03/18/2009
Ernie Yanarella Named Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor for 2009-2010
The 2009-2010 College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor is Ernie Yanarella of the Department of Political Science. He is a noted scholar in various fields of political science, a superb teacher, and a citizen par excellence of the university, the community, and the Commonwealth at large.
Yanarella’s research addresses a broad spectrum of issues including political and critical theory, nuclear deterrence and security, peace and disarmament, the politics of industrialization, labor relations, and such environmental concerns as acid rain and urban sustainability. He has published two single-authored books "The Missile Defense Controversy: Strategy, Technology, and Politics," "The Cross, the Plow, and the Skyline: Contemporary Science Fiction and the Ecological Imagination," two co-authored books "Energy and the Social Sciences," "The Acid Rain Debate," and four co-edited volumes. He has also produced twelve book chapters and forty-six articles (with another three under review) in leading journals in the above areas. In addition, he has received numerous grants from agencies, not just in the United States, but also in Canada and Austria.
After arriving at UK in 1970, Yanarella became increasingly concerned with problems facing the Commonwealth. This concern for community issues led him to direct his keen analytical and investigative skills to local problems such as the coal industry and its impact on the Commonwealth and the environment, in particular the sustainability of cities. Over the years, Yanarella has emerged as an invaluable campus and local resource on questions of the environment and sustainability, serving as Director of the Environmental Studies Program and Co-Director of the Center for Sustainable Cities. His scholarship skillfully links issues that face the Commonwealth of Kentucky to the nation and the world.
He received the Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teacher Award in 1993-94 and was chosen a Most Educationally Influential Faculty person by the 1994 Senior Class. He also was honored by a Chancellor’s Distinguished Teacher Award in the tenured-faculty category (1997). Most recently, he was named Chellgren Professor for 2007-2010. Innovatively applying his research to teaching, Yanarella and his colleagues are presently developing electronic software that is designed to be a research tool for teaching urban sustainability.
He has served as the Director of both Undergraduate and Graduate Studies in his home department of Political Science, as member and chair of the Arts and Sciences College Council, as chair of the College’s Advisory Committee on Promotion and Tenure in the Social Sciences, and twice on the UK Graduate Council. He directs the Environmental Studies Program and co-directs the Center for Sustainable Cities. In addition, he has served as a member of the University Senate, as an elected representative on the Senate Council, as elected chair of the Council, and as elected Presiding Officer of the University Senate. He has so earned the respect and confidence of his colleagues that he was elected—and re-elected—as a faculty representative on the Board of Trustees.
Over almost four decades at the University of Kentucky, the accomplishments of Yanarella have been exceptional in research, teaching, and service alike.