Robert Frost once wrote, “Nothing gold can stay.”

Sarah Powers, a former Skyline College English instructor, can relate, and not just because she enjoys literature. Her last class with the Trojans ended in the 2013 Summer Semester after two years of teaching here. She is slated to begin her new position as a full-time writing lecturer at the University of California, Davis, in September 2013.

“I miss Skyline already,” the Lansing, Mich., native said. “I’ve taught at middle school, high school, and San Francisco State University and the students at Skyline are the most fun.”

With such variety in her educator background, one would never think Powers nearly avoided teaching altogether while studying at Northern Michigan University. Her guidance counselor recommended she take an education class when she settled on English as her major.

“I thought teachers were boring,” she said. “I didn’t like a lot of my teachers growing up. Then I took an education class. I loved the professor, I loved the engaging questions he asked us and I fell in love with the profession on the first semester.”

So it came to be that Powers, after years of teaching around the San Francisco Bay Area, arrived at Skyline College. She introduced herself to Skyline’s unique student body during English 846, Reading & Writing Connections in the 2011 Fall Semester.

“There’s something about Skyline . . . and the community college students,” Powers said. “I just seemed to click with them and vice versa.”

Her favorite moments with students happened during their one-on-one essay review sessions, and for good reason. Powers recalled convincing one student to not drop her class due to its difficulty. He ended up being one of her star pupils.

“Not all students think you’re talking to them,” she said about her teaching technique. “I think it helps humanize me as a teacher and it helped us connect. It helped me see these huge gains in their writing and academic ability. Creating these one-on-one moments tended to be beneficial.”

This devotion to teaching did not escape her colleagues’ notice.

“You always had the sense she was listening to what others were saying,” said Mary Gutierrez, Skyline’s Dean of Language Arts/Learning Resources. “Her responses always seemed very thoughtful.”

Powers also co-sponsored the campus’ Gay/Straight Alliance, as well as being a representative of the part-time faculty on the faculty union and contributed to the English department’s book writing project.

But just as gold can’t stay, neither could Powers.

Powers taught here part-time and did the same at other colleges, which she described as “exhausting.”

She sought a full-time position at Skyline, which would have included benefits. After making it to the final round of interviews for the first two years, she was ultimately passed up in favor of individuals who were not from Skyline.

“It felt like a low blow,” Powers said. “Full time faculty members were not happy I did not get the job.”

What she did get was a call from UC Davis offering her a position as a full-time lecturer.

She described her transition up north as, “A little strange and a little bittersweet.”

“I never set out to teach at a UC,” Powers said. “It’s going to take me in a whole different path career-wise, which is exciting.”

Next month, Powers said she will trade a classroom for a lecture hall, but her purpose remains unchanged: to produce tomorrow’s writers filled with “a sense of life-long learning.”