By Ethan Levine, Whitney Hale

Crawfish Bottom was not the best neighborhood in the city of Frankfort, Ky. In fact, it was far from it. But a book from University of Kentucky oral historian Doug Boyd, recognized with a recent regional historic preservation award, sheds light not only on the area's notorious history but the love its residents had for their community.

The 50 acres of Crawfish Bottom on the north end of the state capital was better known for its crime rate and tough reputation than anything else, earning it the nickname "the lowest part of the city," or simply "bottom" for short. But if you dig beneath the "bottom," what you'll find is a neighborhood formerly filled with culture, history and lasting relationships.

A few years ago, Boyd, director

By Sarah Geegan

There's just no telling where an education from the University of Kentucky can take you.

For U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Smith, the journey that began at UK has taken him around the world and deep below the ocean's surface, as captain of the USS Kentucky, a nuclear submarine.

"Having been born in Kentucky and growing up there, I can’t imagine any pride greater than serving as commander of the ship that bears my home state's name," says Smith, whose parents and sister still live in Kentucky.

Born in Covington and raised in Independence, Smith graduated from Simon Kenton High School and attended Xavier University for a year before transferring to UK. After graduating in 1995 with a bachelor's degree in physics, Smith was commissioned in the Navy and went to officer candidate school in Pensacola, Fla., where he began nuclear

By Sarah Geegan

Nina Elliott and Elizabeth Walsh have assembled an impressive list of accomplishments at UK this year, from creating new derivatives of the molecule phenothiazine, to potentially increasing performance of lithium-ion batteries, to co-authoring a paper in preparation for publication. Their next task to check off: graduating from high school.

Susan Odom, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, has hosted the two Paul Laurence Dunbar High School students in her chemistry laboratory over the past semester. Elliott and Walsh assisted Odom in a project involving specific organic molecules and their

By Sarah Geegan

Chemistry Professor Yinan Wei recently received a $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a study expected to generate some of the first ever data in her subject matter.

The proposal, titled "Protein Activity and Oligomer Stability in Cell Membrane," will focus on questions surrounding how proteins oligomerize in cell membrane, or in other words, how membrane-spanning proteins that function in units containing more than one subunit, assemble in nature.

"The selective permeability of cell membranes, which is essential for all life forms that we know, is conferred by membrane proteins," Wei said. "Approximately 80 percent of membrane proteins with known structures

By Whitney Hale

Two students from the University of Kentucky and one 2006 alumna have been selected as recipients of Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships. The UK recipients are among 1,700 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2012-2013 academic year through the prestigious program.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and

By Sarah Geegan

The University of Kentucky Biology, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, and Psychology departments are reaching out to area high school science teachers and teaching them something new: what's new in science.

The What's New in Science series, an outreach program aimed to strengthen UK's relationships with high school science programs, will engage teachers and youth in various scientific areas. It will focus specifically on emerging discoveries and developments in the realm of science.

"The university already has a strong history in supporting science teachers in Kentucky Schools," said 

By Jonathon Spalding

University of Kentucky history professor, Jeremy Popkin, was recently appointed a fellowship for the 2012-13 academic year by the National Humanities Center.

“The National Humanities Center is an ideal environment for scholars,” Popkin said, “It is set up to encourage the exchange of ideas.”

More than $1,500,000 in individual fellowship grants will allow scholars to take a yearlong leave from their regular academic duties to pursue research at the center, located in North Carolina. Popkin is one of 33 fellows who will have the opportunity to work on an individual research project and share their ideas in seminars, lectures and conferences.

“I’m looking forward to the rare opportunity to spend a year thinking and writing about a problem that has intrigued me since I was an undergraduate,” Popkin said.

By Guy Spriggs

Joe Sutliff Sanders is a professor at Kansas State University specializing in children’s literature. But according to Sanders, he found his way into children’s literature – and eventually into a job at one of the field’s leading programs – by accident.

As he was finishing his dissertation at the University of Kentucky in 2005 and preparing to enter the job market, Sanders took note of a series of interesting job offers.

“I kept coming across all these children’s literature positions,” he explained. “I kept saying, ‘It’s too bad that I don’t do children’s literature.’”

Then, Sanders says, he realized that his whole project was directly related to his future field.

