Campus Colleagues,

I want to thank all of our faculty for participating in the Faculty Senate elections in October — you are ensuring that your units, programs and colleges are given a voice at the university level with this important body of faculty representation. 

As a reminder, the inaugural Faculty Senate members are serving staggered terms to ensure that only one-third of seats will be up for election each year rather than the entire body. The seats were assigned term lengths randomly to make the process as fair as possible. 

The inaugural Faculty Senate members are listed below. An asterisk (*) denotes members of the Provisional Faculty Senate Executive Committee who were elected by their college to serve as a Faculty Senator.

Terms ending Aug. 14, 2025:

• Val Adams — College of Pharmacy
• John “JS” Butler — Graduate School
• Christopher Crawford — College of Arts and Sciences
• Sarah Hall* — College of Medicine
• Erin Haynes — College of Public Health
• Hyun Ju Jeong — College of Communication and Information
• Aubrey Jones* — College of Social Work
• Bradley Kerns — College of Fine Arts
• Joneen Lowman* — College of Health Sciences
• Douglas “Doug” Michael — College of Law
• Gregg Rentfrow — Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment
• Holly Stith — College of Nursing
• Kaveh Tagavi — Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering

Terms ending Aug. 14, 2026:

• Kimberly Anderson — Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering
• Emily Bergeron* — College of Design
• Martha Biddle* — College of Nursing
• Holly Hapke — Gatton College of Business and Economics
• Richard “Rick” Ingram — College of Public Health
• Jane McEldowney Jensen — College of Education
• Amy Laub — Libraries
• Joe Martin — Lewis Honors College
• Kirsten Metzler-Wilson — College of Health Sciences
• Stephanie Ratliff — College of Social Work
• Melissa Stein — College of Arts and Sciences
• Jessalyn Vallade* — College of Communication and Information
• Alfred Wiemann* — College of Dentistry

Terms ending Aug. 14, 2027:

• Becky Alley* — College of Fine Arts
• Bjoern Bauer — College of Pharmacy
• Stephanie Bennett — College of Education
• Enif Dominguez Fernandez — College of Dentistry
• Andrew McDonnell — Libraries
• Kathleen Montgomery* — Graduate School
• Michael “Mike” Murray — College of Law
• Mark O’Bryan — College of Design
• Sherelle Roberts — Lewis Honors College
• Nicholas “Nick” Teets — Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment
• Olivier Thibault — College of Medicine
• Leslie Vincent — Gatton College of Business and Economics

Thank you to all our faculty for participating in these important elections, and congratulations to our new Faculty Senators. I am eager to see how they will come together to continue advancing UK and our Commonwealth.

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost

Campus Colleagues,

I want to reiterate my deep appreciation for all the hard work you continue to perform to advance our university. I have witnessed firsthand how you contribute to our mission of excellence in teaching, research, service and care throughout campus.

What we achieve as an institution, our UK-PURPOSE, cannot be possible without your crucial efforts. And as we enter the latter half of the semester, I want to highlight the resources that support all that you do — and that support you as individuals — particularly during this time of year. In the weeks remaining of this fall semester, our schedules can often become crowded with competing deadlines and priorities. This is something we often tell students, but it can be true for faculty as well. 

Priority registration for the spring 2025 semester has begun, which means many are looking ahead to the future. But with only six weeks of classes remaining, we also want to remain focused on a strong finish to this fall semester. That focus can be difficult to maintain after all the hard work and effort starting off the academic year. 

These are resources that I encourage you to consider as you think of how to best care for yourself and your fellow campus community members as well.

• The Office for Faculty Advancement (OFA) — OFA works to promote and support faculty advancement in all forms, whether in the tenure process or through professional development opportunities. Consider how you can use these resources and programs to continue your growth as an instructor, researcher and leader.
• The Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) — CELT engages with faculty across campus to continue evolving as successful and innovative teachers through individual consultations or support in groups or departments.
• Work Life and Well-Being — UK Human Resources provides various services and programs to help us thrive as both professionals and individuals, and they offer various opportunities to help us grow and continue flourishing at UK.

I also encourage you to connect with your students about resources available to them as we approach the close of another semester. 

• The Office for Student Success — The programs and departments in the Office for Student Success help engage students in their educational journeys and support them every step of the way. Encourage your students to explore all that they offer to continue growing as learners at UK.

