The U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced recently that a University of Arkansas at Little Rock alumnus has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and perform research in Brazil during the 2014-2015 academic year.

Dr. James E. Cofer Sr., who earned an Ed.D. in Higher Education from UALR in December 1998, will work at Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

He will make use of models of student persistence behavior found in the current research as well as new models developed specifically for the Brazilian higher education community.

Utilizing both national and institutional data, Cofer will compare first-generation and non-first generation students.

Based on the analysis, he plans to identify significant differences and assist in the development of student specific strategies for retention and graduation. In addition, Cofer will lecture Brazilian researchers on advanced statistical methods so that they may continue the research after the conclusion of the grant.

Cofer, a professor in the College of Business at Missouri State University, is the former president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe and Missouri State University and previously served as an Eisenhower Fellow in the Republic of Hungary.

He received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Business Administration from Mississippi State University.

Cofer is one of approximately 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program in 2014-15. The program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International Education.