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Last week, I gave the annual state of the college address to Arts and Sciences faculty and staff. Despite the current state of the economy, the college is making great strides. This year we are hiring 30 new faculty, expanding our international reach, and adding 30 online summer classes. The college is also beginning a new planning initiative - Envision 2020 - to look forward to the year 2020. We are envisioning where students will be in 10 years and what the college needs to become to meet their needs. We also will be examining how research and teaching will evolve and grow in a technologically-connected world.<br />
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It is an exciting time in Arts and Sciences, and I look forward to hearing from our alumni and friends.<br />
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News
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I am probably not the only one excited about the new PBS series featuring two A&S professors. PBS is airing a series called "<a target="_blank" href="http://www.appalachiafilm.org/">Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People</a>" on Thursdays for the next month. Professors <a target="_blank" href="http://www.as.uky.edu/academics/departments_programs/English/English/Fa… Norman</a> and <a target="_blank" href="
<p>I would like to extend my congratulations to Hui Chu and Christine Smith, both graduate students in A&S. Hui is a doctoral candidate in developmental and social <a target="_blank" href="http://www.as.uky.edu/academics/departments_programs/Psychology/Psychol…;; Christine is working on her master's degree in the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.uky.edu/AS/Geography/">Department of Geography</a>. The <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nsf.gov/">National Science Foundation</a>
A Different Kind of Healing
by Kathryn Wallingford
photos by Shaun Ring
Before Ericka Barbour learned about feminist scholars, before she heard the stories of men and women and their struggles to overcome society’s misconceptions of gender, and before the name “Judith Butler” meant something to her, she was on her way to becoming a doctor.
After graduating from Louisville’s Central High School Pre-Med magnet program, Barbour saw a career in the field of medicine as a means of “healing” and helping those in need. Deciding she wanted to become an OBGYN, Barbour signed up for classes in biology and chemistry as a college freshman at the University of Kentucky.
But within her first two semesters of the natural sciences, Barbour became
Cindy Isenhour is featured currently on the Anthropology Department home page for her work studying the culture of consumption and how it relates to sustainability. She is interested in issues of social and environmental justice, which has informed her work with the UK Anthropology Department.
Her dissertation, "Building Sustainable Societies: Exploring Sustainability Policy and Practice in the Age of High Consumption" is in progress and will be an important contribution to the study of sustainability. For more information about her work, click here.
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Last week, faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences began communication with colleagues from the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.uwc.ac.za/">University of the Western Cape in South Africa</a>. Via video conference, approximately a dozen UK faculty and their South African counterparts discussed ways in which the two institutions could work together. Ideas included opportunities for students to study abroad, faculty and postdoctoral scholar exchanges, and research collaborations. Conversations will continue in the coming months. The University of the Western Cape is a premier institution of higher education, located in Cape Town, South Africa. </p>
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Many A&S Faculty are going places! <a target="_blank" href="http://www.as.uky.edu/academics/departments_programs/GenderWomenStudies… Basu</a>, an associate professor with our <a target="_blank" href="http://www.as.uky.edu/ACADEMICS/DEPARTMENTS_PROGRAMS/GENDERWOMENSTUDIES… of Gender and Women's Studies</a>, has been selected by the Rockefeller Foundation for a month-long residency in beautiful Bellagio, Italy. She will have the opportunity to
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I am excited to announce that this weekend, the University of Kentucky is going to host a long-standing and international event, the <a href="http://web.as.uky.edu/kflc/" target="_blank">Kentucky Foreign Language Conference</a> (KFLC), which is in its 63rd year. I have the honor of being a supporter of the KFLC, which showcases the work of specialists in language, literature, culture, and linguistics. </p>
<p>LangTech is the technology division of the event, which has been an integral part of the conference’s offerings since 2005. There are six technology sessions this year, which include applied and theoretical topics ranging from using video games to teach language to whether or not language learners’ autonomy can be
I was fortunate to attend the compelling A&S Week keynote address "Stereotypes and Inequalities: Hillbillies, Horses, and Hoops" by our very own Ronald Eller. If you missed out on this superb A&S Week event, you can listen to it here.
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Two A&S Faculty have received awards for their ongoing research. <a href="http://www.as.uky.edu/academics/departments_programs/Anthropology/Anthr… Hutson</a> and <a href="http://www.as.uky.edu/academics/departments_programs/GenderWomenStudies… Alcalde</a> have both been awarded <a href="http://www.research.uky.edu/vpresearch/guide/summerfellowships.html"
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Making international connections is an essential aspect of our work as a University in the changing political climate. Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor <a href="http://www.as.uky.edu/academics/departments_programs/Anthropology/Anthr…; target="_blank">Diane King</a> has just returned from a seminar in the United Kingdom where she spoke at a seminar on genocide in Iraq.</p>
<p>Diane has been carrying out ethnographic research in the Kurdistan Region since 1995. She is editor of the book "<a href="http://
The recent presidential election not only captivated the nation, but also opened up a whole new dialogue on politics.The sense of excitement surrounding the election mobilized the younger generations, who in turn supported their candidate by using social networking and video sharing sites and in some cases hitting the campaign trail.
This increase in participation was also noted by UK political science alum Paul Brewer. Currently an associate professor and chair of the
Not many people get to spend their careers involved with something they’ve loved since they were 10 years old.
