OCTOBER 21   |   An Evening with Carter Sickels   |   7 PM

Join us for our virtual evening with novelist Carter Sickels! The Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program is co-sponsoring the MFA in Creative Writing Program's Visiting Writers Series with the Gaines Center for the Humanities. 

About Carter Sickels:

Sickels is the author of the novel The Prettiest Star (Hub City Press), winner of the 2021 Southern Book Prize and the Weatherford Award. The Prettiest Star was also selected as a Kirkus Best Book of 2020 and a Best LGBT Book of 2020 by O Magazine. His debut novel The Evening Hour (Bloomsbury), a 2013 Oregon Book Award finalist and Lambda Literary Award finalist, was adapted into a feature film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. His writing appears in various publications, including The Atlantic, Oxford American, Poets & Writers, BuzzFeed, Guernica, Joyland, and Catapult. Carter is the recipient of the 2013 Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Award, and has received fellowships from the Bread Load Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He is an assistant professor at Eastern Kentucky University. For more information on Carter Sickels, visit www.cartersickels.com!

To register, click HERE!

Fall semester classes begin on Aug. 23, 2021. View the full academic calendar for the fall semester here.

As a prelude to the Fall Semester, Associate Provost Kathi Kern and Dean Mark Kornbluh will discuss the challenges posed by teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty and students alike worry about the logistics. How will we maintain a safe and healthy learning environment? How much of instruction will need to be moved online or “flipped”? How does technology enable or restrict us? How do we continue to foster strong student-teacher bonds at a distance? How do we build community in our current environment?

And while these questions are urgent for the particular moment, they also point to a lasting shift in how we go about our work as educators. Even after the pandemic subsides, we will likely find ourselves reflecting on the unexamined, yet sacred elements of what makes a college education. As disruptive as the pandemic has been, it has also ignited a climate of innovation. We are led to think anew about the journeys that our students take, how our research and disciplines best serve a diverse community of learners, how the wicked problems of the world defy institutional silos, and how we can best support individuals while also strengthening communities. Our lessons learned and enduring challenges from the past few months afford us a unique opportunity to anticipate these emergent paradigms for teaching and learning.

Pandemic and the Professor from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.

As a prelude to the Fall Semester, Associate Provost Kathi Kern and Dean Mark Kornbluh will discuss the challenges posed by teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty and students alike worry about the logistics. How will we maintain a safe and healthy learning environment? How much of instruction will need to be moved online or “flipped”? How does technology enable or restrict us? How do we continue to foster strong student-teacher bonds at a distance? How do we build community in our current environment?

And while these questions are urgent for the particular moment, they also point to a lasting shift in how we go about our work as educators. Even after the pandemic subsides, we will likely find ourselves reflecting on the unexamined, yet sacred elements of what makes a college education. As disruptive as the pandemic has been, it has also ignited a climate of innovation. We are led to think anew about the journeys that our students take, how our research and disciplines best serve a diverse community of learners, how the wicked problems of the world defy institutional silos, and how we can best support individuals while also strengthening communities. Our lessons learned and enduring challenges from the past few months afford us a unique opportunity to anticipate these emergent paradigms for teaching and learning.

Pandemic and the Professor from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.

Join us for our first Conversations with Gurney event of the semester featuring Willie Davis, author of Nightwolf, on Monday, January 27th at 5PM. 

Join us for our Fall 2019 Festival at the UK Appalachian Center - 624 Maxwelton Court - on September 5, 2019 4:30-8:00PM. The Local Honeys will provide musical entertainment from 5:30-7:00PM, and Bourbon n' Toulouse BBQ & vegan BBQ will be provided. This FREE event is co-sponsored by the John Jacobs Niles Center and the UK Appalachian Center & Appalachian Studies Program and is open to all UK students, faculty, staff, and community members. We look forward to seeing you and beginning a great Fall 2019 semester! 

Free t-shirts, free biscuits and gravy, and free App Center swag! Grab your friends and join us to learn about all the fun projects we have going on, our minor and undergraduate certificate programs, and meet the Associate Director, Dr. Kathryn Engle! Sponsored by Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program.

Join us for our second Conversations with Gurney event of the semester featuring University of Kentucky associate professor and award winning writer, Crystal Wilkinson, on Monday, November 11th at 5PM in the CM Gatton College of Business Woodward Hall Room 307. Reception to follow at the UK Appalachian Center 624 Maxwelton Ct. 

Join us for our second Conversations with Gurney event of the semester featuring University of Kentucky associate professor and award winning writer, Crystal Wilkinson, on Monday, November 11th at 5PM in the CM Gatton College of Business Woodward Hall Room 307. Reception to follow at the UK Appalachian Center 624 Maxwelton Ct.