By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences welcomes a strategist, futurist and technologist to campus to discuss a timeless and wholly necessary skill.

Craig Saper, a professor in the Language, Literacy, & Culture doctoral program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will give a talk titled, "WRD UP 2.0: Teaching\R\E\A\D/I/N/G/ as Genre & Practice," at 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11, in Room 211 of the Student Center Addition. Refreshments will be served.

"Teaching has begun to respond to our multi-modal contemporary situation with digital assignments," said organizer Jeff Rice, an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences' Division

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

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky's revamped UK Core Composition and Communication classes combine historically united concepts, while giving students the interactive skills they need for the future.

"This is the only program in the United States that we're aware of in which communication faculty from another department —  actually, another college  —  and writing faculty are collaborating on a joint curriculum," said Roxanne Mountford, director of the Division of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Media in the College of Arts and Sciences. 

UK sophomore Jake Allgeier will remember his Composition and Communication classes (CIS 110 and 111 or WRD 110 and 111) for years to come.

The civil engineering student

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media professor Adam Banks sits down with Renee Shaw on KET's Connections to talk about digital communications, models of Black leadership, new media platforms, and what this means for minorities facing the Digital Divide. His second book, Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age, develops a specific approach to teaching writing rooted in African-American rhetorical traditions and was published by Southern Illinois University Press's Studies in Writing and Rhetoric series. Watch the full interview here.

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

"They’ve taken the real Martin Luther King and gone—and we have to reclaim him," said University of Kentucky professor Adam Banks, evoking a Langston Hughes poem to describe the ways media commentators have sampled soundbites from King and ignored the movement he led and the causes he stood for.

 

Banks, an Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Media in UK’s College of Arts and Sciences, is using King and the Civil Rights movement to kick off "The Digital Griots Project," an idea designed to bring African American communities in Lexington and Syracuse, N.Y., together in dialogue by linking oral traditions, literacy and

Graduate Student Spotlight By Saraya Brewer

Photos by Mark Cornelison



Amy Anderson’s academic history has taken a sharp turn since her early undergrad pre-medical path. “We had to kill things in our lab class and that was the end of that,” she laughed. “I always liked to write – I went straight back to the English Department.”



Though she has studied English for close to a decade now, Anderson is quick to admit that her “academic ADD” still stands: “I can’t focus on a time period. I’m interested in anything you put in front of me.” 



Her broad and varied interests make Anderson the perfect candidate for the brand new division of the University of Kentucky English department: Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Media. Anderson says she was