Dean Ana Franco-Watkins

By Lindsey Piercy 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 8, 2022) — From being in the classroom to leading the classroom — first-generation students and graduates are an integral part of the University of Kentucky.

In fact, nearly one in four incoming freshmen and one in three transfer students at UK are first-gen.

Each year, Nov. 8 is dedicated to recognizing and celebrating those who represent the first generation in their family to attend college.

There are many unique challenges first-gen students encounter when pursuing higher education — from academic and financial concerns to psychological and social obstacles.

But these students also have many strengths, which we see on our campus every day. They are resourceful —

Koji Tanno

By Nizhoni McDarment  

LEXINGTON, Ky, -- Koji Tanno, assistant professor of Japanese in the University of Kentucky’s College of Arts & Sciences, has been recognized as the Kentucky Association of Japanese Language Teachers’ representative for the 2022 Outstanding Japanese Teacher during the Kentucky World Language Association fall conference.  

Tanno, the Japanese Language Program coordinator in the Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures, also was a candidate for the Kentucky World Language Association’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award.  

In addition, UK alumna Collin Smith received the association’s Outstanding Rising Star Teacher Award. The award recognizes teachers with fewer than five years of experience who have helped their students and exhibited best practices.  

By Erin Wickey

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 18, 2022) — University of Kentucky Research Communications has partnered with UK’s Office of Technology Commercialization to feature faculty innovators  in “I am a UK Innovator,” a four-video series. The Office of Technology Commercailization works with innovators to assess, protect and license early-stage technologies and create new technology startups. In this Q&A, Chad Risko discusses the innovation ExpFlow, which could help the research community confirm results by repeating experiments, an activity fundamental to scientific progress. Risko is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, an affiliated

By Stacey Gish

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 14, 2022) — More than 60 alumni and students were honored during the 31st annual Lyman T. Johnson Awards program Friday, Oct. 14, at the Gatton Student Center.  

The University of Kentucky Alumni Association Lyman T. Johnson African American Alumni Constituency Group and the UK Office for Institutional Diversity hosted the awards luncheon as part of the 2022 Lyman T. Johnson Homecoming Celebration. The 2021 ceremony was postponed due to COVID-19 concerns, leading to a combined ceremony this year. 

UK College of Arts & Sciences alumni Nevaeh Eggleston and Anthony Jones were honored. Eggleston received a 2022 Torch Bearer award, and Jones

LEXINGTON, Ky, -- Amber Sergent, a social studies teacher at Woodford County High School in Kentucky, was named the 2023 Kentucky High School Teacher of the Year during a ceremony Sept. 20.

Sergent earned a master’s degree and doctorate in American history at the University of Kentucky. She has taught in Woodford County since 2017. 

“In working with Dr. Sergent, I have had the opportunity to witness firsthand how fair and equitable she is with students, in every instance demonstrating compassion and care,” said Morgan Howell, principal of Woodford County High School. “She takes time to truly understand and listen to student concerns both in and out of the classroom while working to establish strong relationships. The love and care she has for her students is exceptional. It is hard to put into words and quantify the difference someone can make in another person’s life,

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 6, 2022) — Three alumni and one faculty member were inducted into the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame at a ceremony held on campus Friday, Sept. 30. 

The hall of fame recognizes UK Arts and Sciences alumni and faculty who have made meaningful contributions to the university, the Commonwealth and the nation in their respective fields. 

“We are honored to recognize and celebrate our stellar class of inductees; La Tasha Buckner, Dennis McCarty, Cythnia 'Didi' Rapp and Dwight Billings, who are some of our most distinguished alumni and faculty,” said Ana Franco-Watkins, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Our honorees’ life stories reflect the power and

By Tori Santiago 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 6, 2022) — The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center, in collaboration with the Housing Development Alliance, is seeking volunteers for a 

By Nizhoni McDarment

LEXINGTON, Ky.  -- The University of Kentucky’s Delta Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honors Society, recently received a Best Chapter Awardfor the 2021-22 school year.

The UK chapter was one of six institutions, similar in size, to receive this award out of more than 800 Pi Sigma Alpha Chapters in the United States.

“These awards are intended to recognize local chapters that are particularly active in their institutions and communities and embody our society’s mission to stimulate scholarship and intellectual interest in political science,” according to the National Pi Sigma Alpha Organization.

The honors society hosts panels, speakers, debates, workshops and political science mixers to engage students in the UK College of Arts & Sciences community.

“Our group was formed with the intention and goal

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 5, 2022) — Fruithurst is your quintessential small town. Located in Cleburne County, Alabama — just five miles on the other side of the Georgia state line — only a few hundred people call it home.

Christy Hiett is one of those people.

Born and raised in the tight-knit community, she now serves as principal of Fruithurst Elementary, the same school she attended as a young girl.

“Fruithurst is a very small community where the school is a large part of the community, and the community is a large part of the school.”

That’s why Hiett became concerned when a growing number of people, including her students, were diagnosed with cancer.

“When children started being diagnosed with leukemia, people in the community looked to me for answers,” she said

By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky – As Black women gained economic status in the United States, one of the big issues that arose involved what their daughters’ toys would look like. It’s an issue Aria S. Halliday finds fascinating.  

