By Sarah Geegan

Jonathan Golding, professor in the Department of Psychology in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, was recently featured in Inside Higher Education describing his integration of Facebook into his courses.

"When the idea of using social media (e.g., Facebook) as part of my face-to-face classes was suggested to me about two years ago, I found myself in the slow lane," Golding said. "Luckily, about a year ago I saw the proverbial light."

After all the years of teaching “mega-sections,” introductory courses with more than 500 students, Golding sought a way to create more meaningful interpersonal communication with students

Written texts, YouTube videos, podcasts - these are all means of communicating ideas to others. Craig Crowder is a graduate student in the Department of English and teaches Composition & Communication classes, WRD 110 & 111. In this podcast, Crowder discusses ways to engage students via multimedia projects, and his research, which examines social movement rhetoric in a society that uses multiple modes of communication.

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

By Gail Bennett, Sarah Geegan

WUKY 91.3 FM, the University of Kentucky's NPR station, is partnering with UK Army ROTC to present the Inaugural Kentucky National Guard Bluegrass Mud Run Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012. This 5K run will begin at UK's Commonwealth Stadium and proceed through obstacles designed by members of UK Army ROTC. The obstacle course will be challenging yet fun and will be made to get runners muddy. 

"This fun and exciting mud run is for the pro-athlete or the pro-couch potato!" said Gail Bennett, marketing director at WUKY." Everyone is encouraged to participate, and we strongly encourage you to have fun and even dress in your favorite or most bizarre costume!"

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

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman.

The Division of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media is excited to welcome professor Steven Alvarez to its faculty!

Professor Alvarez joins us this fall to study composition, rhetoric, and literacy as they pertain to immigrant studies and bilingualism. He is currently working on an ethnographic study of first- and second-generation immigrant families in which children are bilingual, but parents are not, and how the children's acquisition of English skills shapes their family dynamics.

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

*This article first appeared in the U.S. Air Force Leader

By Cadet Brittney De Jaco

The morning was cloudy but bright, ominous of the fight that lay ahead, as young men and women from the detachments of the University of Kentucky, University of Cincinnati and University of Tennessee stepped onto the fields of Lexington, Ky. Cleats, gloves and jerseys were garnered as each individual began to prepare for the events to come. 

At 8:00 a.m. on April 14, cadets from the Universities of Kentucky, Cincinnati and Tennessee formed up on the fields for the colors to be presented and the National Anthem to be sung, officially signaling the start of the first annual Boone and Crockett Cup: "The Long Rifle" field day competition.

By: Colleen Glenn

There is a saying among geologists: the best geologist is the one who has seen the most rocks. Frank Ettensohn has seen a lot.

Ettensohn’s work concentrates on foreland basins and black oil and gas shales. Although he conducts the majority of his research in the Appalachian basin, Ettensohn keeps his passport handy, ready to journey to different locations to expand his range of knowledge.

From Ecuador to Argentina to Italy to Russia, the University of Kentucky Professor of Geology travels around the world studying rock formations, teaching courses, and presenting his research.

“We go on fieldtrips to see more rocks, to learn more,” Ettensohn said. “I know the Kentucky region very well, but, as a geologist, I want to go places where I can see new things.”

China, for

High School students Nina Elliott, and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Walsh joined assistant professor Susan Odom in her chemistry lab, a partnership made possible through Paul Laurence Dunbar High School's Math, Science, and Technology Center.

By Sarah Geegan, Craig Borie

Shoulder to Shoulder Global's May 2012 brigade to Ecuador marked the fifth anniversary of the Centro Médico Hombro a Hombro program in Santo Domingo, Ecuador. Students, faculty and staff from the UK College of Health Sciences, UK College of Arts and Sciences, Transylvania University as well as members of the community attended to 704 patients at the Centro Médico and partnering communities. 

Special activities for the fifth anniversary included a special celebration with community members and key partners to commemorate the occasion. Dr. Tom Young from the Department of Pediatrics in the UK College of Medicine

Story by Robin Roenker
Photo by Shaun Ring

On campus for only four months, Omani student Abdul Majeed Al-Hashmi is already making the most of his time at the University of Kentucky. In addition perfecting his already strong English in intensive 20-hour-per-week coursework at UK’s Center for English as a Second Language (CESL) in the College of Arts & Sciences, he’s also found time to pursue a new passion: opera singing.

“I love it,” said Al-Hashmi, a native of a small village called Adam in central Oman.

