By Mick Jeffries

Most people would have to admit: it’s hard not to be a little curious about a university lecture presentation called “Kinky Hillbilly Queens.” Even more so when the talk, which filled a room with recently at the UK Student Center, is presented by someone with the undeniable and far-reaching academic credentials of Dr. Carol Mason.

At the appointed time, Mason cheerfully and adeptly takes the room, inviting prospective students to examine popular TV stereotypes of provincial women. She’s impishly Socratic, soliciting comments and opinions, putting the attendees at ease with her own natural and implacable confidence and curiosity. On one side of the room, a quorum of her departmental peers are seriously beaming over their new colleague. And for good reason, too: It’s

Diversity at Kaizen Motors – Team Solidarity is Greater and Sometimes Less than Expected. UK Sociology prof and former graduate student examine team intensification.

Corporations pour billions of dollars into diversity training without taking the time to research what diversity actually means to the people on the shop-floor. In a new book released this past October, Tom Janoski of the University of Kentucky Sociology Department, and his former student Darina Lepadatu  reveal the dynamics of gender, race and age as workers experience it for themselves.

Their methodical case study of a lean production system at a Fortune 500 corporation exposes the rhetoric of diversity to the realities and pressures of lean production in a

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky's Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program will give the campus and Lexington community a realistic look at Appalachia through film in the center's first Appalachian Forum series event this week.

Young people from the Appalachian Media Institute (AMI) will showcase three films produced by AMI filmmakers from 3:30-5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, at the William T. Young Library Auditorium. The short films will be followed by a question and answer session. 

The film presentation will cover a wide range

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

University of Kentucky freshmen pull out their iPads, gather in small groups around 21st century tables and begin to discuss physics problems in a way that's as far from conventional as the touch screens they are intently gazing upon.

This is just a typical afternoon for physics and astronomy Professor and Chair Mike Cavagnero's experimental A&S Wired research course: the Science of Measurement.

"Measurement and observation are the foundations of science," Cavagnero said. "Measurement is the first step in all of science, actually, and it's a step that's often left out of K-12 science education."

The 26 A&S Wired students who registered for the eight-week class have carried out customary physics coursework, but have

By Whitney Hale, Erin Holaday Ziegler

University of Kentucky students took a new look at some historical images of Lexington in a groundbreaking, campuswide collaboration.

As part of his "GEO 164 iWorlds" class this past semester, geography professor Matthew Zook assigned students the task of geocoding photographs of streetscapes of Lexington from the first half of the 20th century.  Students were tasked with using descriptive metadata, including the street address, to determine the likely location of the photograph.   

"This project provided undergraduates with hands-on experience in geocoding and crowdsourcing geographic data," said Zook. "Furthermore, we've created a resource that will endure beyond the semester and be of interest to the larger community."

WHO: Professor Juefei Wang, University of Vermont

WHAT: "Chinese Education in a Changing Society" - Confucius Institute Speaker Series

WHERE: William T. Young Library

WHEN: Tuesday, December 6, 2011 3:00p.m.

Dr. Juefei Wang is Professor of Education Emeritus of the University of Vermont and Program Director of the Freeman Foundation.  He founded the University of Vermont Asian Studies Outreach Program and served as its director for 14 years.  In that role he created a statewide program for Asian studies in schools in Vermont, organized more than 1,000 teachers, school administrators, and high school and college students to visit China, Japan, and Thailand, and assisted Vermont schools in offering content on Asia.   In 2003, the program received the inaugural Prize for Excellence

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

A visiting Fulbright Scholar will give an insider's perspective on the past, present and future of Iraq at the University of Kentucky tomorrow.

Mohammed Saeed, a Fulbright Scholar in the Department of Statistics pursuing a master's in public health in UK's College of Public Health, will discuss the "Recent History of Iraq, U.S. Involvement and War and Current Issues" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29, in the William T. Library. There will be a reception in the Keeneland Room after Saeed's talk.

Saeed was born and raised in Baghdad and arrived at UK in 2010 after receiving a Fulbright scholarship. 

The visiting scholar plans to discuss the Iraq-Iran War; the Gulf War; life under Saddam Hussein's

By Colleen Glenn

Earlier this year, Dhananjay Ravat, Chair of UK’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, was named an Outstanding Alumnus of the Purdue University Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Ravat, who earned his Ph.D. from Purdue in 1989, was delighted by the news. The award was presented in a ceremony on the campus of Purdue University on September 30, 2011.

“Being honored by your teachers is probably one of the ultimate honors,” Ravat said. “For me, it sort of validates all the teaching and research I have been involved in the past 20 years. It also energizes me to do more.”

In receiving this honor, Ravat joins a small and elite group of Purdue Earth and Atmospheric Sciences alumni that include scientists who have excelled in academia, industry, or government organizations like NASA. In fact, one of the other winners

Two UK Sociology Professors See The Jobs Crisis as a Critical Issue in the Next Decade of NSF Research.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (December 5, 2011)– The National Science Foundation asked researchers around the US to profile the most important issues of the next decade in the social sciences. Myron Gutmann and Amy Friedlander of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Division said that “the response has been astonishing—and formidable.” The 252 response papers were put onto a website for the world to see, and in the last month, NSF published a report on the project called Rebuilding the Mosaic: Fostering Research in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at NSF in the Next Decade.  The one proposal from the state of Kentucky was submitted by Thomas Janoski and Christopher Oliver from the Sociology Department. It is

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

A University of Kentucky psychology Professor gives columnist John Tierney a healthy helping of Thanksgiving gratitude with his recent study on the sentiment and its effects on aggressive behavior featured in today's New York Times.