"At the turn of the 20th century, a lot more Black people were able to participate in the consumer marketplace,” said Halliday, assistant professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and Program in African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky’s College of Arts & Sciences. “They want stuff that represents their culture and who they think they are. From then to the present, we'

LEXINGTON, Ky, -- A new book by Peter Kalliney, William J. and Nina B. Tuggle chair in English in the University of Kentucky's College of Arts & Sciences, looks at ways in which rival superpowers used cultural diplomacy and the political police to influence writers.

The book, "The Aesthetic Cold War: Decolonization and Global Literature," examines how the United States and the Soviet Union, in an effort to entice writers, funded international conferences, arts centers, book and magazine publishing (including the Paris Review), literary prizes and radio programming. Their international spy networks, however, subjected these same writers to surveillance and intimidation by tracking their movements, tapping their phones, reading their mail and censoring or banning their work.

Readers can find out more about the book through a podcast found

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 3, 2022) — The University of Kentucky will welcome author and distinguished alumnus William H. Turner back to campus for a presentation on his latest, awarding-winning book, “The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns.” The presentation, titled “The Blues on Black Mountain: Stories from The Harlan Renaissance,” will take place at 5 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, in the William T. Young Library’s UK Athletics Auditorium. A reception will follow at 6:30 p.m. at the Appalachian Center, 624 Maxwelton Court on campus.

The event is co-sponsored by the UK Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program, the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies, the 

By Micha'la Hood

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 30, 2022) — Along with her University of Kentucky Art Museum exhibition, “Thicker than Water,” artist Marlene McCarty will join author and UK English professor Erik Reece and museum director Stuart Horodner to talk about image-making and evolution.

The panel presented by UK Art Museum will be from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6, at the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall. This event is free and open to the public.

A native of Lexington, McCarty is a visual artist who is based in New York. A

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 27, 2022) — Kevin M. Yeager, a professor in the University of Kentucky’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, has received a major transdisciplinary award from the National Science Foundation for research on coastal wetland methane dynamics. Yeager is part of a multi-institutional team, led by Annette Engel at the University of Tennessee, who received the $2.9 million award to study methane emissions in coastal wetlands, which play an increasingly important role in ongoing and rapid climate change.

The team will focus on marshes in southern Louisiana and study methane emissions from coastal soils as sea-level rises and test natural microbial, landscape and

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Wendell Overcash has one great collection – a collection of minerals that wow fellow enthusiasts and competition judges alike. Most recently, he won the Geofair Gem, Mineral, Fossil and Jewelry Show of Greater Cincinnati; it’s part of his collecting strategy to impress and impress big. He also recently received the Best of Species cabinet at a mineral show in Denver.

“I want viewers’ eyes to fall on the ground,” said Overcash, who honed his interest in minerals as he earned his bachelor’s degree in geology at the University of Kentucky in the 1970s. “And I can make them do that.”

Overcash also earned a law degree from UK and worked as an attorney in land acquisition and other areas for a variety of companies in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, including the Exxon Mineral Co. He eventually returned to Kentucky and performed

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 14, 2022) — The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences has selected 21 student representatives and two co-coordinators as College Ambassadors for the 2022-23 year. The A&S Ambassador Program encourages the development of leadership and communication skills while the students represent the college to visitors, alumni and current students.

Student Ambassadors for 2022-23 are:

By C. Lynn Hiler

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 19, 2022) — The University of Kentucky Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence announces  the 2022 class of Chellgren Student Fellows.

Created in 2005 with a gift from Paul Chellgren, a UK graduate, and his family, the Chellgren Center creates educational opportunities for outstanding undergraduate students and professors at the university. 

College of Arts and Sciences:

The Chellgren Student Fellows Program is supported by the Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence within the Office of the Provost. To learn more

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Kentucky -- Erich Jarvis, a professor and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Rockefeller University, will be one of the guest speakers in the 2022 Ribble Seminar Series offered by the Department of Biology in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Kentucky.

Jarvis uses song-learning birds and other species as models to study the molecular and genetic mechanisms that underlie vocal learning. He is interested in how the brains of humans and birds evolved to produce complex vocal behavior. Learn more about Jarvis and his research

By Kent Ratajeski

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 15, 2022) — Dave Moecher, a professor in the University of Kentucky Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, recently returned from Ireland, where he spent five months studying the erosion of the Appalachian Mountains and exploring the culture and history of the Emerald Isle.

While collaborating on research with two Irish geoscience professors, Moecher and his wife, Amy Luchsinger (recently retired from UK), lived in suburban Dublin during their stay, traveling widely throughout the country.

The experience was made possible by the Fulbright Scholar Program, which supports immersive experiences in other countries for researchers, teachers, artists and professionals with the aim of producing mutual understanding of other cultures. The Fulbright Program was

By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Tiffany Barnes, professor of political science in the University of Kentucky’s College of Arts & Sciences, will co-edit a series of books from Cambridge University Press titled “Elements in Gender & Politics.”  

The series will combine scholarship with theory to show how politics and gender shape the world. Monographs will examine traditional areas of political science as well as diversity, intersectionality and LGBTQ+ issues. Her co-editor is Diana Z. O’Brien, professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.