By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 5, 2020) — Sydney Sayre appreciates the history she’s making in May as she graduates as the University of Kentucky's first African American and Africana Studies (AAAS) major in the College of Arts & Sciences.

“The first black studies course took place at UK in 1969, and in 2020 I’ll be the first person to graduate as a major in African American and Africana studies,” said Sayre, who grew up on a horse farm and considers Lexington her hometown. “I think history is all about new beginnings and change and that is what this program is doing at UK — making history.”

African American and Africana studies was available as a minor until 2019, when it became a major. Sayre, who is double majoring in history, accumulated enough credits to be the first student to earn the full major.

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Thirteen University of Kentucky students were on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., as they pursued political science classes and internships with legislators this spring. Then, the pandemic hit.

“The 13 students were all living together in a row house rental for interns on Capitol Hill, which is super,” said Tiffany Barnes, associate professor of political science in the College of Arts & Sciences, who runs the program. “But then we realized we needed to act when the pandemic broke out.”

Over UK’s spring break, a cadre of UK faculty teamed up to get the WilDCats at the Capitol program students out of D.C. and back home. The process of getting UK students home took some maneuvering – both the students themselves and their belongings needed to go home.

“With all the difficult decisions being made by government, we

By Danielle Donham and Lindsey Piercy

While the 2020 general election is still more than six months away, the COVID-19 pandemic has sidelined much of the presidential campaign. Meanwhile, state and county officials across the U.S. are already preparing ways to allow voters to cast their ballots safely. 

University of Kentucky faculty members with expertise in politics have been closely monitoring the evolving situation.

Michael Zilis, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences, teaches courses in American

By Richard LeComte

The University of Kentucky Office of Undergraduate Research and The Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence are offering the first Virtual Showcase of Undergraduate Scholars. This event celebrates the scholarly and creative works of undergraduate researchers. The virtual showcase will begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 28, and runs through May 1.

Among the 104 participants are 49 undergraduates in the College of Arts & Sciences. The

By Whitney Hale 

The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards announced history alumna Christine Kindler, of Lexington, has received the Berlin Fellowship from Humanity in Action. The fellowship recognizes commitment to social justice and human rights. 

The group's Berlin Fellowship examines contemporary questions around identity formation and societal pluralism and its impacts on democracy and human rights using the city’s own historical lessons from past human rights violations to its current social justice struggles. As a Berlin Fellow during the COVID-19

By Lindsey Piercy, Kody Kiser and Amy Jones-Timoney

Six of the University of Kentucky's passionate and accomplished educators were surprised earlier this spring by student nominators and the UK Alumni Association as 2020 Great Teacher Award recipients. Anna Voskresensky is one of this year’s Great Teacher recipients.

“It means a lot to me, because I’ve always liked what I do,” she said. “I

By Katia Davis

Liang Luo, associate professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures (MCLLC), has received a grant from the Korea Foundation to offer Korean courses in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Kentucky starting fall 2020.

The $12,000 grant will go toward hiring a contracted part-time instructor to teach two Korean language courses each semester. 

The Korea Foundation was established in 1991 to promote a “better understanding of Korea within the international community and to increase friendship and goodwill between Korea and the rest of the world through exchange programs,” according to the Korea Foundation website. 

UK’s Korean Language and Culture Club and the UK Korean Student

By Lindsey Piercy

In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the public is being asked to do what we aren’t always well-equipped to do in the face of a crisis — nothing.

By now, you are probably more than familiar with the term “social distancing.”

Humans have basic needs for emotional and social connection. While that connection may be more natural in-person, we — as a society — need to do our part to reduce transmission of the virus and flatten the curve.

Those efforts include washing your hands, sanitizing common surfaces and maintaining at least 6 feet of distance from others. But as Tony Love, assistant professor of sociology in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, stresses in the Q&A below,

It’s been an unprecedented transition — moving every class at the University of Kentucky to a remote learning format, mostly online. 

Creating a “new normal” for an entire campus community is a daunting task. But together, faculty, staff and students have risen to the challenge — exemplifying what’s truly possible in the face of adversity.

Teaching, Learning, and Academic Innovation has offered extended instructional design and technology support. Through the Canvas Learning Management System, faculty are virtually conducting live classes and tutoring sessions, providing interactive discussion boards and assigning coursework with integrated grading capabilities.

Below you’ll learn how each college is finding creative solutions to address unique challenges. They have different approaches, but each is committed to providing

By Gabriela Antenore

The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities has selected 12 undergraduate students as new scholars for the Gaines Fellowship Program.

The Gaines Fellowship is presented in recognition of outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, an interest in public issues and a desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities. Founded in 1984 by a gift from John and Joan Gaines, the Gaines Center for the Humanities functions as a laboratory for imaginative and innovative education on UK’s campus. The Gaines Center is designed to enrich the study of the humanities at the University of Kentucky.

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Ky – Frank X Walker, professor of English and African American and Africana Studies in the University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences, has received two honors for both his recent work and his career accomplishments.

