“I didn’t want to rush into the next step after undergrad so I took some time off,” Payne said. “Then, I sort of came to the point where I wanted a plan for the rest of my life.”

Knowing that she wanted to continue to study chemistry but also wanting to foster her other life passions, Payne picked UK and started her graduate work in 2000.

“I was an avid rock climber and I knew I could be close to the Red River Gorge,” she said. “I also rode horses as a kid and had been to Lexington several times, so I had some familiarity with the area

Dr. William D. Ehmann, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, has been elected to the Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. Bill received a B.S. degree (1952) with honors and an M.S. degree (1954), both in chemistry, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He went on to receive a Ph.D. degree in radiochemistry in 1957 from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and carried out postdoctoral work (1957-58) at Argonne National Laboratory under a National Research Council/National Science Foundation Fellowship. He joined the Department of Chemistry at UK in 1958 and was a Fulbright Research Scholar (1964-65) at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. In addition, he has held visiting faculty appointments at Arizona State University and Florida

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

Four years of college is four years of finding yourself socially — and sometimes academically — for many enrolled at the University of Kentucky. The city in which a student goes about pursuing the next chapter of his or her life doesn't always come into play.

UK geography professor Richard Schein hopes to shed some local Lexington light on students this fall with a Community 101 class being offered to all university students through UK's College of Arts and Sciences.

"We've been an urban society since the 1920s," said Schein. "It's important for our students to become urban citizens, understanding gentrification, immigration, school districts and other city issues."

The class, which begins a day after UK's drop/add period, is a "win-win-win situation," according to Schein. "Not only will this class provide a great

by Saraya Brewer
photos by Richie Wireman

Like many graduate students, University of Kentucky English Ph.D. candidate Sarah Schuetze lights up when she talks about her research. That in and of itself is not particularly strange – what’s perhaps a bit unusual about it is that her focus of study is rather dark, at times bordering morbidity. Schuetze’s academic concentration is disease – the culture of hysteria surrounding it, and the various ways it has affected characters’ lives in American literary texts throughout history.

She admits that it’s a bit odd, but she’s okay with that.

“I’m really attracted to things that are sort of peculiar,” she said. “I try to study things that are interesting and weird, because that’s what attracts me to a book.”

To that end, Schuetze’s fascination with disease is not

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

When University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences academic adviser Emily Dailey first contacted psychology senior Suzanna Mitchell about a developmental

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 Kentucky childhood home. As an adult, Dahms has faced criticism because she’s done things typically coded as masculine. She and her partner built the house where they now live

by Whitney Hale

This summer 25 recent graduates of the University of Kentucky will embark on a new challenge as they train to teach in America's inner cities and rural communities this coming fall. The UK group, the largest in school history, is among 5,200 new corps members selected for Teach For America, a national program in which outstanding college graduates commit to teach for two years in disadvantaged urban and rural public schools. 

Teach For America places its recruits in the nation's highest-need elementary and secondary schools in many of the country's lowest income communities, both rural and urban, in an effort to close the achievement gap between economically advantaged and disadvantaged children.

This year’s corps is the

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

Today is the deadline to register for the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences online classes for the 8-week summer term. Although the first 4-week session has ended, UK's 8-week summer session begins on June 9, and the 6-week session begins June 23.  For more information, visit the A&S website at http://www.as.uky.edu/online-education/courses.

As technology has changed, so has the way courses are offered.  Ted Higgs, an instructor and supervisor of teaching assistants in the University of Kentucky's Department of Modern and Classical, Languages, Literatures and Cultures, has been involved with correspondence classes since his days in Vietnam, where he first took an Algebra 1 class through the mail.

Higgs taught

Earth & environmental graduate students Ashley Barton and Donny Loughry took separate but similar paths to their graduate education at the University of Kentucky.

Both are natives of West Virginia. Both completed undergraduate degrees in education and have experience as teachers. Both had an interest in science and nature from a young age, and both relished the opportunity to be interviewed outside on a sunny day.

Most importantly, however, both Barton and Loughry decided that graduate study in UK’s Earth and Environmental Science (EES) Department was the right outlet for the their passion for science.

So what motivated them both to come to the University of Kentucky to continue their education as graduate students?

“When you’re teaching you have to come up with creative ways to