By Jay Blanton and Kody Kiser

Tuesday will mark one of the most important — and certainly unusual — elections in decades.

Local, state and federal elections are being contested in the midst of a pandemic and in the wake of unrest across the country around issues of racism. The country is deeply polarized. Recovery from a deep recession is uneven and unsure. Congress is in a stalemate over whether to provide more stimulus as part of relief from COVID-19.

Tuesday night — and the days afterward — will determine who controls both the House and the Senate as well as the presidency. In Kentucky, major races for the U.S. Senate, Congress and local legislative offices have captured national attention and drawn tens of millions of dollars in contributions

By Lindsey Piercy

A public health crisis, movements against social injustice and the rampant spread of misinformation — 2020 has brought unprecedented challenges. Amid this uncertainty, Americans are casting their ballots in a pivotal presidential election.

In recent weeks, polls have shown President Donald Trump trailing behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Does Trump still have a visible path to a second term? Will we receive the highly anticipated results on election night? And could the outcome be contested?

Experts at the University of Kentucky are working to answer those pressing questions.

Stephen Voss, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences,

By Richard LeComte

The University of Kentucky has named 15 students as recipients of funding to the Lunsford Scholars Program in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Kentucky.

The Lunsford Scholars Program provides Arts & Sciences students the chance to pursue out-of-the-classroom educational opportunities including education abroad, internships, service-based learning and undergraduate research both locally and outside of Kentucky. Aside from student scholarships, the donation also supports a symposium and speaker series to be held each year.

“The program supports students who seek high-impact educational experiences,” said Clayton Thyne,  chair of the Political Science Department and director of the program. “It’s about civic engagement broadly defined.”

W. Bruce Lunsford, a UK alumnus, lawyer and businessman, recently

MCLLC Faculty Members and Alum Receive Awards from Kentucky World Language Association

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, KY – Members of the Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Literatures & Cultures in the University of Kentucky’s College of Arts & Sciences have earned honors from the Kentucky World Language Association.

The association supports, promotes and advocates for the teaching of languages and cultures in the Commonwealth and offers a clearinghouse for data as well as professional development for instructors.

Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby, professor of Russian studies, folklore and linguistics, was elected president of the association. In addition, Brenna Byrd, assistant professor of German studies, has been selected by the Kentucky University Chairs group to be the next post-secondary

By Alicia Landon and Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Two University of Kentucky research projects have been selected to receive funding from the UK Center for Research on Violence Against Women (CRVAW).

The minigrant program, “Advancing Research Regarding Violence Against Women,” is designed to stimulate innovative research with the potential to improve the lives of those affected by violence against women, or to prevent such violence.

One project is “Firearm Regulations and Gun Violence against Women in the U.S.,” led by Janet Stamatel, associate professor in the UK Department of Sociology in the 

By Jenny Wells

Sumit R. Das, the Jack and Linda Gill Professor in the University of Kentucky Department of Physics and Astronomy, is serving as the 2019-20 UK College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Professor and will deliver the annual Distinguished Professor Lecture next week.

The lecture, titled “Deconstructing Space-Time,” will be held 7-8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, on Zoom.

Developments in theoretical physics over the past couple of decades have led to a set of ideas that "space" is not a fundamental notion, but arises as an emergent concept from more abstract entities. This view has led

By Richard LeComte

The University of Kentucky’s Air Force ROTC 290 Detachment will honor distinguished alumnus  and retired Air Force Gen.  Jack I. Gregory during a virtual Zoom ceremony at 3 p.m. EST Thursday, Nov. 12. The event will be streamed from Buell Armory on the UK campus.

To attend the event, go to https://youtu.be/L6p9HxbmJx4; no registration is requited.

Gregory was born in Somerset, Kentucky, in 1931, and he graduated from Somerset High School in 1949. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from UK in 1953, where he also was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force through UK’s Reserve Officer Training Corps Detachment 290, the “Flying Wildcats.”

Over the course of the next 35 years, Gregory served in multiple command positions across the United States,

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 13, 2020) — Two University of Kentucky students have been named to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program.

Jared Brewington and Michelle Gervais, both doctoral students in the UK College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Physics and Astronomy, are two of 52 total students selected to join the program. They will conduct part of their doctoral thesis research at host laboratories in collaboration with a Departent of Energy scientist.

Brewington will study magnetic field design for the Los Alamos National Laboratory neutron electric dipole moment experiment, or LANL-nEDM, for short. He will begin his yearlong project at LANL in New Mexico this November

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 9, 2020) — A new study led by a University of Kentucky professor is sounding the alarm on the impact climate change could have on one of the world’s most vulnerable regions.

Michael McGlue, Pioneer Natural Resources Professor of Stratigraphy in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, and his team conducted the study at Lake Tanganyika — a major African fishery. The results, which published today in Science Advances, show how certain changes in climate may place the fishery at risk, potentially diminishing food resources for millions of people in this area of eastern Africa.

By Elizabeth Chapin

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 9, 2020) — Allan Butterfield, a professor of biological chemistry in the University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences, has been named among the world’s leading Alzheimer’s disease experts by Expertscape, an online base of biomedical expertise.

Butterfield is among the top 0.007% of scholars worldwide based on authorship of Alzheimer’s-related publications indexed in the PubMed database for the past 10 years. He ranks tenth out of nearly 150,000 scholars worldwide and sixth in the U.S.