University of Kentucky alum Zeljko Ivezic is one of those lucky few. The Croatia native became fascinated with what he could see in the sky and beyond as a child and now Ivezic is a leading astronomer at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Having had a hand in creating the very first digital map of the sky, Ivezic continues to follow his passion, working on several projects including one that could help to identify dangerous asteroids that might strike our planet.
Ivezic, 44, earned undergraduate degrees in physics and mechanical engineering from Croatia’s University of Zagreb in 1991.
“But I knew I wanted to go to school in the U.S. for my graduate studies,” Ivezic said. “I always knew that’s what I wanted.”
He applied to UK somewhat
Graduate Student
Cracking the Code of Masculinity
by Andrew Battista
photos by Mark Cornelison
Betsy Dahms has known since her childhood that masculinity can mean a variety of things. Growing up with eight brothers and one sister, Dahms developed an acute awareness that a person’s masculinity can never be reduced to a single form or expression. It is this aspect of her family upbringing that has most significantly influenced Dahms’ budding scholarly and pedagogical career.
“My father died when I was young, so I didn’t grow up with a father-figure in my life,” said Dahms.“In my house I was able to see how my brothers were treated versus how my sister and I were treated, and I often thought to myself, ‘wow, that’s different.’”
This disparate treatment did not end when Dahms left her Northern
The Watergate Scandal grabbed the attention of a nation and a particular undergraduate
by Kami L. Rice
If there had been no burglary at the Watergate office complex in 1972, Richard “Rick” Waterman, professor of political science at UK, might never have entered the field of political science. “I was fascinated by the whole Watergate investigation,” he said. “That really got me interested in politics.”
At the time, Waterman was an undergraduate at Rhode Island College with a major in history, but with the intrigue of Watergate, he added a minor in political science. “It was like a soap opera, like a drama,” said Waterman. “Every day new revelations would come out. Richard Nixon was like a Shakespearean character.”
The fascinating drama of it all caused him to pay more attention to the
Graduate Student
by Jessica Fisher
photos by Shaun Ring
Third wave feminists have lived in an era with women in space, have seen three women as Secretary of State and one almost obtain the democratic nomination for President; accomplishments second wave feminists never saw while they were growing up.
However, like many movements that have made great strides, these accomplishments are examples of token arguments. The common misconception of such success is often that the hard work is over. For Hannah Alsgaard, a University of Kentucky undergraduate student in Gender and Women Studies (GWS), this could not be further from the truth. At 21, her work encompassing women’s rights and gender and sexuality issues has in fact just begun.
In May 2009, after only three years, Alsgaard, the focused and ambitious student she is, finished
Ph.D. Student
By Sarah Vos
photos by Mark Cornelison
On a recent Monday afternoon, Miranda Lange filled four small dishes, each containing a small rectangle of paper, with a buffer solution and set them on a rocking platform to gently wash an antibody away. The papers, really a membrane of mesh-like nitrocellulose, were covered with proteins extracted from the brains of transgenic mice, some of which have the mouse-equivalent of Alzheimer disease.
When the experiment is finished, Lange, using sophisticated proteomics methods, should be able to identify which of the brain proteins have suffered the most from oxidization. And in the case of the Alzheimer’s brain, oxidation is bad.
Lange, a fourth year graduate student at the University of Kentucky, has worked mainly on projects involving Alzheimer’s. In a previous project, she
Ph.D. Student
By Brian Connors Manke
Don’t be fooled by her last name. The most important color to chemistry graduate student, Lisa Blue, is definitely green.
When Blue was starting college at Missouri State as a pre-med student, she stayed for a summer session to get a chemistry course out of the way. Get it done and over with – like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Simple enough – but then came the unexpected. For the first time in college she was thoroughly challenged. She had to truly work at chemistry, and for a student with the drive and inquisitiveness that Blue possesses that was enough to get her hooked.
A master’s at Missouri State followed, as did a stint working at the Blackmon Water Treatment Plant in Springfield, Mo. – a job that impressed upon her the issue of clean water. “I was fascinated with this interaction between
Ph.D. Student
by Saraya Brewer
photos by Richie Wireman
Gothic-and fantastic-themed films and literature have, in recent years, increasingly gained credibility with the masses, particularly with the popularity of “The Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter” and – perhaps on a smaller scale – Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan's Labyrinth.” With the massive artistic and literary (not to mention financial) successes of these films and novels, the genres have also been gaining widespread notoriety in the academic world, despite having been traditionally cast aside as being a genre that is not intellectual, significant or of good taste.
University of Kentucky Hispanic Studies Ph.D. candidate Nadina Olmedo hopes that representations of the genre as cliche, sensational or not-intellectualized are obsolete. With her dissertation, Olmedo
by Robin Roenker
Oluwaseye “Mary” Awoniyi has always known she wanted to be a soldier and a lawyer. Since the age of 12, she’s had her sights set on joining the prestigious ranks of the Army’s elite JAG Corps.
With scholarship support from UK’s Army ROTC program, Awoniyi, 22, is about to begin her second year of law school at UK, forging a direct path toward her dream.
“I’m doing exactly what I want to do. I’m exactly where I want to be,” said Awoniyi, a native of Nigeria who moved with her family to the United States when she was six.
Awoniyi is the first-ever law school Army ROTC cadet at UK. She joked that she’s the program’s “test run.”
Sometimes, there are challenges to being a trailblazer: her law school finals don’t always coincide with the finals of the rest of the