“In my country, I cannot sing opera, but here I take lessons. [In Oman] we have a very strict, traditional culture. But we came to America, and everything is changed now.”

“We love our country and our culture, but here, you can do what you

“Most of our materials appeared here for the first time. I don’t remember any time when we followed in the direction of what somebody else made first.”

With these words, physics graduate student Oleksandr Korneta perfectly captures the importance of the groundbreaking work being done at UK’s Center for Advanced Materials (CAM).

Korneta, who will defend his dissertation in the summer of 2011, has been a part of CAM since its inception, but his journey to UK’s Physics Department began more than 10 years ago in his native Ukraine.

Korneta says that his interest in science came naturally because of his home environment. “It was easy for me because both my parents have a technical education and I’ve been surrounded by all kinds of hardware my entire life,” Korneta said.

Although he started his academic

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

Biology professor James Krupa recently received his second major accolade from the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) in the past two years. After taking home the NABT University Teaching Award last year, Krupa received the Evolution Education Award for 2012 — crediting famous UK alumnus John T. Scopes for much of his inspiration.

The award recognizes innovative classroom teaching and community education efforts to promote the accurate understanding of biological evolution. Sponsored by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) and National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), the honor will be

The Milky Way is a large spiral galaxy surrounded by dozens of smaller satellite galaxies. Scientists have long theorized that occasionally these satellites will pass through the disk of the Milky Way, perturbing both the satellite and the disk. A team of astronomers from the U.S. and Canada, including one professor from the University of Kentucky, have discovered what may well be the smoking gun of such an encounter, one that occurred close to our position in the galaxy and relatively recently, at least in the cosmological sense.

“We have found evidence that our Milky Way had an encounter with a small galaxy or massive dark matter structure about 100 million years ago,” said Larry Widrow, professor at Queen’s  University in Canada. “We clearly observe unexpected differences in the Milky Way’s stellar distribution above and below the Galaxy’s midplane

What used to be a standard component for universities with archaeology programs is becoming increasingly rare: field school — an experiential course in which students excavate real archaeological sites. However, the UK Department of Anthropology has remained firmly committed to providing opportunities for students to dig into real-world experience.

Kim McBride, anthropology professor and co-director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, taught Anthropology 585: Field Methods in Archaeology at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, 25 miles southwest of Lexington. Students enrolled in the six-week course excavated, collected artifacts

By Sarah Geegan

Christopher Crawford, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, recently received a prestigious five-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's 2012 Early Career Research Program.

The program supports the development of individual research programs of outstanding scientists early in their careers and stimulates research careers in the disciplines supported by the DOE Office of Science. Crawford's award will allow him to study the forces that hold the atomic nucleus together and that cause nuclear decays.

"I study symmetries of these forces," Crawford said. "There are certain properties of neutron postulated

By Sarah Geegan

Seven University of Kentucky students in the College of Arts & Sciences have been awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to study abroad. These students are among 2,300 U.S. undergraduates who will be participating in programs abroad during the summer, fall, or 2012-2013 academic year.

The Gilman Scholarship Program offers awards to U.S. undergraduates who are receiving Federal Pell Grants at a two-year or four-year college or university to study abroad. Scholarships of up to $5,000 may be awarded and vary depending on the length of study and student need. The average award amount is approximately $4,000.

The Gilman Scholarship program supports a diverse group of students who have

By Sarah Geegan

What used to be a standard component for universities with archaeology programs is becoming increasingly rare: field school — an experiential course in which students excavate real archaeological sites. However, the UK Department of Anthropology has remained firmly committed to providing opportunities for students to dig into real-world experience.

Kim McBride, anthropology professor and co-director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, taught Anthropology 585: Field Methods in Archaeology at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, 25 miles southwest of Lexington. Students enrolled in the six-week course excavated,

Stargazing is typically reserved for after sundown, but what if you want to look at the biggest star in the sky? On June 5th, 2012, the planet Venus was visible by day – traveling in front of the sun! This is called the Transit of Venus, and is a rare astronomical event. A few hundred people gathered at the UK Arboretum to view the transit of Venus through special telescopes that allow safe observation of solar activity. In this podcast, we went to the Arboretum to talk to participants and Tim Knauer, the director of the MacAdam Student Observatory on UK's campus. The viewing was sponsored by the UK Physics & Astronomy Department and was done in conjunction with the Kentucky SkyTalks

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 utility