This coming October 25th through 27th, the University of Kentucky’s Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program is set to kick-off their ambitious Global Mountain Regions Conference. The three day event is a transnational exploration and conversation of the shared economic, social, and historical challenges that mountain regions face within both national and global contexts.

Conference organizer and Director of the Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program, Dr. Ann Kingsolver, along with co-organizer and a postdoctoral scholar at the center, Sasikumar Balasundaram, have wrangled together a broad community of people interested in what mountain regions the world over have to contribute to each other and the global community at large.

With topics ranging from the perspective of children to the contribution of bees, each conference session pairs one member of the Appalachian community with that of others from places as wide ranging as Ecuador, Wales, Pakistan, and the People’s Republic of China. The conversations had in these sessions will not end there and the goal of the conference organizers is to preserve the conversations in the form of a book so that the lessons learned carry on.

For other questions about the conference, please contact Dr. Ann Kingsolver or Sasikumar Balasundaram or checkout the Global Mountain Regions Conference online.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Adam Meredith and Luke McAnally, two A&S majors, were part of a small group of students that went to the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Washington, D.C. last month. The project that earned such recognition is called “Homegrown Kentucky,” a new agricultural initiative in Owsley County, Kentucky. A small-scale farm is being designed and planted next to one of the schools in Owsley County; fruits and vegetables produced in the gardens will provide local, fresh food to the school district. The gardens will be maintained by students and community members in Owsley County.

For more information about Homegrown Kentucky, please visit their website, follow them on Facebook, watch a short documentary about the project on YouTube, or email luke.mcanally@uky.edu. The faculty sponsors for this project are Ann Kingsolver and David Ditsch. 

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Carl Nathe recently interviewed one of our own faculty members for his UK at the Half segment, which airs during each UK football game. He spoke with Ann Kingsolver, Director of the UK Appalachian Center and a professor in the Department of Anthropology, about her work in the area. Kingsolver is excited to be part of the Center and the Appalachian Studies Program and is busy exploring ways to become more involved in the community – for the university, faculty, and students. She stresses the importance of interdisciplinary work and research at the Appalachian Center in looking at complex issues throughout the region. Her hope is to build strong partnerships with local communities which would also allow students attending classes at UK to work in their local communities in the region.