses training, but she couldn’t save Nathan.

Years later, Yoon-mi did a DNA search and found that her biological father grew up in Virginia and was a sharecropper on a plantation there. After the Korean War, he was stationed in England. Unfortunately, her biological father died in a car accident, so they never met. DNA testing showed that she had a half-brother and sister

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“I always have the orientations with the families and the students together with a potluck dinner,” she says. “The families all bring side dishes, and the students all bring a dish from their own country.”

This year’s orientation included many exchange students and families that met in August at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church in Lilburn. During orientation, Roxanne addresses the importance of keeping the lines of communication open between the members of the host family and the exchange students. They also go over some of the differences in cultures. Rather than having an “I’m right, and you’re wrong” mentality, Roxanne discusses how to approach those differences respectfully. She also covers manners and expectations as well.

It’s no doubt there’s an adjustment period, and exchange students can experience homesickness. Roxanne encourages the students to be present and to lean into where they are. “That’s because when they’re in touch with friends and family members back home,” she says, “they never completely leave that culture to join the culture here.” Given that, she also encourages the students to limit their contact back home and suggests they get involved in school activities and make new friends here.

“Don’t just stay in your room,” she advises. “Get involved and do things.”

At the same time, she also tells host families to involve the students

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