By Susan Cantrell, Camille Harmon and Trey Conatser 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 30, 2023) — Transdisciplinary Educational approaches to advance Kentucky, or TEK, challenges faculty and students to engage with complex, multidimensional and context-specific issues. Some have described these issues as “wicked problems” that exceed the capacity of any one framework, approach or perspective to provide an adequate or lasting solution. Moreover, TEK leverages these issues for students to develop essential employability skills, including the highly valued abilities to engage multiple points of view, reflect on growth, communicate ideas

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Each year the College of Arts & Sciences presents faculty teaching, mentoring and service awards, including four Outstanding Teaching Awards in the divisions of Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural & Mathematical Sciences and one for lecturers. These awards recognize excellence and outstanding contribution both in undergraduate and graduate teaching.  

The recipients for 2023 are:  

Outstanding Teaching Awards 

Humanities: 

Peter Kalliney, Department of English: Outstanding Teaching Award. 

Francie Chassen-Lopez, Department of History: Career Award. 

Natural and Mathematical Sciences: 

Bertram Guillou, Department of Mathematics: Outstanding Teaching Award. 

Behavioral and Social Sciences: 

Elena Sesma, Department of

By Jenny Wells-Hosley 

<br /> Aaron Thompson, president of Kentucky's Council on Postsecondary Education, receives the&nbsp; UK Department of Sociology's Thomas R. Ford Distinguished Alumni Award from Carrie Oser at ceremony on May 5. Photo by Justin Conder.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 9, 2023) — The University of Kentucky Department of Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences has awarded Aaron Thompson, Ph.D., president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, with the Thomas R. Ford Distinguished Alumni Award. The award is given to doctoral alumni who have distinguished themselves in a sociological career.

Thompson was presented with the award during the department’s annual awards ceremony on May 5.

As a first-generation

By Jesi Jones-Bowman 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 8, 2023) — The University of Kentucky Office of Undergraduate Research  has chosen 20 undergraduates for the 2023 Commonwealth Undergraduate Research Experience Fellowship program.

Sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Research and the Office of the Vice President for Research, the CURE Fellowship program helps undergraduates to become leaders for their respective communities by providing opportunities to develop knowledge and skills through research within six of UK’s Research Priority Areas: cancer, cardiovascular health, diversity and inclusion, energy, neuroscience and substance use

By Lindsay Travis 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 3, 2022) — University of Kentucky researchers in the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Public Health are the first in the country to study a digital intervention method’s impact on interrelated public health issues: heavy drinking and insomnia.

The two-year, nearly $400,000 grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism will fund research on how an intervention program called Sleep Healthy Using the Internet will improve participants’ sleep and indirectly improve their drinking habits.

Mairead Moloney

The program is an online version of cognitive behavioral therapy for 

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 5, 2022) — Fruithurst is your quintessential small town. Located in Cleburne County, Alabama — just five miles on the other side of the Georgia state line — only a few hundred people call it home.

Christy Hiett is one of those people.

Born and raised in the tight-knit community, she now serves as principal of Fruithurst Elementary, the same school she attended as a young girl.

“Fruithurst is a very small community where the school is a large part of the community, and the community is a large part of the school.”

That’s why Hiett became concerned when a growing number of people, including her students, were diagnosed with cancer.

“When children started being diagnosed with leukemia, people in the community looked to me for answers,” she said

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 3, 2022) — The University of Kentucky will welcome author and distinguished alumnus William H. Turner back to campus for a presentation on his latest, awarding-winning book, “The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns.” The presentation, titled “The Blues on Black Mountain: Stories from The Harlan Renaissance,” will take place at 5 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, in the William T. Young Library’s UK Athletics Auditorium. A reception will follow at 6:30 p.m. at the Appalachian Center, 624 Maxwelton Court on campus.

The event is co-sponsored by the UK Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program, the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies, the 

By Jesi Jones-Bowman

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 31, 2022) ­— The Office of Undergraduate Research at the University of Kentucky is honored to announce that 22 students have been selected for the 2022-23 Undergraduate Research Ambassador program.

The program’s mission is to increase awareness and create opportunities for students to actively engage in research and creative scholarship. Ambassadors must demonstrate academic excellence and  leadership potential and be involved in mentored research. This year’s ambassadors represent six colleges, 15 disciplines and 18 research areas.

The student leaders’ goal is to make undergraduate research more accessible. Ambassadors promote undergraduate research involvement and opportunities through student outreach and program

By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Cameron McAlister, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences, has received a National Institute of Social Science 2022 Dissertation Grant. The grant is for $5,000.  

McAlister’s research examines how uneven development affects rural opportunity structures and outcomes for health and mortality. His dissertation, “Deaths of Deaths of Despair, Rurality, and Spatial Inequality: Emplacing Violent Death,” examines elevated rates of suicides and drug- and alcohol-

By Jesi Jones-Bowman

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 25, 2021) — Eight University of Kentucky students have been selected for the Sustainability Summer Research Fellowship program, a high-impact learning experience that contributes to the students’ academic growth as well as sustainability-focused research initiatives at UK and within the community at large.

The Sustainability Research Fellowship is a collaborative program coordinated by the Office of Undergraduate Research and sponsored by the UK Student Sustainability Council and UK Sustainability. The fellowship’s goal is to support and promote sustainability-related undergraduate research endeavors. The program, which launched in 2014, has supported 48 undergraduate sustainability summer projects.

“Sustainability Research Fellowships have been

On April 18, 2022, Emily Keaton, at the Showcase of Undergraduate Scholars, provided a poster presentation of, “Fake It Till You Make It.”

