Laura Cotten Howell

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR FELLOWSHIPS AND GRADUATE SCHOOL ADVISING / UNIVERSITY HONORS PROGRAM

"Prior to working at the University of Dayton I had never lived anywhere for more than 3 years (I'm a military brat). I lived in South Korea when I was 11 years old. It changed my worldview, so I definitely want students to have the same experience.  I got my junior black belt- I was terrible at taekwondo, but I was gifted a junior black belt. It took me 11 months at age 11 to learn, so I am NOT dangerous at all. 

I came to Dayton on a rainy day. I got like no sleep for the interview and I showed up just raw and gave a good interview because I was honest. I was like ‘It’s raining, these people are amazing… what's happening, I wasn't supposed to like this place!” When they called and offered me the job I was like ‘Absolutely!’ It's crazy how life works- I've been here 10 years; I’ve moved 4 times in the city (I still move every 3 years!) but I've kept the same job. 

What keeps me here are the students- and my great bosses. They are high caliber. Applying to fellowships is really hard, especially after covid. We won 9 of these last year. Really cool, really diverse group of awards. Believing in the dreams of the students, helping them to articulate those dreams and why they should be selected…It's just an amazing job to have, to really be so instrumental in somebody’s life.

I was first hired as the Fellowships Supervisor and now I manage some of our signature programs like London Flyers, DC Flyers. DC flyers is probably my biggest accomplishment. 

I love the transformational experiences that accompany these opportunities from students. They come back from DC and say ‘Hey! I don’t have to go to law school!’ or ‘Hey! I really want to travel when I have my first job’. It makes them adult people, with excitement and passions for different things. Going and being a DC Flyer and finding out that you hate DC is equally as successful as finding out that it is a potential home for you. There’s no wrong way to do the program.

And I love DC. I worked there 4 years after my bachelors degree, so when they were looking for someone for the DC flyers program I was like ‘Pick me!’

In 2019, I was sitting in on a Dayton2DC trip with one of our alums, Kelly Miller. She actually said in the meeting ‘Laura Cotten changed my life. I remember meeting with her in 2014 in her office and her saying “DC Flyers is for political science and human rights majors.”’ And I said ‘Absolutely not! It's for any major.’ ‘Had she not said that I never would have applied, I never would have gotten in, I never would have had a summer in DC, I never would have made my life in DC…’ So, the DC Flyers program is really transformational for so many students.

Michele was a student in 2015. I helped her win a Fullbright to Thailand, an English teaching assistantship. She and I kept in touch, because we just liked each other. A few years after she graduated, she called me: ‘Laura, K-12 education is not for me. I want your job. How do I get your job?’. And so I told her ‘You need to go back to grad school and get a degree in Higher Education.’ She came back to UD, got her masters degree, and we hired her as our GA , and then as our program coordinator. So, she’s been here as our program coordinator for, not even a year, and this job pops up. She lives in Cincinnati and just hates the commute. I go into her office, I'm like ‘Michele did you see the posting? It’s for the Assistant Director at the University of Cincinnati for Fellowships Advising.’ She’s like ‘WHAT?!’. And I’m like, ‘I know!’

I was like ‘You would be crazy not to apply and YES I will be a reference’! Of course the supervisor in me did NOT want her to leave, because she’s amazing, but the person who knows she wants to do fellowship adviser in me wanted her to fly away and do the good things and be herself! Clearly they hired her because she’s amazing.

So that was fun to help her get that job. It’s just fun to have a positive impact on people’s lives. I think that’s my goal, that’s my vision of being in higher education.”