By Gail Hairston

Their eyes fill with commitment, their smiles reflect their joy, and Madeline Conrad and Mason Johnson nearly bounce off their chairs with excitement when they talk about the College Mentors for Kids after-school program.

Conrad and Johnson are the University of Kentucky seniors.

They say the third- through fifth-grade children at two Fayette County schools mentored by UK student volunteers “are launched into orbit” when they talk about their visits to the university campus.

Mellie: “UK Mentoring is AWESOME!” (Her capital letters, not the writer’s.) “We get to have mentors and do lots of fun activities.”

Jaxon: “The program helps us to think about what we want to be when we grow up.”

Isobel: “UK Mentoring exposes us to the campus. If we decide to go to UK, then we will already know the land.”

Nyiemah: “Being a part of

By Gail Hairston

By Gail Hairston

By Blair Hoover

(April 27, 2016) — Provost Tim Tracy honored five faculty members and four teaching assistants with Provost's Outstanding Teaching Awards at the 2016 UK Faculty Awards Ceremony. The William B. Sturgill Award and the Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize were also awarded at the ceremony. The ceremony took place Thursday, April 21, in the Lexmark Public Room in the Main Building.

The William B. Sturgill Award was awarded to Carl Mattacola, a professor in the rehabilitation sciences program in the College of Health Sciences.

The Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize was awarded to Gary J. Ferland, a physics and astronomy professor in the College of Arts and

By Whitney Hale

This year's selection of a dozen UK students and alumni for NSF Graduate Research Fellowships is believed to be the largest in the school's history and is four times the number of selections for 2015. To put more of emphasis on the fellowship

By Terrence Wade

(March 24, 2016) — Distinguished Professor in Arts and Sciences for 2015-16 Charles R. Carlson, will present the honorary lecture on March 28, titled “Breathing Entrainment for Self Regulatory Gain: Using Programmatic Research to Improve the Management of Motion Sickness and Chronic Orofacial Pain.” Carlson is a professor of psychology in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences. The Distinguished Professor’s reception and lecture will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, March 28, in the UK Athletics Auditorium of William T. Young Library.

Carlson’s presentation describes his examination of chronic muscle pain in the head and neck

By Kathryn Macon

(March 8, 2016) — The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for Humanities has selected 12 exceptional undergraduates as new scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 academic years. Gaines Fellowships are given in recognition of outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, an interest in public issues and a desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities.

Gaines Fellowships are awarded for the tenure of a student's junior and senior years, or for the last two years of a five-year program; students in all disciplines and with any intended profession are

Lisa Lockman, Kristie Law

(Feb. 24, 2016) — Twenty-three women at the University of Kentucky have been nominated for the 2016 Sarah Bennett Holmes Award, and registration is underway now to attend the award ceremony and luncheon 11:30 a.m. Thursday, March 10, at the Hilary J. Boone Center. Visit www.uky.edu/womensforum/sbhal.html for more information. The registration deadline is Monday, Feb. 29. Due to the change of venue and the limited space, registrations will be taken on a first come, first served basis.

Coordinated by UK Women's Forum, the Sarah Bennett Holmes Award is granted annually to women working at UK

By Gail Hairston

(Jan. 15, 2016) — A team of faculty from across campus have developed an initial proposal to create a University of Kentucky Center for Equality and Social Justice. 

Inspired and led by psychology Associate Professor Chrisitia Spears Brown with Robert E. Harding Jr. Professor of Law Melynda J. Price, the goal of the center is to create a space on campus to explore issues of equality and social justice from multiple perspectives, disciplines and research traditions. 

The genesis of the center comes at a time when institutions across the country are debating issues of equality, diversity and inclusion.

At UK, those conversations are taking place

By Whitney Hale, Alexis Simms

(Nov. 18, 2015) — The next Distinguished Scholar Lecture presented by University of Kentucky Confucius Institute will examine the spiritual state of wu-wei (effortless action). "Trying Not to Try: Cooperation, Trust and the Paradox of Spontaneity," to be delivered by Canadian researcher and scholar Edward Slingerland, will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, at the Niles Gallery located in the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library and Learning Center. The lecture/discussion, and a reception scheduled for 11:30