Transylvania University has given the Judy Gaines Young Book Award to Walker for his collection of poems “Last Will, Last Testament.” The award has recognized outstanding works by writers in

By Richard LeComte

Melissa Stein’s online Health, History, & Human Diversity class this spring took on an unwanted yet vital relevance with the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, many aspects of past pandemics and other health issues the class studied had become alarmingly current.

“A lot of the material in the class turned out to be eerily on point,” said Stein, associate professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. “The unit that my students were going to take up after spring break is called ‘Global Health Challenges,’ so I modified the assignment to take into account the things we were all thinking about. There was no way people were going to go through that assignment without thinking about what’s happening right now.”

Stein designed the class

By Whitney Hale

The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has announced that sophomore  Yuke Wang has received a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. The UK College of Arts & Sciences student is among 396 students nationwide selected to receive the 2020-21 Goldwater Scholarship.

This year's Goldwater Scholars were selected based on academic merit from a field of 1,343 mathematics, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of 461 of the nation's colleges and universities.

Wang, who calls Lexington home, is pursuing majors in physics and mathematics in the 

By Elizabeth Chapin

Dibakar Bhattacharyya has been a fixture in the University of Kentucky’s College of Engineering for more than 50 years and is renowned for his research, which focuses on incorporating life sciences materials with synthetic membranes for filtering and producing clean water.

Today, the director of UK’s Center of Membrane Sciences, known to friends and colleagues as “DB,” is contributing his decades of membrane expertise to help address the spread of the novel coronavirus. He has the concept and the means to develop a medical face mask that would capture and deactivate the COVID-19 virus on contact.

“We have the capability to create a membrane that would not only effectively filter out the novel coronavirus like

Carrie Oser, professor and associate chair in the Department of Sociology, is a ’ 98 UK graduate, the associate director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation (CHET) and a faculty affiliate of the Center on Drug & Alcohol Research (CDAR). Her research interests include addiction health services, health disparities/equity, HIV risk behaviors/interventions, social networks, implementation science and substance use among rural, African American or criminal justice populations. 

In 2015, Oser received the Senior Scholar

W. Bruce Lunsford, a UK alumnus, lawyer and businessman, recently established the Lunsford Scholars Program in Citizenship and Public Service in the College of Arts & Sciences with a $1 million pledge. 

The Lunsford Scholars Program provides Arts and Sciences students the chance to pursue out-of-the-classroom educational opportunities including education abroad, internships, service-based learning and undergraduate research both locally and outside of Kentucky. Aside from student scholarships, the donation also supports a symposium and speaker series to be held each year. 

“The college is excited about the opportunities that we will be able to provide our students through the Lunsford Scholars Program,” said Clayton Thyne, chair and professor in the Political Science Department and Lunsford Scholars Program director. 

By Richard LeComte

Camp Nelson, a Civil War-era historic site south of Lexington, helps to fill a gap in the epic story of the end of slavery in the United States. At this site, along with about 300 others in the South, the camp offered refuge to people emancipated from plantations and a place where men could enlist in the Union Army.

Here at Camp Nelson and many other places, African Americans began or continued a serpentine journey to freedom—one that American history has, until now, failed to map.

“The story of freedom in the United States is a story of long, drawn-out battles, fights and struggles,” said Amy Murrell Taylor, author of the acclaimed book “Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s

By Jay Blanton

University of Kentucky faculty member Connie Wood accepted a collect call in 1989 from a student a world away who was in need of a connection and a path forward.

For Bing Zhang, the willingness of a director of graduate studies to accept that phone call and offer help in a time of need has made all the difference in a life’s work and, now, what has been a lifetime of giving back.

Flash forward more than 30 years.

This February, President Eli Capilouto recommended and the UK Board of Trustees accepted a $6.35 million pledge Zhang is making to the University’s Department of Statistics, where he received his doctorate 26 years ago. The board also approved naming the Department the Dr. Bing Zhang Department of Statistics at the University of Kentucky. UK’s

By Richard LeComte

Teaching his first classes at UK in fall 2019, Eladio Bobadilla fresh from his doctoral studies at Duke—saw a lot of eager students waiting for him to share his perspectives on Latinx history. For many students in the class, Bobadilla was teaching something essential: their own histories. 

“It was pretty amazing because a couple of the classes were largely Latino students who were really excited to have someone who looked like them teach them about their histories,” Bobadilla said. “So that was a lot of fun for me. And it was exciting for them to find someone who cares about their history.”

As part of a cluster hire program to bring new Latinx faculty to campus, the College of Arts and Sciences brought aboard two assistant professors: Bobadilla, in

By Richard LeComte

Teaching his first classes at UK in fall 2019, Eladio Bobadilla fresh from his doctoral studies at Duke—saw a lot of eager students waiting for him to share his perspectives on Latinx history. For many students in the class, Bobadilla was teaching something essential: their own histories. 

“It was pretty amazing because a couple of the classes were largely Latino students who were really excited to have someone who looked like them teach them about their histories,” Bobadilla said. “So that was a lot of fun for me. And it was exciting for them to find someone who cares about their history.”

As part of a cluster hire program to bring new Latinx faculty to campus, the College of Arts and Sciences brought aboard two assistant professors: