By Olaoluwapo Onitiri 

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- We often hear about rags to riches stories: how some people come from a tough background and push their way to a better situation down the line. Juan Montilla Pabòn has embarked on a similar path. He will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in May from the University of Kentucky with a major in political science and a minor in history. UK’s Employee Education Program has given him a big boost toward reaching his dream.  

“Since I moved to Kentucky after leaving Louisiana, I knew that UK was the best option for me,” said Montilla Pabòn, who works as a patient clerical assistant with UK HealthCare. “UK has a program where you can work and pay for six school credits. So far, I have worked and gone to the school here for four years, and it is honestly the best decision I have ever made. Here at UK, I feel included

By Emma Reilly

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 27, 2022) — University of Kentucky Libraries will host a Spring Celebration to honor Tracy Campbell, the 2022 recipient of the UK Libraries Medallion for Intellectual Achievement. The celebration will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 12, in the William T. Young Library on UK’s campus. A reception will follow with cocktails and heavy hors d'oeuvres. This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested; individuals can RSVP at bit.ly/UKLSpringCelebration. 

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 26, 2022) — The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center is honoring seven students with its annual research awards.

Four graduate students received the James S. Brown Graduate Student Award for Research on Appalachia, and two graduate students and one undergraduate student received the center's Eller and Billings Student Research Award.

"Every year students from across the university conduct outstanding research projects in the Appalachian region," said Kathryn Engle, director of the Appalachian Center. "The Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program is thrilled to support these students and their summer work." 

The James S. Brown Graduate Student Award for

By Richard LeComte

Summer fun in Appalachia: hiking, climbing, camping, swimming—and holding somebody’s removed femur in a hospital.

UK student Logan Turner got to participate in that last activity while working a summer observation internship in Pikeville Medical Center in 2021. He participated in AppalachiaCorps, a new program run by the College’s Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program and funded with help from UK’s Women in Philanthropy.

AppalachiaCorps helped fund Turner’s work with the Eastern Kentucky hospital as a run-up to his applying to medical school. His goal is to be an ophthalmologist.

“I was doing physician shadowing, so a

By Richard LeComte

Lily Vossekuil, Elizabeth Lorch and children working to improve their comprehension came together in the summer of 2021 to show how undergraduates and faculty can collaborate on research that benefits the Kentucky community. 

Vossekuil, a psychology major, did her research under the direction of Lorch, associate dean for research and professor of psychology, and her colleague Angela Hayden. They worked together in a first-year program organized by the Office of Undergraduate Research and the College of Arts & Sciences, funded by the University’s Office of the Vice President for Research and by donors to provide intense research experiences in the summer and throughout the academic year for

By Danielle Donham and Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 2, 2022) — In times of crisis and uncertainty, we look to those with knowledge and experience to lead us through understanding. From economics and trade to warfare and culture — our faculty members at the University of Kentucky are generous in sharing their expertise to help the campus community and beyond comprehend events that are unfolding in real-time.

UKNow spoke with Robert Farley (senior lecturer, Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce), 

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 15, 2021) — “We cannot understand where humanity has been and where we are going without Black Studies.”

This is the mantra of the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies (CIBS) — a multidisciplinary research institute based in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of African American and Africana Studies.  

The institute hosts more than 50 nationally and internationally recognized researchers with expertise in fields such as Black futures and 21st century race in digital cultures; slavery and inequality in Central Kentucky; race and sport; global Blackness (from Appalachia to Zimbabwe); and gender and sexuality in Black lives. These affiliated faculty represent 11 colleges across UK, and they are

By Kody Kiser and Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 14, 2022) — In the fall of 2020, the University of Kentucky announced plans to establish the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies (CIBS) — a multidisciplinary program designed to highlight UK’s growing research around issues of race and racism.

The interdisciplinary institute establishes research clusters across the campus and promotes the university’s growing research and scholarship on topics of importance in African history and African American history, such as slavery and the quest for freedom, racial discrimination and violence, and the long struggle for civil rights.

This year, the university announced continued annual funding of $200,000 through UK’s

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 7, 2022) — It takes community and collaboration to define violence, understand the root cause and prevent it from happening in the future.

That’s why the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation provides research grants to leading scholars who are making a significant contribution to highlighting and addressing an issue of violence.

The Guggenheim Foundation has selected Stephen Davis and William Mattingly as recipients of its Distinguished Scholar Award.

“We are very honored that the Guggenheim Foundation elected to support our work with

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 1, 2021) — The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center will showcase the work of student researchers through its Sharing Work on Appalachia in Progress series starting next week. The series will run through the Spring 2022 semester.

Many of the presenting students are supported through the center’s James S. Brown Graduate Student Awards for Research on Appalachia and the UK Appalachian Center Eller & Billings Student Research Awards.

The presenting researchers represent four colleges and seven departments from across UK’s campus.

“We look forward to

By Carlie Laughlin

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 11, 2021) — University of Kentucky students, faculty and staff from every area of campus are leading exciting, sustainability-focused programs. These programs provide high-impact research and learning opportunities for students and faculty, have significant positive environmental and economic impacts on operations, and provide resources and support for a foundation of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion at UK and across the Commonwealth. 

The 2021 Sustainability Showcase, hosted in the innovative and community-facing Cornerstone Exchange, highlighted the university's accomplishments in student engagement, athletics, health care, campus operations and interdisciplinary scholarship. A brief award presentation also honored the recipients of

By Danielle Donham

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 29, 2021) — The 40th annual Kentucky Book Festival returns to Lexington with a mix of virtual and in-person events scheduled from Monday, Nov. 1, to Saturday, Nov. 6. This year’s celebration features 140 authors, culminating in a daylong celebration at Joseph-Beth Booksellers on Saturday, Nov. 6. The weekdays events are a mix of in-person and ticketed events available at http://kybookfestival.org/2021-events. 

These signings, conversations, trivia, meals, presentations and activities serve to celebrate the literary heritage within the Commonwealth. The University of Kentucky is the Main Stage sponsor of the festival on Nov. 6.

By Phil Harling

Please join us in extending a warm Kentucky welcome to Devyn Spence Benson and Hilary Jones! Hilary and Devyn are wonderfully accomplished researchers and instructors who joined our faculty this fall as associate professors with tenure, and joint appointments in the Program in African American and Africana Studies. We are so thrilled to be able to call them our friends and colleagues!

Devyn Spence Benson is a 20th century historian who focuses on antiracist movements across the Americas and the Caribbean. Her research and teaching interests sit at the intersection of Africana Studies and Latin American history, and she has worked throughout her career to merge these two interdisciplinary fields by focusing on Afro-Cuban history, politics, and culture. Before her arrival at UK, Devyn has taught at Williams College, Louisiana State University, and Davidson

By Julie Wrinn

As a high school student in Lexington, John Bell had two thoughts about college: he wanted to go out of state, and he wanted to study architecture. For a variety of reasons, neither wish came true.

“Having grown up in Lexington, I wasn’t enamored with the idea of being at home to go to college, but it was what I could do,” Bell said. “Then once I started at UK, I began to realize that college is what you make of it.”

As a shining example of making a virtue of necessity, Bell enrolled as a history major at UK and nurtured a passion for German language and culture that led to a 26-year career in the CIA.

“I remember watching war movies as a kid, thinking, ‘I really want to understand what the Germans are saying,’” he said.

Gerhard Mayrwieser, a German teacher at Bell’s high school, was a native of Munich and sparked Bell’s curiosity

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Ky – Academy Award-winner Kevin Willmott, the director of “The 24th,” will speak at an event featuring the film at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13. The event will be offered both in person at the Chad Perry III Grand Court Room in the J. David Rosenberg School of Law on the University of Kentucky campus and online. People may register for the online event here.  

The Visiting Writers Series, part of UK’s Department of English in the College of Arts & Sciences, is cosponsoring the event.  

“The 24th” (2020) tells the story of an all-Black regiment of the U.S

By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky. – If you’ve never heard of the bands the Sunmates, Frigidkitty, Whalerus, Cindy or Please Save My Earth, don’t worry – Rae Bandy has you covered. From inside the studios in WRFL in the University of Kentucky’s Gatton Student Center, Bandy is giving attention to these and other bands as the station’s local music director.  

“I actually have a few different shows on WRFL right now,” said Bandy, a senior History major

By Jesi Jones-Bowman

UK undergraduate researchers Bridget Bolt and Gretchen Ruschman. Students are encouraged to explore undergraduate research opportunities at the Research + Creative Experience Expo.

At the University of Kentucky, undergraduates have access to outstanding research and creative work activities led by world-class faculty and staff that promote self-discovery, experiential learning and lifelong achievement.

Explore exciting undergraduate opportunities at the first annual UK Research + Creative Experience Expo 3-5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13, around the Gatton Student Center’s Social Staircase.

“The goal of the Research + Creative Experience Expo is to introduce undergraduates to the diversity of research and creative work conducted at UK,” said Chad Risko, faculty

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 6, 2021) — Before you know it, summer will be coming to a close. But there’s still time to get lost in a good book.

We asked the University of Kentucky community to recommend books they feel would make good additions to anyone’s summer reading list.

In the descriptions below, faculty members from the College of Arts and Sciences share the books they can’t put down. Pulling from the worlds of history and fiction — their picks explore timely themes while providing intriguing insights.

“A Time of Gifts” by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Recommended by Phil Harling, chair of the Department

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 27, 2021) — The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center has honored eight students with its annual research awards. Three graduate students received the James S. Brown Graduate Student Award for Research on Appalachia, and four graduate students and one undergraduate student received the center's Eller and Billings Student Research Award.

“The Appalachian Center is again excited to support a wide range of student research,” said Kathryn Engle, director of the Appalachian Center. “From history to social science to health to the natural sciences, our students are doing groundbreaking work in the region.”

The James S. Brown Graduate Student Award for Research on Appalachia is given to honor