Posted Jan. 13, 2025 — Growing up in South Carolina, Mikel Cole caught the travel bug early. He remembers his family loading up the camper to drive to the beach in Galveston when he was 7. As a young adult, he expanded his horizons, moving to Taiwan for a year to teach English.

“It’s a big world. I wanted to get out to see it,” said Cole, who now works as an associate professor of bilingual/ESL education at the University of Houston College of Education. “I’ve always really enjoyed getting outside of what feels familiar and comfortable.”

In May, Cole will take another leap into the unfamiliar, spending the month working with doctoral students in Romania as a Fulbright Specialist. Operated by the U.S. State Department, Fulbright is a selective exchange program that connects academics and professionals across the globe.

“Fulbright’s core mission as an organization is really diplomatic,” Cole said. “It’s meant to foster peaceful interactions and focus on education and knowledge generation in particular. I really kind of love what the organization is about. This feels like such a gift.”

Cole follows several other College of Education faculty members selected as Fulbright participants. Dean Cathy Horn spent six months in Chile as a Fulbright Scholar studying college admissions policies; Professor Lyle McKinney partnered with a Colombian university as a Fulbright Specialist to research financial aid; and Professor Dave Louis became a Fulbright Scholar for a project involving universities in Germany and Ethiopia. Most recently, former dean and Distinguished Professor Bob McPherson was named to the Fulbright Specialist roster for a potential collaboration in New Zealand.

Cole is partnering with the School of Economics at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Romania’s oldest institution of higher education. His work will include hosting workshops, developing resources and serving as a mentor to help doctoral students improve their academic writing in English, their research skills and their ability to critically analyze media.

“This is a really exciting opportunity not just for me personally but for UH as we are building Fulbright relationships with systems and spaces around the world,” Cole said.

Cole’s own research focuses on multilingual learners. He said his interest in teaching stems from tutoring other students as a kid, finding joy as they had a “light bulb” moment. After college, while teaching mostly Native American and Spanish-speaking students in Albuquerque, he found his passion for supporting linguistically and culturally diverse learners. He later taught in the intensive English program at UH-Downtown, working with students from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

Semi-proficient in Spanish, Cole had been working over the last few years to bolster his language skills using the app Duolingo. When he solidified his Fulbright trip, he switched to Romanian.

“This is all new for me,” he said. “It’s a bit surreal.”

—By Ericka Mellon