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

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences will host a trailblazing American diplomat next week to continue the college's Year of China initiative.

Former U.S. Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch will speak on “Leadership and Education in a Globalizing World: China’s Challenge” at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in Room 118 of the White Hall Classroom Building on UK's campus.

Bloch’s talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the "Passport to China: Global Issues & Local Understanding" course taught by UK sociology Professor Keiko Tanaka.

Ambassador Bloch, the first Asian-American ambassador in American history, has had a broad career in U.S. government service. She is currently president of the U.S.-China Education Trust, a nonprofit

Close, intimate relationships are an essential part of human existence. And obviously, when a partner cheats, it isn't exactly going to brighten your day. New research by Nathan DeWall and colleagues explored the role of attachment style in cheating behavior and attitudes. Read the full article.

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

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

DeWall proves his point with five studies on gratitude as a trait and as a fleeting mood, discovering that giving thanks lowers daily aggression, hurt feelings and overall sensitivity.

"If you count your blessings, you're more likely to empathize with other people," said the researcher who is more well-known for studying factors that increased aggression. "More empathic people are less aggressive."

Gratitude motivates people to express sensitivity and concern for others and stimulates pro-social behavior, according to DeWall. Although gratitude

by Colleen Glenn

Congratulations are in order for Ramesh Bhatt, who has recently won a three-year National Science Foundation grant worth $432,751. Bhatt, a professor of Psychology at the University of Kentucky, will use the support to expand his research on the development of social functioning in infancy.

 “Bodies provide a lot of information that facilitates social functioning in adults,” Bhatt says. “However, not much research has addressed the development of knowledge about bodies. The proposed research will let us examine questions such as whether babies know how bodies are organized in terms of the relative proportions of various parts.”

For example, Bhatt will analyze how infants from 3 to 9 months of age react to systematic changes to body and face images, documenting which aspects of bodies and faces infants scan. The results will help Bhatt

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The emotional suffering and clinical treatment associated with infertility is wide-ranging and ever-changing.

In the Middle Eastern world, many of the couples unable to have children suffer a social stigma as well, according to Marcia Inhorn, William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University.

Inhorn, a specialist on Middle Eastern gender and health issues, will present the second lecture of the UK Department of Anthropology's Annual Colloquium Series titled 

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky's Clinical Psychology program took the number one spot in a national study of productivity rankings, meaning that UK psychology graduate students and professors in the College of Arts & Sciences are generating a host of novel research that is effective and influential as well.

In a recent published study "Leading North American Programs in Clinical Assessment Research: An Assessment of Productivity and Impact" by Texas A&M University psychology professor Leslie C. Morey, UK's Clinical Psychology program ranked No. 1 in h-index. 

"We were thrilled to be ranked first," said UK

By Erin Holaday, Colleen Glenn

It’s almost time for class and you’re still in your dorm room. But you’re not going to be late. There’s plenty of time to walk downstairs.

Imagine what residence halls will be like in 2020. That’s what the College of Arts & Sciences did when they created a new living and learning community at Keeneland Hall.

Debuting this fall, A&S Wired houses almost 200 freshmen in a unique interactive space that combines education and residence life.

“As we envisioned what education would be like for students starting college in 2020, we knew advanced technology would be a critical component,” said Adrienne McMahan, assistant dean of

By Divya Menon, Erin Holaday

For proof that reection, exclusion and acceptance are central to our lives, look no farther than the living room, says psychology professor Nathan DeWall in the University of Kentucky's College of Arts & Sciences.

“If you turn on the television set and watch any reality TV program, most of them are about rejection and acceptance,” he said. The reason, according to DeWall, is that acceptance—in romantic relationships, from friends, even from strangers—is absolutely fundamental to humans.

In a new paper published in 

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

Psychological research at the University of Kentucky indicates that feelings of disgust do not usually escalate to aggression in the same way that feelings of anger could.

UK doctoral student Ricky Pond has been interested in the feeling of disgust and its origins from the beginning of his doctoral work in psychology at UK.

With the overwhelming amount of psychological research available on anger and its effects on aggression, Pond decided to test a different negative emotion, one that wouldn't necessarily be associated with hostility.

"I wanted to focus on a negative emotion that leads to less aggression," Pond said. "And my experience with disgust was a good fit."

Pond's study, titled "

by Erin Holady Ziegler

When rising University of Kentucky senior Joseph Mann arrived in Cape Town, South Africa in mid-May, he was ready to make a difference and ready for a challenge. Little did he know that his travel abroad experience would change the course of his life.

"You just need to come here," Mann laughed. "That's what I've told my friends and family. In the face of such adversity, there's hope. South Africans know that they have a bright future. Despite issues with service availability and government incapacity, they have faith."