Sanders started applying for those positions and found himself in the middle of

Award-winning poet and A&S Creative Writing Professor Nikky Finney is featured on NPR's program Arts & Life. Finney was recently awarded the National Book Award in poetry for her collection of poems entitled, Head Off & Split. At the award ceremony, her acceptance speech received a standing ovation and almost as much acclaim as her poems themselves. The speech went through thirty nine drafts before it was finalized. To listen to the full story and read more, click here.

 By Jenny Wells

The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees Tuesday approved University Research Professorships for 2012-13 for four faculty members. The professorships carry a $40,000 award to support research. Funds for these annual awards are provided by the Office of the Vice President for Research.

Now in its 36th year, the University Research Professors program's purpose is to enhance and encourage scholarly research productivity, provide an opportunity for concentrated research effort for selected faculty members, and to recognize outstanding research achievement by members of the faculty.

The University Research Professors are:

Christopher Pool

Pool, a professor in the UK Department of Anthropology in

By Sarah Geegan

The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees approved honorary degrees to be presented at the May Commencement to professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and NASA researcher Vijay K. Dhir, as well as biology professor and president of the University of Iowa, Sally Mason.

Born in India, Dhir came to the United States in 1969 after receiving his Bachelor of Science degree from Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, India in 1965 and his Master of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India in 1968. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in 1972, he joined the faculty of UCLA and continued consulting for numerous organizations, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, GE Corp., Hughes Aircraft, Rockwell International and the Los Alamos and Brookhaven National Labs.

By Sarah Geegan, Robin Roenker

Retired chemistry Professor Jim Holler ended his tenure as one of UK'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 

The following story was translated from Chinese to English by Hive member Yiwen Chen. You can read the original stories in Chinese here and here.

Jilin University is a top-ranked university in Changchun, the capital city of Jilin Province in Northeastern China. Jilin University has established worldwide exchange programs with more than 110 universities, colleges, and research institutes in 25 countries/districts, including a partnership with the University of Kentucky.

Over 1,500 foreign students are currently enrolled in Jilin University. A group of exchange students from Jilin University

By Sarah Geegan

Students in professor Randolph Hollingsworth's research seminar expanded the boundaries of a typical history class as they examined the complexities and influences of Kentucky civil rights era women. By participating in digital dialogues, contributing to online databases and engaging in community service, the students experienced history by thinking outside the book.

"We don't have many scholarly books covering the wide-ranging history of women in Kentucky," Hollingsworth said. "One thing that we've found is that women are simply absent in many historical records. Sometimes it's a willful absence, and people choose not to include them. But then other times, it's just neglect."

The course aimed to begin filling this historical void. Students served as history-detectives,

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.

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.

By Sarah Geegan

Three experts in the areas of gender, sexuality and politics of identity will share insight with UK students in professor Vershawn Young's classes this spring.

Young, of the Department of Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English, will incorporate the speaker series including Daniel Black, Lisa Moore and Sharon Bridgforth into his ENG 480 and GWS 595 classes. These courses focus on gender and race in documentary film through the work of late film maker Marlon Riggs. Riggs' work

By Sarah Geegan, Jonathon Spalding

It started with a simple question, then grew into a large online survey with responses from over 1,000 people from across the U.S. and abroad. A new book by Ellen Riggle and Sharon Rostosky, “A Positive View of LGBTQ: Embracing Identity and Cultivating Well-Being," explores what’s positive about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer identities.

“It is the right question at the right time. People want to share their positive experiences,” said Riggle, UK professor in the

By Whitney Hale

A new composition by University of Kentucky sophomore Ben Norton has been selected for the Lexington Philharmonic's New Music Experiment, a new initiative to foster musical creativity and innovation. As part of the experiment, Norton's piece will be part of a workshop and later presented to the public in a performance scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, at the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall. Tickets to the performance of Norton's Woodwind Quintet No. 9 and other selections from the New Music Experiment is $5 and can be purchased at the door.

"I am very excited and incredibly honored to be given this opportunity," says Norton. "I was simply happy that others wanted to go out of their way to

By Kathy Johnson

Kentucky poet, novelist and environmentalist Wendell Berry has been named the 2012 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).  This is the highest honor the federal government betstows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.

Berry, a University of Kentucky alumnus with a degree in English and former creative writing professor at UK, will deliver the 41st Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 23, 2012, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.  The lecture is titled "It All Turns on Affection."

To read the NEH news release, click here.

This has been a notable year for