The Expertscape rankings use an algorithm to identify the most knowledgeable and experienced physicians, clinicians and researchers across more than 29,000 specific topics. The ranking considers

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 8, 2020) — Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, technology has opened gateways — allowing for people to continue learning and remain connected. But it’s also allowed for the steady flow of disinformation, misinformation and conspiracy theories.

From Facebook to Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat — social media is always at our fingertips. Slanted views can spread like wildfire on those platforms, despite efforts to stop it.

Jenny Rice, an associate professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, is an expert on conspiracy theories. In her book

LEXINGTON, KY – Nineteen University of Kentucky undergraduates are serving as College of Arts & Sciences Ambassadors for the 2020-21 academic year.  

This highly selective group of A&S students promotes pride in a liberal arts education. They develop leadership and communication skills while representing the College to visitors, alumni and prospective and current students. For more information about the A&S Ambassador Program, please contact asrecruiting@uky.edu. 

The 2020-21 A&S Ambassadors are: 

Cesar Avila (coordinator): Cesar is a senior double majoring in international studies and foreign language & international economics. Originally

The UK Department of Chemistry and the UK Office for Institutional Diversity have arranged to make the film, Picture a Scientist, available for anyone in the University of Kentucky community to view.

“PICTURE A SCIENTIST chronicles the groundswell of researchers who are writing a new chapter for women scientists. Biologist Nancy Hopkins, chemist Raychelle Burks, and geologist Jane Willenbring lead viewers on a journey deep into their own experiences in the sciences, ranging from brutal harassment to years of subtle slights. Along the way, from cramped laboratories to spectacular field stations, we encounter scientific luminaries - including social scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists - who provide new perspectives on how to make science itself more diverse, equitable, and open to all.”

Licensed viewers will be

By Hayden Gooding

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 1, 2020) — The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities will present celebrated poet and Wallace Stevens Award-winner Nikky Finney as the 2020 Bale Boone Symposium goes virtual this fall. The reading by Finney is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 7, on Zoom.

"The Gaines Center is focused this year on the theme of citizenship. This theme coincides with a national conversation on the value of Black life and social justice issues that have arisen in the face of incidents in the killing of unarmed Black people," Gaines Center Director Melynda Price said. "

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 30, 2020) — Instructors in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky are combining technology, learning techniques honed by experience, and human interaction to provide multifaceted learning environments for their students.

The goal, as always, is to keep students engaged with hands-on instruction methods even if the current pandemic limits face-to-face class time.

“Students learn by working on problems, not just by listening,” said Alberto Corso, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Mathematics. “That’s what I tell all of my students. We all like to watch our favorite basketball teams play, but we can’t play with them unless we practice. We need to be on the court

By Karen Petrone

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 30. 2020) — The following op-ed was published in the Herald Leader Aug. 21, 2020. Karen Petrone is the director of the Cooperative for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Times of crisis can be disorienting and overwhelming, but they can also be opportunities for creativity and growth. In such moments, the humanities and social sciences are well equipped to address and amplify community needs.

Recognizing that we can and must do better in this regard, the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky has created the Cooperative for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CHHS). The goal is to

The National Science Foundation has awarded a new grant to Drs. David Heidary and Edith Glazer for the development of chemical tools to study RNA. The project, titled “Inorganic-aptamer hybrids for live cell imaging”, leverages the complementary expertise of the investigators in the development of optical cellular assays and the creation of photoactive inorganic molecules.



RNAs are functionally and structurally diverse molecules that play a role in the encoding, transmission, and regulation of genetic information, as well as catalysis. The ability to accurately track and quantify RNA levels or localization, either on the subcellular or tissue levels, is important to understanding the role of RNA in the regulation of biological processes. Given the dynamic nature of RNA, the information should be obtained in real time and in living cells. However, there are

By Richard LeComte

Amy Murrell Taylor, T. Marshall Hahn, Jr. Professor in the Department of History, is the 2020-21 Distinguished Professor in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences. 

“Professor Taylor is outstanding in every aspect of her performance at the University of Kentucky, in her stellar award-winning research, her inspired teaching and her dedicated and extensive service,” said Christian Brady, A&S interim dean.

Her book “Embattled Freedom: Journeys Through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps,” published in 2018 by the University of North Carolina Press, won seven prizes including the Frederick Douglass Book Prize from the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.

“Amy Murrell Taylor is a truly

By Jenny Wells-Hosley and Sara Shoemaker

The experiment measured the weak force between protons and neutrons by detecting the tiny electrical signal produced when a neutron and a helium-3 nucleus combine and then decay as they move through the helium gas target cell. Andy Sproles/ORNL, U.S. DOE.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 28, 2020) — Chris Crawford, a professor in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Physics and Astronomy, is the co-leader of a team that just precisely measured the weak interaction between protons and neutrons, also known as the weak force — one of four fundamental forces in nature.

The one-of-a-kind experiment

Among its many other impacts, COVID-19 has disrupted opportunities for University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences faculty to teach abroad.

In previous years, A&S faculty have taught short courses in China through partnerships facilitated by UK's Confucius Institute. For example, Rita Basuray, senior academic coordinator in A&S, has taught courses at Jilin University in Changchun, China, for six summers. Unfortunately, she was interrupted in 2020 by the pandemic.

She said she kept going back to Jilin because of her many positive experiences and her connections with the faculty and students. 

"Early on, it became obvious that it wasn’t just teaching, but exchanging active teaching ideas, fostering relationships over dinner or outings, and much more," Basuray said. "Not only did I develop long-term relations with teachers, but with