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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.   

 

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 analyses and responses to the many

 

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 exchange between 

 

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 and exchange worldwide.

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

 

The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences American Studies Program will host a discussion with the internationally renowned New York Times film critic A.O. Scott this week.

"Film and Reality: A Conversation with A.O. Scott" will take place at 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 17 in Memorial Hall on UK's campus. The event is free and open to the public.

American Studies Professor Alan Nadel will be speaking with Scott. Nadel, the William T. Bryan Chair in American Literature and Culture, is currently teaching an undergraduate course in the American Studies Program on the nonfiction novel and documentary films.

"This isn't so much an interview as a conversation,"

By Whitney Hale

 

The University of Kentucky Special Collections Library invites the public to an exhibition and symposium celebrating the opening of the papers of Appalachian author Harriette Simpson Arnow. The event will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, in the Great Hall, of the Margaret I. King Building. The exhibition of work will run through February 2012.

Harriette Arnow’s papers at UK Libraries provide a broad look at a writer’s life and work.  Included are materials that document her writing process, from first-draft manuscripts on dime store tablets, through various iterations and drafts, to printer page proofs. Also included are correspondence with family, editors, publishers and literary agents. Researchers will find mail from readers, photographs,

By Kami L. Rice

As an undergrad at UK, Heather Worne was on a pre-med track, planning to study pathology or orthopedics in medical school or to expand on her interest in the skeletal system by becoming a physical therapist. Her plans changed, though, after she took Introduction to Biological Anthropology taught by Dr. Deborah Crooks, current associate professor of anthropology and Interim Chair for the Department of Anthropology.

During that course, Worne fell in love with biological anthropology and realized she liked the perspective anthropology brought to the study of medicine. “The way biological anthropology addresses human biology is different from the

By Krystal Delfino

Jessica Combs is someone who is willing to work for what she wants in life. After gaining admission into one of the most competitive doctoral programs in the country, she has more than exceeded expectations as a psychology graduate student here at the University of Kentucky. Already, Jessica has been a collaborator in the publication of 15 papers, as well as a few others still waiting to be put in ink. In addition to this, she was granted a Presidential Fellowship, an award that honors and provides financial support for a small number of outstanding doctoral students in the university. This year, she was also selected as the Mary Byron Fellow for 2011-2012. This fellowship is in honor of a woman who was killed by a former

 

By Whitney Hale

A number of books featured at the 30th annual Kentucky Book Fair will feature University of Kentucky connections or are from authors working with theUniversity Press of Kentucky (UPK), located on the UK campus. The fair, co-sponsored by UPK, will be from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, at the Frankfort Convention Center, in Frankfort, Ky. The Kentucky Book Fair is free and open to the public.
 
Founded in 1981, the Kentucky Book Fair is the state's leading literary event. Over the past 30 years, the fair has recognized outstanding Kentucky authors and editors. The largest and oldest event of its kind in the state, the Kentucky Book Fair will host around 185 authors with recently published books.
 

 

By Cathy Johnson

WUKY's "UK Perspectives" focuses on the people and programs of the University of Kentucky and is hosted by WUKY General Manager Tom Godell.  Today's program highlights UK creative writing Professor Nikky Finney, whose book of poetry "Head Off & Split" is a finalist for this year's National Book Award. She discusses the book and reads a portion of one of her poems.

To listen to the podcast interview with Nikky Finney, from which " UK Perspectives" is produced, click here.

"UK Perspectives" airs at 8:30 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. each Friday on WUKY 91.3, UK's NPR station.

 

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The annual POW/MIA Run is a chance for Air Force and Army ROTC cadets from the University of Kentucky, along with Air Force ROTC cadets from the University of Louisville, to honor the sacrifices of the nation’s prisoners of war and those still missing in action.

ROTC cadets and faculty will run 29 miles — from the UK campus in Lexington to the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Frankfort — on Saturday, Nov. 12.

Cadets and faculty will start their run at 6:30 a.m. in front of Barker Hall, located on Administration Drive on the central campus of UK. The runners expect to arrive at the memorial around noon.

Cadets will carry both the United States and POW/MIA flags along the entire route. The run will take place along Old Frankfort Pike.

