by Sarah Geegan & Grace Liddle

 The College of Arts and Sciences is offering 13 courses that begin in the middle of the fall 2013 semester. For students who may have recently dropped a class or hope to pick up some extra credit hours, these courses provide flexibility after the regular registration period.

Course topics range from the science of what we eat, archaeology and history of ancient Mexico, an introductory course on the city of Lexington, and a study on the culture and economics of local and global food systems.

The "Global Food & Local Agriculture" course explores questions associated with why people eat what they do and what that implies about society. To answer these questions, the class introduces

by Jenny Wells

Last week, the University of Kentucky Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence honored its newest class of Chellgren Fellows.  Benefactor Paul Chellgren and his wife Deborah, along with Chellgren Endowed Chair Philipp Kraemer, UK Provost Christine Riordan, and UK President Eli Capilouto, recognized and congratulated the students on being named Fellows.

The Chellgren Fellows Program is for students with exceptional academic potential and aspirations, who are eager to participate in a special learning community designed to cultivate extraordinary achievement. Outstanding faculty members from across campus serve as individual mentors for the Fellows.

The students selected as 2013-14

The College of Arts & Sciences is very pleased to announce that the recipients of the 2013-14 A&S Outstanding Teaching Awards are Drs. Shannon Bell (sociology), Jacqueline Couti (MCL), Stephen Testa (chemistry), and Kim Woodrum (chemistry).  The College wants to thank the selection committee—Yanira Paz (chair), Christia Brown, Juliana MacDonald, and Bradley Plaster—for their hard work and fine judgment.

Dr. Shannon Bell of the Sociology Department is recognized for her efforts in engaged learning and public sociology.  Since joining her Department in 2010, she has been committed to guiding students' learning about real-world social issues through research, activism, and their combination.  In her course in environmental sociology, for example, a group

By Breanna Shelton, Whitney Hale

In celebration of the University of Kentucky's upcoming sesquicentennial in 2015, the 46th of 150 weekly installments remembers the accomplishments of integration pioneer Doris Wilkinson.

As a freshman, Doris Wilkinson was one of the first African Americans to participate in the integration of UK after the Supreme Court declared public school segregation illegal. After receiving her bachelor's degree in 1958 from UK and her master's and doctoral degrees from Case Western Reserve University, the trailblazer became the first full-time female African-American faculty member at UK.

As a UK professor in the Department of Sociology, Wilkinson would also design the university's

By Gail Hairston

Internationally regarded sustainability scholar and activist Vandana Shiva returns to the University of Kentucky Thursday to share her expertise with the campus and community.

Her publications and work in sustainable agriculture, development, feminist theory, alternative globalization and bioengineering as well as her creation of Navdanya, a participatory research initiative to provide direction and support to environmental activism in India, have inspired colleagues to deem her one of the brightest minds working in the interdisciplinary field of sustainability today.

Shiva will present her lecture at 8 p.m. Feb. 28, in Memorial Hall. This event is

The James S. Brown Award is given to honor the memory of Professor James S. Brown, a sociologist on the faculty of the University of Kentucky from 1946 to 1982, whose pioneering studies of society, demography, and migration in Appalachia (including his ethnography of “Beech Creek”) helped to establish the field of Appalachian Studies at U.K. and beyond.

The Award supports graduate student research on the Appalachian region. To be eligible, students must be actively enrolled in a master’s or doctoral degree program at U.K. The Award must be used to meet costs of doing research relevant to social life in Appalachia including travel, lodging, copying, interviewing, ethnography, data collection, archival research, transcribing, and other legitimate research expenses. Except under special circumstances, awards will not exceed $1,500. The award does not cover registration or travel

Crime and Punishment in Russia's Realms: Cynthia Ruder & Janet Stamatel https://soc.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Crime%20and%20Punishment%20in%20Russia%27s%20Realms_%20Cynthia%20Ruder%20%26%20Janet%20Stamatel.mp3

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman.

When you hear the phrase “Crime and Punishment,” you may think of the famous novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – or, if you’re a student at the University of Kentucky, you may think about a unique course developed by Cynthia Ruder and

By Mack McCormick, Amanda Osborne, Whitney Hale

Outwardly, it would appear that Arab and Jewish immigrants comprise two distinct groups with differing cultural backgrounds and an adversarial relationship. Often ignored, however, are the similar immigrant paths these two groups face in the United States, particularly in non-urban areas lacking established immigrant or ethnic populations. In regions like Kentucky, where Jewish and Arab populations are nearly invisible and established cultural or immigrant circles are not prevalent, both groups must negotiate complex identities and often find that their new locations illuminate more similarities between them than differences.

In "Arab and Jewish Women in Kentucky: Stories of Accommodation and Audacity," University of