Mann, a psychology and gender and women's studies major at UK, has a keen interest in human

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

When University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences academic adviser Emily Dailey first contacted psychology senior Suzanna Mitchell about a developmental social neuroscience fellowship at Yale, "it reached out and grabbed me," Mitchell said.

Mitchell, a graduate of Dunbar High School in Lexington, had become interested in child developmental psychology after working at Immanuel Baptist Daycare and as a part-time nanny.

"I am very passionate about working with children, and this opportunity felt right," Mitchell said.

The two-year Yale Fellowship in Developmental Social

by Brad Duncan and Jenny Wells

Celebrating its 13th year, the University of Kentucky College of Education’s Teachers Who Made a Difference program honored its newest group of educators at the 2011 ceremony held Saturday, April 30. More than 140 educators from nine states were recognized for the significant influence they have had in the lives of their students.

"The University of Kentucky College of Education prides itself on preparing great teachers," said Mary Ann Vimont, the college's director of Public Relations and Student, Alumni and Community Affairs. "As part of our mission, we also think it is important to honor those teachers who are making a difference in the lives of their students, here in Kentucky and across the country."

The program got its start

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

A child’s ability to focus on a videogames is not necessarily the type of focus parents should look for when determining attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.



In fact, increased focus on a screen as opposed to other activities is actually a characteristic of ADHD, according to pediatrician Perri Klass.



"Is a child’s fascination with the screen a cause or an effect of attention problems — or both? It’s a complicated question that researchers are still struggling to tease out," Klass wrote in a recent New York Times story.



Klass references University of Kentucky psychology professors Elizabeth Lorch

by Erin Holaday Ziegler



From the complexity of Proctor and Gamble's profit-maximizing strategies, to the seeming simplicity of a crepe myrtle's determination of how much root mass to grow, the world makes decisions in a spectacular array of circumstances.



Most academic disciplines at the University of Kentucky address the process of decision making in some way. According to UK biology Professor Philip Crowley, there's a rich mix of similarities and differences in approach among the disciplines that provides great opportunities for cross-fertilization when it comes to studying decision making.



"For example, there are different goals for the decision making process in different fields, such as profit maximization in

Director of the Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation and Department of Psychology Professor Michael Bardo has been named a 2011 William B. Sturgill Award recipient. The award is presented anually to a graduate faculty member for outstanding contributions to graduate education at the University of Kentucky.



"Winning the Sturgill Award is such a high honor for me because my past trainees have been so successful," Bardo began. "It has been a great pleasure to stay in contact with many of them on an annual basis at professional meetings in psychology and neuroscience. Watching them grow from

Director of the Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation and Department of Psychology Professor Michael Bardo has been named a 2011 William B. Sturgill Award recipient. The award is presented anually to a graduate faculty member for outstanding contributions to graduate education at the University of Kentucky. "Winning the Sturgill Award is such a high honor for me because my past trainees have been so successful," Bardo began. "It has been a great pleasure to stay in contact with many of them on an annual basis at professional meetings in psychology and neuroscience. Watching them grow from trainees into true colleagues has been personally fulfilling, and I now ask them questions relevant to my ongoing research and training. In fact, I have several examples where I have used their advice to enhance my own research laboratory and

by Saraya Brewer

photos by Lee Thomas

Leave it to a graduate student in film studies to hammer out aspects of horror from one of America’s most beloved family Christmas classics. “It’s Christmas film noir,” said Colleen Glenn about "It’s a Wonderful Life." “It’s an extremely dark film.” "It’s a Wonderful Life" is just one of the handful of Jimmy Stewart films that Glenn, a University of Kentucky English Ph.D. candidate with a specialty in film studies, has watched (and re-watched, analyzed, paused, rewound, and watched again) for her dissertation, in which Stewart and other great actors of the mid 20th century –– including Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne –– will each get their own chapter.

“I grew up watching old classic movies on PBS with my family, so I really have my parents to thank for my original interest in film,” Glenn

by Rebekah Tilley

photos by Richie Wireman

For many of us, our freshman year of college is the first transitional step into experiencing the world. As a freshly minted high school graduate, doctoral student Leah Bayens instead spent that first year in the woods reading.

“There is something about that experience that forged in me what was already a deep-seated understanding of the importance of those kinds of rural communities, the importance of not developing everything into suburban enclaves,” explained the Louisville native. “It was a foundational experience for me because of that. It was also my first real foray into understanding farm culture.”

Since that time Bayens has grafted herself into the land, the culture and the nature that surrounds it all. It permeates her graduate research, how she lives her life, and who she is at her core.