Student

 

By Allison Elliott

Mark Lovell, a researcher for the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and a member of the faculty in the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of Chemistry, has been named the Jack and Linda Gill Arts and Sciences Research Excellence Fund Professor in Chemistry.

Lovell, a native of Kentucky, holds a bachelor's degree from Berea College and completed his doctorate at UK. He served as a postdoctoral scholar at Sanders-Brown before accepting a permanent appointment to the university faculty.

"I am delighted that Professor Lovell is being recognized for his important contributions to our understanding of some

By Keith Hautala

The University of Kentucky will honor those who have served in the military with a Veterans Day Observance outside the Main Building from noon-3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11.
All UK veterans, including faculty, staff and students, will be provided lunch and a lapel pin. Speakers will include Tony Dotson, director of UK's Veterans Resource Center, and Josh Hoke, president of the UK Military Veterans of America student organization. There will also be prize drawings for UK veterans.  

The observance is open to the entire campus community, to celebrate the many accomplishments and contributions of UK's veterans.

"On Veterans Day, we want to honor the veterans who are living, working and learning with us here on campus every day," Dotson said. "We pay tribute to the fallen each year on Memorial Day. But

 

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences welcomes a strategist, futurist and technologist to campus to discuss a timeless and wholly necessary skill.

Craig Saper, a professor in the Language, Literacy, & Culture doctoral program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will give a talk titled, "WRD UP 2.0: Teaching\R\E\A\D/I/N/G/ as Genre & Practice," at 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11, in Room 211 of the Student Center Addition. Refreshments will be served.

"Teaching has begun to respond to our multi-modal contemporary situation with digital assignments," said organizer Jeff Rice, an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences' Division of Writing, Rhetoric and

 

By Whitney Hale, Julie Meador, Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky has updated its list of faculty experts from throughout the main and medical campuses.

For current and historical information on topics ranging from chemistry and chicken pox, to LGBTQ studies and linguistics, UK's expert list provides a link from classroom to the community.

The list features staff and faculty experts from all 16 UK colleges and the UK HealthCare enterprise. The list can be searched by topic and subtopic.

Topics include: agriculture, arts, business and economics, design, diversity, engineering and technology, education, environment, family and society, government, politics and law, health and medicine, humanities, international studies, Kentucky issues and topics, library studies, mass media and communications, physical sciences and math, and

By Guy Spriggs

On October 24, 2011, UK history professor Jeremy Popkin was named as the 2011 recipient of the American History Association (AHA) J. Russell Major Prize for the best book in early modern French history. His award-winning winning book – “You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery” – was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010.

The award will be officially announced in the November issue of “Perspectives on History,” and Popkin will receive the prize on January 6, 2012 at the AHA Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Popkin’s book explains the background to the epoch-making revolutionary decrees of 1793 (in the French colony of Saint-Domingue—today’s Haiti) and

 

Matt Wells presented a paper titled “How to Be an Exemplary Official: Didactic Life Narrative in the Jin shu.” 15th Annual Southeast Early China Roundtable, University of the South, Sewanee, October 7-9, 2011.

Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby and Matt Wells participated in an Asian studies meeting up in Louisville for all of the Asian Studies faculty across the state, hosted by the Crane House.  

EVENT - David Hunter & Catholic Studies - Sinai Monk to Visit
The Cottrill-Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies, through the good offices of Dr. David Bradshaw, Philosophy Depaetment chair, will be sponsoring two lectures in early November.  The speaker will be Fr. Justin Sinates, a monk of St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai Desert, Egypt, and a native of Texas.  St. Catherine's was founded in the sixth century by the Byzantine emperor

By Jessica Powers

Universities are in constant motion – students and faculty alike are always seeking to gain and refine more knowledge. Your intellectual perspective and personal development continually expand, even for the most senior of faculty. That is why Associate Professor of English Andy Doolen is interested in Social Theory, a program that allows him access to new perspectives and intellectual growth.

After coming to UK in 2003, Professor Doolen accepted an invitation to become the Social Theory faculty mentor for disClosure, an annual, graduate student managed journal, which immersed him with the students and their publication. The journal, in its twentieth year, accepts submissions from a