For the past three years, Keaton, along with UK graduates Saturn Kendrick and Tori Cruz-Faulk, has been working with Dr. Rosie Moosnick to chronicle the realities that students face on four flagship campuses.

The oral histories that lie behind the work chronicle the lives of students at the University of Kentucky, West Virginia University, University of Florida and University of Mississippi who come from rural, suburban, or urban communities.

What surfaced in the research is that students conceal their struggles even if it means hiding where they come from. And the interviews reveal the frailty of the rural/urban dichotomy and instead underscore class alliances between unsuspected populations. Class, unexpectedly, but not

By Elizabeth Chapin

LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 9, 2022) — Poor sleep is linked to a wide range of medical issues, including hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity and cancer. With more than a third of U.S. adults reporting insufficient sleep, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe sleep deprivation as a public health epidemic.

The public health burden of sleep deprivation is especially high in Kentucky: Residents are some of the nation’s most sleep-deprived, particularly in rural Appalachia. In that area,  25-58% of adults report insufficient sleep, defined as less than six hours a day.

Two College of Arts and Sciences professors at the University of Kentucky have received a $3.7 million grant from the National

UKNow is highlighting the University of Kentucky’s 2022-23 University Research Professors. Established by the Board of Trustees in 1976, the professorship program recognizes excellence across the full spectrum of research, scholarship and creative endeavors at UK. 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 27, 2022) — Carrie Oser, the DiSilvestro Endowed Professor in the Department of Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky, has been named one of 14 University Research Professors. 

The 2022-2023 University Research Professorship Awards honor faculty members who have demonstrated excellence that addresses scientific, social, cultural and economic challenges in the Commonwealth, across the region and around the world. 

By Elizabeth Chapin

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 20, 2022) — More than two years into the University of Kentucky’s $87 million HEALing Communities Study (HCS) to address the opioid epidemic in Kentucky, it is possible to see the life-changing impacts it has already made in the eight counties of the study’s first wave.

Launched in 2019, the ambitious four-year study includes a multidisciplinary team of more than 25 researchers spanning seven colleges across UK, and leverages existing resources and initiatives in partnership with communities to implement various strategies to reduce opioid deaths across Kentucky. 

Evidence-based practices implemented by the HCS team in partnership with behavioral-health and criminal justice agencies include effective delivery

By Kate Maddox

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 6, 2022) — The University of Kentucky is celebrating two book winners of the Weatherford Awards, which were announced at the 45th annual Appalachian Studies Association conference March 17-20 at West Virginia University.

“The Girl Singer” by Marianne Worthington was published by the University Press of Kentucky and won in the poetry category. "The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Lives in Appalachian Coal Towns" (WVU Press), written by UK alumnus and College of Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame member William H. Turner, won in the nonfiction category.

Crystal Wilkinson, UK associate professor of English, was a runner-up in the poetry category

By Dee Dlugonski

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 6, 2022) — The University of Kentucky Women’s Forum held a virtual awards ceremony Wednesday, March 30, to honor four awardees who reflect the accomplishments and legacy of Sarah Bennett Holmes. The 2022 Sarah Bennett Holmes award winners are: Carrie Oser (faculty), Mehrana Mohtasebi (graduate student), Clarissa Cheatwood (staff) and the UK Neurology Department’s Wellness and Resiliency Committee (team).

These awards recognize individuals and teams who promote the growth and well-being of women at the university and across Kentucky. Faculty, staff and graduate student recipients receive a monetary award and a plaque. The team and its members receive a framed certificate for their achievement. All winners are named on plaques in the Main Building. 

2022

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 8, 2022) — The University of Kentucky Women’s Forum will celebrate the 2022 Sarah Bennett Holmes Award winners from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Wednesday, March 30, via Zoom. The award recipients from four categories — staff, faculty, graduate student and team — will be recognized during the event. All awardees have exemplified great work in their efforts and contributions to issues that affect women at the university and across the Commonwealth.

To join this virtual event to celebrate all of the nominees and award winners, please use this link: https://uky.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5jvTG9vinBA7Uto. Please register by 5 p.m., Tuesday, March 29.  Among the faculty nominees is Carrie Oser of the

By Elizabeth Chapin

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 4, 2022) — Research from University of Kentucky faculty and students working to reduce the burden of substance use disorders in Kentucky and beyond was showcased at UK's Substance Use Research Event (SURE) on March 1.

The annual event, supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research, gives substance use researchers at UK the opportunity to present their work, network and build collaborations.

More than 200 attendees from 13 colleges across UK participated in SURE, which included 70 presentations and poster sessions on the latest basic science, pre-clinical, clinical and community research addressing substance use.

“We are excited to be back in-person and host this unique forum to

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 19, 2022) — The University of Kentucky Department of Sociology and the UK Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program will welcome Aaron Thompson, the president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 3.

Thompson’s lecture, “Making Higher Education Matter to Kentucky,” will take place at Gatton Student Center Room 331. The lecture will be presented online as well. To join virtually, register at https://uky.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_x2oeM49eQ5OZ9kEum0b10g.

Thompson will be sharing his

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 1, 2021) — The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center will showcase the work of student researchers through its Sharing Work on Appalachia in Progress series starting next week. The series will run through the Spring 2022 semester.

Many of the presenting students are supported through the center’s James S. Brown Graduate Student Awards for Research on Appalachia and the UK Appalachian Center Eller & Billings Student Research Awards.

The presenting researchers represent four colleges and seven departments from across UK’s campus.

“We look forward to learning from these