By Colleen Glenn

Pauline Stratman, a teaching assistant in the Department of Chemistry at UK, was recently honored with a 2012 Provost’s Award for Outstanding Teaching. Stratman is athird-year Ph.D. student focusing on biological chemistry.

“I was so excited to win the award.  It was incredible,” said Stratman.

Teaching can be a challenging vocation in any field, but for teachers of tough subjects such as chemistry, the challenges can be double.

“When I tell people that I am a chemist, the response is often a sign of their feelings towards chemistry,” explained Stratman. “Those feelings are often not the most positive ones. Chemistry has a stigma.”

But already as a teaching assistant, Stratman has found a way to reach students.

By Whitney Hale

The University of Kentucky’s Aleksey Graboviy, an accounting sophomore, and Nolan Jackson, a political science junior, have been awarded two Henry Clay Internships presented by the Kentucky Society of Washington. The public policy internships will allow Graboviy and Jackson to work in an office of a member of the Kentucky congressional delegation or an office of the executive branch.

The Kentucky Society of Washington awards a limited number of internships to qualified Kentucky college students. Each intern receives a stipend of $3,000 for living expenses in Washington during the six to eight week summer

By Whitney Hale

The upcoming University of Kentucky Libraries Annual Dinner will recognize this year's Medallion for Intellectual Achievement recipient, chemist John Anthony, and will feature guest speaker, Alan C. Lowe, director of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. The dinner, which is open to the public, will be presented 7 p.m. Friday, April 13, at the Hilary J. Boone Center.

Alan C. Lowe, UK alumnus and native of Paris, Ky., has been the director of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum since 2009. Lowe began his career with the National Archives where he helped assemble records to open the Ronald Reagan Presidential

By Sarah Geegan

The African American and Africana Studies Program at the University of Kentucky will present the 18th annual Black Women's Conference March 22-24.

The conference, titled, "Learning the Ropes: Black Girlhood, Identity and the Power of Play," will center specifically on the lives and expressions of African-American girls. Incorporating expert speakers, performances, panels and activities both on campus and in the community, the conference will reveal the significance of play in the lives of African-American girls.

Melynda Price, professor in the UK College of Law

By Sarah Geegan

Paul Steinhardt, professor of physics and astrophysical sciences at Princeton University, will deliver the Van Winter Memorial Lecture at the University of Kentucky from 3:15-4:15 p.m. Friday, March 23, in Room 139 of the Chemistry-Physics Building.

The Van Winter Memorial Lecture honors Clasine Van Winter, a professor in the UK departments of Mathematics and Physics and Astronomy from 1968-1999. Van Winter is best known for Weinberg-Van Winter equations for multi-particle quantum

By Kathy Johnson

A'dia Mathies has been an outstanding guard for the University of Kentucky women's basketball team, even being named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year by Associated Press this year.

Mathies, a junior, went "One on One" with College of Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Kornbluh, talking about the experience of being an athlete and a student majoring in psychology.

To view the "One on One" video interview, click here.

By Sarah Geegan

In February, area high school teachers gathered twice at the University of Kentucky to learn about recent scientific discoveries and breakthroughs, specifically in the fields of chemistry, physics and astronomy. On Thursday, March 22, the College of Arts and Sciences will offer a biological perspective on "What's New in Science."

Biology professor Randal Voss will lead the third forum in the What's New in Science series, an outreach program aimed to strengthen UK's relationships with high school science programs.

The series engages teachers and youth in various scientific areas by focusing specifically on

For a transcript of the video above, click here.

By Jay Blanton, Amy Jones, Kody Kiser

As a young man growing up in Ashland, Ky., there was never a question in Larry Conley’s mind about where he would go to college.

“I am a Kentuckian. I grew up in Ashland. I loved basketball. I played basketball and there isn’t a state in the United States that reveres basketball like the state of Kentucky,” Conley said.

The University of Kentucky would be his home and Conley would make his mark playing for legendary Coach Adolph Rupp in the 1960s.

“I loved Kentucky basketball,” he said recently from his home in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. “I followed it from the

By Robin Roenker

Veteran UK Chemistry professor Jim Holler ended his tenure as one of the university’s most popular and celebrated teachers with a bang last December—literally.

On the last day of classes last semester, before officially retiring on Jan. 3, 2012, Holler led his students outside the Chemistry-Physics Building for some fun. The task at hand: seeing how much of a boom they could create while exploding enormous, hydrogen-filled balloons.

It was a suitable salute to Holler’s 35 years at UK, a career that was hallmarked by his passion for teaching and a love for sharing the fun of science with his students.

“Students will tend to remember things if they’re exciting enough,” said Holler, who taught high school chemistry and physics in his native Indiana for five years before deciding to pursue a doctoral degree. 