Your efforts are what make UK such an incredible place — of learning, growth and hope. While we perform our crucial work for Kentucky, we must also continue taking care of ourselves at the same time. 

Thank you for everything you do to support our university and Commonwealth.

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost

Campus Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Jennifer Osterhage is serving as our new director of the Office of Transdisciplinary Educational approaches to advance Kentucky and began on Nov. 1, 2024. As part of the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan, the director of the program plays a critical role in continuing to revolutionize education and learning at UK. 

Dr. Osterhage is an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Biology as well as the director of the S-STEM Program, an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide scholarships and support to low-income biology and neuroscience students at UK. 

She also has served as the director of undergraduate studies (DUS) in the Department of Biology. As DUS, Dr. Osterhage developed new courses to incorporate employability skills into student learning outcomes, and she led assessment efforts of the undergraduate curriculum, leading to a redesign of the student learning outcomes that has become a model for other units. 

I am confident in the leadership Dr. Osterhage has demonstrated and look forward to her role as director as we continue developing our students into Kentucky’s future leaders. This program is an important component of our efforts to transform education and how we prepare our students for success after graduation at UK — particularly using transdisciplinary approaches to combine multiple perspectives and areas of expertise. Dr. Osterhage brings extensive experience in learning and teaching across disciplines, and I am excited to see how it will continue to grow under her leadership.

I also want to extend a deep and sincere thank you to Dr. Susan Cantrell, who has served as the director since May 2023. Under her leadership, the program launched two cohorts of Faculty Fellows to support professional development and collaboration among faculty, as well as created various courses to develop essential skills in our students. Please join me in thanking Dr. Cantrell for her immense contributions and guidance.

I know you will also join me in congratulating Dr. Osterhage. I am deeply grateful for her dedication to and support of our mission to help our students and advance Kentucky.

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost

Campus Colleagues,

The UK Board of Trustees recently held their annual retreat, where typically the focus is on a critical aspect of our university’s mission to advance Kentucky. The Board retreat helps the university align with the most pressing needs facing our state. This October, the focus was on the health of Kentucky and the role that UK plays in the overall health of our communities.

During the Board retreat, I led a panel of some members of our health care colleges and health care partners to discuss health education for the Commonwealth. Discussions included our health care colleges’ current partnerships and future opportunities to partner, as well as the benefit of such partnerships to communities throughout Kentucky.  As the flagship institution for Kentucky, we are tasked with caring for the health and well-being of our people.

We have reaffirmed that commitment to care through our mission of education, research and service. Our new Michael D. Rankin MD Health Education Building will be a hub for innovative educational spaces that create flexibility for curriculum evolution and enrollment, while focusing on developing a sense of community that will promote success and access among faculty, staff and students. 

The One Health Symposium, hosted at UK by The Gatton Foundation and the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, highlights UK’s commitment to care through a collaborative approach to health — One Health is an approach that emphasizes the interconnectedness of the health of humans, animals and the environment we share. 

And the Advancing Kentucky Together Network, the plan for addressing our state’s growing health, education and workforce needs approved by the Board last week, begins with our clinical partnerships across Kentucky. By supporting our health care partners in communities throughout the Commonwealth, we are focusing on providing care — and in turn, helping to grow our state and increase opportunities for all our people.

This spirit — of collaboration and teamwork — is one I believe we all embody at UK. Working across disciplines, we can achieve more than we could alone. A transdisciplinary approach is a necessity to ensure we utilize various perspectives and equip students with the skills necessary to advance the health of our Commonwealth.

Our focus after the Board retreat — as it always has been — is on our people. We are helping solve the problems in communities across Kentucky and beyond, and we are preparing our students to do the same in the future.

Thank you for the substantial role you play in that mission.

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost

Campus Colleagues,

Two weeks ago, I communicated with you about nominations for upcoming Faculty Senate elections held by your colleges and units. You also heard from President Capilouto about providing feedback for the Faculty Senate Administrative Regulation (AR). Both are crucial to the university’s commitment to upholding our guiding principle of shared governance.

The work of the Faculty Senate will be essential to continue the immense impact UK has on communities through teaching, research, service and care. The work of faculty across the institution has far-reaching implications: your work touches the lives of students in classrooms; your research guides us to answers for Kentucky’s most pressing questions; and the service and care you provide to our communities enable growth and healing in countless ways. 

