If learning how to read and write in English was easy, then there would be no need for people like Elizabeth Kotseas.

A 25-year tenured professor in the Department of Linguistics at Stony Brook University, Kotseas helps international students with their English language proficiency as they seek education and job opportunities in the United States. She maximizes her week — holding office hours, class lectures and a weekly club to meet her students’ needs, as the University’s resources to help Kotseas’s mission can often feel strained under the growing rate of international students.

On late Thursday nights, Kotseas hunkers down in her office with the Reading Is Fun Club (RIF) executive board. This club is dedicated to bettering international students’ understanding of the English language using a book of the student’s choice. She pulls out her laptop and goes over the planned events and readings for the semester to encourage international students to break out of their comfort zones and explore the written word. For Kotseas, the club is a way for her to give back to an overlooked campus community.

Kotseas champions the club whenever she can by, promoting the club to her students so they can take initiative of their English education on their own.

“At my lectures, I can see that they could use the additional support,” Kotseas said. “So all I could do is offer office hours and [RIF] to help build confidence and reading.”

The academic success of international students is important not only to Kotseas but to the economy as well. In 2023, Forbes reported that international students contributed $40.1 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2022-23 academic year. The economic boom that international students bring with them benefits New York State greatly, as it hosts the largest number of international students in the country with a population of over 50,000.

Yet the University’s resources to help the Program in Academic English (PAE) are not on par with the increasing rate.

“If we could offer [more] support, we would, in the program[s in] Writing [and] Rhetoric and [PAE],” Kotseas said. “I don’t know, maybe it is institutional.”

As much as Kotseas wants to help her international students, she realizes that her students need to take initiative on their end if they want to better themselves.

“[Learning English] takes at least seven to nine years to master,” Kotseas said. “I would say the academic components of language are definitely the hardest, which I think would be reading and writing.”

Jill Robins is in her 18th year as a professor in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric and a lecturer in the Academic English program. Over her tenure, she has seen the different challenges many international students face while learning a new language.

“Oftentimes, the students in the program need very different things,” Robins said. “For example, in one student’s school, grammar may have been a huge focus, and they have all the metalanguage to talk about grammar … but oftentimes, someone may have come from a school that didn’t teach grammar explicitly so they might not have the metalanguage to discuss verb tenses.”

Robins is not just a fellow professor, but a peer and friend of Kotseas.

“Liz is certainly one of the most dedicated instructors,” Robin said. “I think she’s dedicated to maintaining a high standard for her students. But in order to be fair in doing so, she’s very supportive to her students.”

Wenxian Nie is currently a Chinese international student at Stony Brook and a former student of Kotseas. Nie reflected on Kotseas’s high demand for himself and his peers not just in their work but behavior as well.

“Professor Elizabeth is very strict with us, not only in English,” Nie said. “It is also reflected in time management, such as deducting points for being late [and] item management requires packing up items and preparing all necessary materials.”

“I believe RIF is helpful for me because I have learned a lot of new vocabulary,” Nie said. “I found my reading ability improved to a higher level.”

RIF President Zhenting Ling has known Kotseas for over three years, going back to his time as a freshman. They often collaborate on budget allocation and activities planned for each club meeting. For Ling, Kotseas is both a great professor and a role model.

“I would describe Liz as the ‘mom’ figure of the club,” Ling said. “She would just be there and just give advice for us to deal with problems that we run into.”