“I really enjoyed being a

By Krystal Delfino

I recently had the opportunity to communicate with Colonel Stephen Milton about his experiences at the University of Kentucky and the U.S. Army. Currently, the colonel is serving as a staff officer on Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, tasked to bridge communication and efforts between the Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Strategic Command. When he has free time, he enjoys the outdoors and the company of family and friends. Here’s what Colonel Milton had to say about UK’s ROTC program:

What was your motivation for pursuing a career in the military? Why did you choose UK’s ROTC program?

Joining UK’s Army ROTC program was a defining moment in my life. I was not involved in high school JROTC nor do I come from a family with a significant military background.  Like many freshmen, I was undecided as to what major to pursue. I signed up for the

By Colleen Glenn, Sarah Geegan

This past fall, the Department of Psychology launched the Psychology Honors Program as a way to give students "the best of both worlds" — state-of-the-art research opportunities that large universities offer, as well as a feeling of community that smaller classes provide. So far, the program has demonstrated success.

Robert Lorch, chair of the Department of Psychology, and other faculty members in the department developed the Psychology Honors Program to provide incoming freshmen with smaller class sizes, more research opportunities and a built-in support network.

Students in the honors program take their core psychology courses as a cohort during their first two

By Sarah Geegan, Kami L. Rice

Baishakhi Taylor and Darina Lepadatu became fast friends when their paths converged at the University of Kentucky nearly 10 years ago. The two women, from India and Romania respectively, were among the few international students in UK’s sociology Ph.D. program.

As Lepadatu notes, they went through the acculturation process together. They even have young daughters who are almost the same age. Both scholars have recently taken on roles at different universities, and they credit the preparation they received at UK for their success.

On first glance, Taylor’s new job doesn’t appear to be the obvious choice for a research-minded sociologist. But Taylor says her sociology background was key preparation for the position she acquired last year at Duke University.

As academic dean

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) Sciences recently announced the findings of a year-long study that just may be the future of federally-funded social science research.

This time, the submission process was different. Rather than completing applications for funding, the NSF wanted to start a conversation amongst the social sciences about its future through proposals from its own.

And so “Rebuilding the Mosaic: Fostering Research in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at NSF in the Next Decade” was born.

More than 252 teams of authors from the SBE community responded to the NSF call, which was the first of its kind. The University of Illinois contributed the most to “Rebuilding the Mosaic,” along with Harvard University. Illinois

Celebrity Mapping Project with Matt Wilson from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.

by Sarah Geegan

The African American and Africana Studies Program at the University of Kentucky is partnering with the Lyric Theatre to provide a series of community lectures. Engaging the community and strengthening UK's relations with East Lexington, the lectures aim to "rebuild the block." 

The Rebuilding the Block, S.T. Roach Community Conversation series is a seven-month sequence of public lectures, led by UK experts and focused around the theme of African-American males. The conversations are broken into sub-themes, each presenting relevant issues in a particular expert's field that relate to black men.

Frank X Walker

By Whitney Hale

Who do you think you are? That is precisely the question an NBC TV show of the same name answers for interested celebrities. Gerald Smith, associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky and general co-editor of the Kentucky African American Encyclopedia Project, will join the TV show on this quest to answer just that question for former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome "The Bus" Bettis. The episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" featuring Bettis will air at 8 p.m. Friday, March 9, on NBC (local residents can see the show on local affiliate WLEX 18 and Insight Cable channel 8).

On Friday's episode, Smith travels to Paducah, Ky., to meet with

By Sarah Geegan, Jonathan Spalding

With the incredible success the Division of Classics in the College of Arts and Sciences has demonstrated in the last decade, it is no surprise that recently two of its students, Lisa Jagoda and Claire Heitzman, have been awarded the Otis Singletary Fellowship as they prepare for graduate school in the fall. 

The fellowship is a one-time scholarship awarded to graduating seniors who are continuing their post-baccalaureate education at UK. Paralleling the growth of the classics program, awards such as these contribute to the continued success in attracting some of the best students from around the world, and especially in keeping the ones who already call the classics program home

By Whitney Hale

University of Kentucky social work junior Jillian Harris has been named a finalist and will interview for the prestigious Truman Scholarship, which recognizes college juniors with a commitment to public service.

"Even being at finalist status puts me in a really elite group of individuals across the country," Harris said. "I’m really humbled to be even in the top 200 for consideration of this scholarship."

Named in honor of U.S. President Harry S. Truman, the Truman Scholarship is awarded to high-achieving college juniors who show commitment to public service and potential to continue that service beyond graduation. Recipients of the scholarship are awarded up to $30,000 for graduate study in public service fields and leadership training.

This year, the