Serving on the Faculty Senate can be a pivotal moment for faculty, as the work conducted by the body has direct and lasting effects on the institution and academic matters. The connections with other faculty across campus — across disciplines — enabled by the Faculty Senate can impact both your work and your passions. These transdisciplinary collaborative opportunities are invaluable both to faculty development as well-rounded professionals and experts and to the continued development of UK as an elite institution of learning and discovery.

Through the month of October, your colleges and units will continue sharing information about faculty senator elections — I encourage you to use this opportunity to learn more about these processes within your areas and to run for election. As a faculty senator, you can use your voice to represent both your college or unit and UK faculty as a whole. 

It is in the Faculty Senate that faculty will help shape the trajectory of education and curriculum at UK. The Faculty Senate was created to maximize faculty input from all colleges and areas in the university and to empower faculty as experts in your fields as well as education and curriculum.

I am excited to see how the Faculty Senate will work to advance UK and our Commonwealth in the months to come. Thank you for continuing to help build the future of faculty representation at UK. 

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost

Campus Colleagues,

I am pleased to open the call for nominations for the inaugural Faculty Senate, with elections to be held in accordance with college or unit policies. 

Elections for faculty senators should be completed by Oct. 31, 2024, and elected senators must be seated by Nov. 30, 2024. Once seated, the Faculty Senate will meet up to twice monthly on Mondays from 3-5 p.m.

The principle of shared governance at UK as reflected in the institution’s Governing Regulations (GRs) contemplates the creation of a formal mechanism for faculty input and advice on important academic and curricular matters. 

The work of the Provisional Faculty Senate Executive Committee (Provisional FSEC) includes the establishment of the Faculty Senate, an advisory body that will review curricular proposals and provide feedback to university administration on academic matters. The President will be posting the final draft of the Faculty Senate AR developed by the Provisional FSEC next week and it will be open for feedback before final release/disposition on this site.

The new AR describes the structure and function of the Faculty Senate, and I encourage you to read it. The Faculty Senate will be composed of elected faculty from each college, including the Libraries and Graduate School, who will come together to engage in a mutual exchange of ideas. 

Much of the work conducted by the Provisional FSEC in its initial meetings has focused on details for creation of the Faculty Senate AR. The draft AR outlines several key principles, including broad college representation and clear timelines to help create greater transparency, trust and accountability as well as the ability to be agile. 

This transdisciplinary and collaborative body will connect faculty across campus, and faculty senators will be able to provide important updates to their colleges and units. Faculty members who serve will have opportunities to network with their colleagues across different disciplines, develop knowledge on different university functions and engage with university leadership in a critical advisory capacity. 

Service plays an important and valued role at UK, and service on the Faculty Senate is an opportunity both for professional growth for individual faculty members and for university leaders to connect with and learn from faculty. 

To ensure your college or unit is represented on the Faculty Senate, elect your representatives by the deadline established by your college or unit. Questions about elections should be directed to your college or unit leadership. 

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost

Campus Colleagues,

During the September Board of Trustees meetings, I was able to speak on the incredible work that UK’s faculty community conducts that helps advance both our institution and Kentucky. I am continually grateful to work alongside a faculty body that does so much in service to our community, and I am proud to offer my support to those endeavors where possible. 

Part of that support has come through the IMPACT (Institutional Multidisciplinary Paradigm to Accelerate Collaboration and Transformation) Award initiative, launched a year ago with our eight Program Year 1 awardees. 

The initiative was designed to emphasize and bolster the transdisciplinary and innovative projects that you conduct on our campus, helping to inspire greater ingenuity in our community. Through the IMPACT initiative, the inaugural cohort of IMPACT Award recipients are working to address the current and future challenges that Kentucky faces. I want to thank the Program Year 1 awardees for their tireless work to advance our state.

I am equally excited for our Program Year 2 awardees — together, they are helping transform what research and innovation at the University of Kentucky look like. Their projects are bridging various fields and areas of expertise through transdisciplinary collaboration. In the spirit of teamwork and collaboration, we are holding the IMPACT Awards Reception, where Program Year 1 teams will be able to present their work and discuss challenges, opportunities and successes they have encountered during the first phases of their projects. The Program Year 2 teams can use this knowledge to guide their own approaches to their work. 

