The "Making History" Graduate Alumni Symposium will be held on January 19, 2024, from 10 am to 3:30 pm in the Office of China Initiatives (basement floor of Fine Arts Library). This full-day event will feature a fantastic roster of alumni speakers from the History Department graduate program, a mentoring coffee hour, and many opportunities for networking, conversation, food, and drink. 

In case the University closes due to winter weather, the event will be held on Zoom starting with Panel One at 11 am. A link will be distributed to registered participants. Questions can be addressed to emilymokros@uky.edu

Program

10:00 am – 10:15 am: Welcome and Introductions, Emily Mokros, Kathy Newfont, and Anastasia Curwood

10:15 am – 11:00 am: Making History Together: Mentoring Coffee Hour

11:00 am – 12:30 pm: Panel One: Making History on Campus, moderated by Ashley Sorrell

Le Datta Grimes, Oral Historian, Clemson University
Joanna Lile, Lecturer, Georgetown College
Jillean McCommons, Assistant Professor, University of Richmond Anthony Miller, Assistant Professor, Hanover College

12:30 pm – 1:15 pm: Lunch and Networking

1:30 pm – 2:45 pm: Panel Two: Making History Beyond Campus, moderated by Allen Fletcher

Jonathan Coleman, Executive Director, Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation Amanda Higgins, Executive Director, LexHistory
Stephanie M. Lang, Editor, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Amber Sergent, Social Studies Teacher, Woodford County High School

3:00 pm – 3:30 pm: Making History Going Forward: Closing Discussion, moderated by Garrett Freas and Arshiya Jeelani

3:30 pm: Closing comments, Hilary Jones

Join us for a film screening of The 24th, a historical film written and directed by Kevin Willmott! This film screening will be held virtually followed by a brief Q&A discussion. For more insight on the film, check out this interview.

Read more on Kevin Willmott's extensive works HERE.

Watch The 24th movie trailer!

This event is sponsored by:

• English Department MFA Visiting Writers Series
• International Film Certificate Program
• Gaines Center for Humanities
• UK History Department
• Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies
• Rosenberg College of Law
• Cooperative for the Humanities and Social Sciences
• UK Veteran's Resource CEnter
• William T. Young Library
• UK Office of Institutional Diversity

To register, click HERE! Contact Pearl James for more information.

The Uses and Abuses of History During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Thursday, July 16, 2020 | 4 p.m. EDT

Online via Zoom

History is in the news a lot these days. News commentators and politicians tell us we are living through 1918, 1929, and 1968, all compressed into a single year. We look back to World War II, in search of a tangible precedent for overcoming adversity. And some writers claim that the calls for a truly multi-racial democracy resonate better with 1868 than 1968. So how can history help us understand our contemporary moment?

Join host Kathi Kern, Associate Provost of Teaching, Learning and Academic Innovation, and 2003 Great Teacher Award winner, for a lively discussion with the following award-winning historians and Great Teachers as they reflect on the “usable past.”

• Dr. Tracy Campbell, E. Vernon Smith and Eloise C. Smith Professor of American History (2010 Great Teacher Award winner).

• Dr. Vanessa Holden, Assistant Professor of History.

• Dr. Amy Murrell Taylor, T. Marshall Hahn Jr. Professor of History (2016 Great Teacher Award winner).

This session is part of the “Great Teachers on Great Challenges” virtual speaker series which is co-sponsored by the UK Alumni Association and the Provost’s Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT). The series will regularly conduct conversations with UK faculty who have won the UK Alumni Association’s Great Teacher Award, the oldest, continuously-given award for teachers at the University of Kentucky. With the goal of responding to the numerous questions pertaining to COVID-19 and its effects locally and globally, these sessions will unpack the insights and expertise of UK’s teacher-scholars for all audiences.

For more information about the “Great Teachers on Great Challenges” series and to register for upcoming sessions, click the button below.

Join us for an evening with filmmaker Robin Hessman and a screening of her award-winning documentary, MY PERESTROIKA (2010). The film tells the stories of five Moscow schoolmates who were brought up behind the Iron Curtain, witnessed the joy and confusion of glasnost, and reached adulthood right as the world changed around them. A Q&A with the director will follow the film.

For more information please visit myperestroika.com