Education and Early Career
Born in 1935, Rodgers held a master's degree in International Affairs and a doctorate in Public Law and Government from Columbia University. In 1966 he accepted a teaching position at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette), where he became interested in saving the Cajun French dialect from extinction — an eminent threat by the second half of the twentieth century. “Louisiana should fight to preserve the French language," he noted. "But unless the fight starts now . . . all is lost.” Rodgers called for closer ties between south Louisiana and French Canada, and was appointed by Louisiana governor John McKeithen to map out the Quebec-Louisiana Cultural Agreement, which arranged for artistic, educational, and economic exchanges between the two regions. Rodgers was an original member of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL), having been appointed to the organization by its first president, former Louisiana congressman Jimmy Domengeaux.
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