University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

In 2014, UK mathematics professor Carl Lee received the Mathematical Association of America’s Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. This prestigious award is given by the MAA to honor instructors who have shown extreme success in their teaching and reached out to students in a way that goes beyond their own institution. Here, Lee talks about the different programs he has started and been involved with that helped him earn such an honor.

This podcast was produced by David Cole.

Study chemistry and get college-ready with the University of Kentucky’s new course Advanced Chemistry, a free, online Coursera course open to the public. Created through the collaboration of Kim Woodrum and Allison Soult, lecturers within the Department of Chemistry, this course gives the world an opportunity to learn and practice chemistry online through a self-paced 10 week class. In this podcast, Kim Woodrum shares her excitement about the program and its promising future.

This podcast was produced by Casey Hibbard.

English Professor and Kentucky Poet Laureate Frank X Walker introduces us to the history and origins of Affrilachia while also fast-forwarding to it’s present-day development in Kentucky’s first Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture known as Pluck!. In this podcast, Walker discusses the importance of Affrilachia in further opening the doors of Appalachia’s cultural and racial diversity and how Pluck! plays its own role in continuing this exploration. For more information about Affrilachian poets, please head to http://www.affrilachianpoets.org/.

This podcast was produced by Casey Hibbard.

The A&S Wired Living Learning Community, housed in Champions Court II, gives freshman students the opportunity to create lasting bonds within the dorm and within the classroom. A&S Wired allows students to shape their own education experience through innovative, technology-driven courses taken alongside fellow Wired students. In this podcast, we speak with two A&S Wired Alumni, Connor Appelman and Angel Ho, and their younger siblings who also joined the program, Daniel Appelman and Jenni Ho.

This podcast was produced by Casey Hibbard.

The College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment will be collaboratively running a new Residential College called Greenhouse, which opens its doors in August 2014.

UK’s Greenhouse is designed for students interested in learning different aspects of their local environment, all in the context of sustainability. Greenhouse students will extend their classroom learning through community engagement with organizations and like-minded students committed to developing a sustainable Lexington.

This podcast features Mary Arthur, Carmen Agouridis, Shannon Bell and Alan Fryar, UK professors that will serve as co-directors for the Environment and Sustainability Residential College, as well as Shane Tedder and Mariah Lewis, who are deeply involved in sustainability initiatives around campus, and what their hopes are for the Environment and Sustainability Residential College and its place on campus and in the Lexington community.

Earlier this year, the Catholic University of Peru selected Associate Professor Cristina Alcalde of the Department of Gender & Women's Studies to be one of six international visiting professors and scholars.

Alcalde spent her time at the university teaching a graduate seminar on femicide and violence against women. This opportunity to travel and teach abroad allowed Alcalde to investigate new areas of research and explore international experiences separate from those in America.

In this podcast, Alcalde discusses her trip, issues and research around femicide, and how American understandings of femicide contrast with those internationally.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

The College of Arts and Sciences' Passport to the World program has taken students all over the world. This year it’s stopping by our neighbor to the south: Mexico.

One of the ambassadors of the program is English major and A&S Spanish Social Media Coordinator Cecilia Amador. We sat down with Amador to discuss events that the program has been hosting around campus and the broader Lexington community celebrating different facets of Mexican culture and identity.

If you would like more information about the Passport to the World program or to see photos from previous events, please visit mexico.as.uky.edu.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

University of Kentucky alumni Don Puckett and Paul Skiermont are not engineers and don't have science backgrounds (unless their Political Science degrees count). That, however, has not stopped them from joining together as lawyers specializing in highly technical patent litigation.

According to Puckett and Skiermont, the secret to their success was a liberal arts education from UK's College of Arts & Sciences.

In this podcast, Puckett and Skiermont discuss their time at UK, their work together as lawyers, and how their time on the competitive debate team prepared them for future fights.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

During the summer of 2013, a delegation of University of Kentucky faculty had the opportunity to travel and teach abroad in China. Organized by the Confucius Institute, the trip placed 29 faculty members at the bustling Shanghai University. There, each professor was placed with a host department within the university.

 

Among those who made their way east were College of Arts and Sciences members Ernest Yanarella, chair of the Department of Political Science; visiting lecturer Dr. Rita Basuray; and Associate Professor Julia Johnson of the English department.

 

Like everyone who went on the trip, these three were presented with experiences both unique and profound that will certainly impact their teaching back home at UK.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

This podcast was produced by Casey Hibbard.