By Gail Hairston

(Nov. 6, 2015) — The publisher of the National Council on Family Relations’ scholarly journals, John Wiley & Sons, recently announced the winners of the 2015 Alexis Walker Award for the best paper in the field of family studies published in 2013 and 2014. University of Kentucky assistant professor of psychology Rachel H. Farr and University of Virginia professor of psychology Charlotte J. Patterson were recognized for their work, “Co-parenting Among Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Couples: Associations with Adopted Children’s Outcomes,” published in Child Development, July/August 2013, Volume 84. The award comes with a $

By Tiera Carlock

(Nov 3, 2015) — Philipp Kraemer, Chellgren Endowed Chair for Undergraduate Excellence and professor in the University of Kentucky Department of Psychology, will be giving a lecture as part of the Chellgren Seminar Series. The lecture, "Teach as Ideacraft in the Changing University," will take place at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, in the William T. Young Library's UK Athletics Auditorium. A reception will follow in the W.T. Young Library Gallery.

About the Chellgren Seminar Series

The purpose of the Chellgren Seminar Series is to contribute to the intellectual aspects of the undergraduate experience by inviting eminent scholars to deliver brief, provocative presentations on issues

By Whitney Harder

(Oct. 6, 2015) — With "Banned Books Week" celebrated last week and "Teen Read Week" coming up Oct.18-24, exploring the world through literature seems to always be in season. For professors at the University of Kentucky, books have impacted their lives and careers in surprising ways.

Read below for the third and final piece in a series of professors reflecting on the books that shaped them. 

Ashley Seifert

Assistant Professor of Biology 

For me, the most influential books have been all about timing. As a young college graduate, I came upon Benjamin Hoff’s "The Te of Piglet." Hoff’s condemnation of man’s disharmony with the natural world resonated deeply with me. But it was his elegant illumination of Taoist philosophy

By Gail Hairston

(Sept. 28, 2015) — The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education today announced the two winners of its 2015 Acorn Award for outstanding teachers at the state’s public and independent colleges and universities.

Associate Professor Christia Spears Brown of the University of Kentucky Department of Psychology received the Acorn Award as the four-year-institution representative. Awards were presented at the Governor’s Conference on Postsecondary Education Trusteeship luncheon in Lexington.

"I am honored to receive this award for my teaching," Brown said. "Teaching and connecting with my students is one of the most rewarding parts of my day. My goal is always to engage my students so that they can

Rachel Farr, an assistant professor in developmental psychology at the University of Kentucky, was recently featured in a New York Times article.

The article focuses on Dr. Farr’s research on adoptive children with either two fathers or two mothers. Her study has involved following 49 children over the past eight years.Dr. Farr has many goals for this study which include trying to determine whether children of gay parents are more likely to be teased in school.

The full article can be found at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/back-to-school-worries-for-gay-parents/?_r=0. 

By Alicia Gregory

(Sept. 16, 2015) — University of Kentucky REVEAL Research Media presents an inside look at the UK Center for Research on Violence Against Women. This is the nation's only center focused solely on research to address and prevent gender-based violence.

Interviews include:

By Whitney Harder

(Sept. 22, 2015) — D. Allan Butterfield, professor in the University of Kentucky Department of Chemistry and Sanders-Brown Center on Aging (SBCoA), has been awarded a $413,000, two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study a new model of Parkinson's disease (PD). 

PD is the second most common age-related neurodegenerative disease in the United States and is manifested by movement abnormalities, postural instability, loss of smell (anosmia), deposition of the protein, alpha-synuclein, and in late stages, cognitive dysfunction. The brain is attacked by free radicals, many emanating from neuronal mitochondria (the

By Jenny Wells

(Aug. 26, 2015) — The University of Kentucky Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence honored its newest class of Chellgren Fellows Sunday, Aug. 23. Five Chellgren Endowed Professorships were also announced. 

The Chellgren Fellows Program is for students with exceptional academic potential and aspirations, who are eager to participate in a special learning community designed to cultivate extraordinary achievement. Outstanding faculty members from across campus serve as individual mentors for the Fellows.

The students selected as 2015-16 Chellgren Fellows include:

•  Sloan Ander, a

University of Kentucky psychologist, Richard Smith, was featured in a recent article in The New Yorker which looks at the differences between envy and admiration. Along with other psychologists featured in the article, Smith, who has been studying envy for over three decades, looks closely at the relation between envy and admiration in today’s society. The full article titled “Can Envy Be Good For You” can be found here.