Grateful people aren't just kinder people, according to UK College of Arts & Sciences psychology Professor Nathan DeWall. They are also less aggressive.

Tierney discusses DeWall's "A Grateful Heart is a Nonviolent Heart: Cross-Sectional, Experience Sampling, Longitudinal, and

By Gail Hurston

The UK Alumni Association is serving as host to University of Kentucky multicultural and international students who signed up for the 6th Annual Multicultural Student Thanksgiving Dinner 5 to 7 p.m. today, Tuesday, Nov. 22, in the Student Center Grand Ballroom

This family-friendly event has quickly become a holiday tradition. The students will join UK President Eli Capilouto for a traditional Thanksgiving feast, including turkey with dressing, cranberry sauce, corn pudding and pumpkin pie. Vegetarian options will also be available.

University of Kentucky and College of Arts & Sciences alum Kip Cornett (B.G.S., ’77) was recognized on National Philanthropy Day, November 8. Cornett is the president and owner of Cornett Integrated Marketing.

The College of Arts & Sciences was one of twenty-two organizations to honor their top philanthropists at the annual National Philanthropy Day, organized by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Also honored were this year’s Distinguished Philanthropist, James E. “Ted” Bassett III, and Virginia Newsome received the Youth in Philanthropy Award.

The event was sponsored at the platinum level by the University of Kentucky.  The silver sponsors were KCTCS,

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

University of Kentucky creative writing Professor  Nikky Finney has won the 2011 National Book Award in Poetry for her recent work, “Head Off & Split.”  Finney attended the award ceremony last night in New York City, where she accepted the highly prestigious honor.

“Head Off & Split” was published by Northwestern University Press in February of this year, and Finney has been touring with the book since late winter.

The National Book Award website says the poems in Finney's "Head Off & Split" "sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African-American life: from Civil Rights matriarch Rosa Parks, to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning, to a terrified woman abandoned

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education have named University of Kentucky psychology Professor Jonathan Golding of the College of Arts & Sciences the 2011 Kentucky Professor of the Year.

Golding was selected from nearly 300 top professors in the United States.

"Jonathan Golding is one of the professors that alumni remember when they think about their college days," said psychology department Chair Richard Milich. "They remember that they learned a lot in his class, but they remember him because of his passion and because he took the time to get to know them."

Golding has involved

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman.

The Department of Psychology is excited to welcome professor Will Gervais to its faculty!

Professor Gervais joins us this fall studying how cognition, evolution, and culture interact to shape people’s beliefs about the world. His research concerns religion and supernatural thinking, examining the psychological causes and consequences of both religious belief and disbelief.

This podcast is part of a series highlighting the new faculty members who joined the College of Arts and Sciences in the fall 2012 semester.

Produced by Stephen Gordinier.

By Rebekah Tilley

This article originally appeared in the College of Nursing Fall 2011 Newsletter and is re-printed here with their permission.

In the ten years since the events of September 11, 2001, the military footprint around the world has vastly expanded touching the careers of many UK College of Nursing alumni and faculty as well as impacting the training of its ROTC undergraduates.

There are a myriad of opportunities for nurses via a military career and the College of Nursing works with military personnel at every stage of their careers to optimize the educational opportunities afforded by being both in the armed services and students in the College of Nursing.

Nursing senior and Army ROTC cadet Jennifer Graehler found nursing and the Army almost at the same time. The Lexington, Ky., native came to UK on a Governor’s School for the Arts

ITIQ is a program of online, 1-credit hour courses designed to teach today’s students about various information technology tools, skills, and methods to use technology successfully in the academic, professional, and personal aspects of their lives. Students learn tools to help with academic research, stay organized, collaborate virtually, analyze and visualize data, publish online content, create dazzling presentations, and much more!

There are currently three course offerings, ITIQ-Intro, ITIQ-Web Publishing, and ITIQ-VisLab.  The courses are typically offered during 6-week part-of-term courses toward the beginning or end of the semester.   

ITIQ-Intro covers the following topics:

A&S 500 Special Topics: Global Appalachia

Instructor: Dr. Ann Kingsolver - Meets TR, 11a.m. to 12:15 p.m., B3 Funkhouser

In this course, we will examine the ways in which Appalachia has always had strong global connections, environmentally, economically, and culturally. We will critique isolationist discourse that has masked the shared concerns of those in Appalachia with other global regions that have been viewed as low-wage labor pools for transnational extractive industries, for example, and that have also contributed to collective knowledge about sustainable resource use and social capital. Appalachia’s global dimensions will be examined both historically and comparatively via topics ranging from local production of global commodities to migration, identity, changing land ownership, and community

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

University of Kentucky Confucius Institute Director Huajing Maske rarely takes a moment to reflect. With a passion for spreading Chinese language and culture to the Commonwealth that aligns with the UKCI's gateway mission, Maske and her small staff have made quite an impact on UK, Central Kentucky schools and the community in their first year of work.

"When I sit down and think about it, we've achieved a lot," Maske said laughing. "It's amazing to see such an improvement in such a short time."

The Confucius Institute's goals are to provide leadership, support and coordination for Chinese language and programs in K-12 schools as well as on the UK campus; assist in establishing and maintaining faculty and student

By Erin Holaday Zielger

The United States celebrates International Education week this week, but UK has escalated its presence and connectivity across the globe since Provost Kumble Subbaswamy established the Internationalization Task Force in February 2007.

"Our students, regardless of whether they come from rural Kentucky or from outside the U.S., are increasingly aware of the importance of being ready for the global marketplace," Subbaswamy said.  "Thus, it is our responsibility to make sure that UK provides them ample opportunity to become ‘world ready.’ Our internationalization efforts are aimed at achieving this strategic goal."

International Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate the benefits of international education