By coming together to share knowledge and collective experiences, the IMPACT Award recipients will leverage their combined expertise to strengthen their own projects. In that same vein, UK must come together as one community to confront the challenges that Kentucky and our communities face — by pooling our considerable resources and working collaboratively, we can do more and achieve more than we could alone. 

Our second cohort of IMPACT Award recipients will each be featured in a UKNow article this spring semester that will detail more of their innovative projects. 

Please join me in congratulating each of our IMPACT award recipients for their accomplishments. I am excited to see the impact their projects make on our UK community.

Thank you for bolstering our efforts to inspire ingenuity at UK and beyond. 

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost

Campus Colleagues, 

I am writing to inform you that the search for a permanent dean of the J. David Rosenberg College of Law (Rosenberg College of Law) will resume soon with a comprehensive, national search process. The goal is that the college’s next dean will join us by July 1, 2025, or sooner. 

The Rosenberg College of Law prepares graduates to excel as responsible members and leaders of the legal profession, Commonwealth and nation who are dedicated to the highest standards of ethics, excellence and professionalism. The college serves the community and the profession by enhancing public understanding of law, engaging in law reform, delivering continuing legal education and providing legal services to the indigent. This commitment is made possible through the hard work and passion of the Rosenberg College of Law community and its supporters. 

The first step in this process is to form a search advisory committee comprising faculty, staff, students and alumni. As part of our efforts to enhance communication, transparency, inclusion and shared governance, the Office of the Provost is seeking nominations for the search advisory committee. All recommendations are confidential. 

To nominate yourself or someone else to serve on the search advisory committee, please click here. Nominations are due by noon on Wednesday, Sept. 25. 

If you have any questions about the process, please contact Shavonna Ross, director of operations (shav.ross@uky.edu). 

Thank you in advance for your valuable input. We appreciate all that you do to advance Kentucky. 

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D.  
Provost 

Campus Colleagues,

The new academic year is underway and in full swing. In these first few weeks of the fall semester, I have experienced a renewed sense of community and camaraderie. Watching our students enjoy their first football games, participate in group study sessions in our libraries and discover new interests across campus, I can see for myself the powerful community we have built here at UK.  

This community is united in our mission to advance Kentucky in all that we do, and to do so, we must prepare students to lead, innovate and drive our state into the future. As faculty, your role is vital to that mission — you guide our students on their educational journeys, and in doing so, you ignite their passions. As faculty, you help lead this new generation of thinkers, creators and leaders both inside and outside your classrooms. 

With our focus on preparing our students to realize their full potential, I want to ensure each of you is equipped with the resources to support them. The first rounds of exams are beginning soon, and as you help your students prepare, I encourage you to communicate with them about the Office for Student Success and their programs and services that can assist in multiple ways. Students can utilize those services for support in their academics as well as their overall well-being. If you would like more information on how to connect your students to these resources, please click here. 

We must also ensure that you, as faculty, are supported with the resources you need to continue building UK as a leader in teaching, research and care. To that end, the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) and the Office for Faculty Advancement (OFA) provide services and guidance for faculty at all stages of their careers. Both CELT and OFA regularly hold workshops and informational sessions to help faculty grow in their fields as both researchers and instructors. You can see some of those and find more information in The Provost’s Academic Pulse. I also encourage you to prioritize your own well-being and health with UK Human Resources Work-Life and Well-Being. 

By putting our students first, we can ensure they encounter the support they need to build lives of meaning and purpose — and by prioritizing your own well-being, you can ensure that you continue pursuing that meaning and purpose at UK. 

Thank you for your continued dedication to building UK’s role as a leader in education, research and care. 

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost

Campus Colleagues,

As we enter the new academic year, I hope the first week of classes has been invigorating. Seeing students on campus again — creating new connections and meeting one another — I am reminded of the power UK holds as an institution of learning, discovery and innovation. As faculty, the role you play in nurturing the natural inquisitiveness our students hold is what allows us to continue growing in those realms of learning, discovery and innovation. 

Recently, I was honored to speak at our New Faculty Orientation and help them begin their journeys as members of UK’s esteemed faculty body working toward a shared mission. I spoke of our UK-PURPOSE and how it guides us in all we do. At the core of it all, we put students first — they are why we are here at UK, and your role in our students’ learning and development is a vital component of our mission.

Because of this fundamental role faculty play in our mission, UK takes care of our people — we invest in you because we care deeply about you. Your professional growth is bolstered by efforts from the Office for Faculty Advancement; your personal growth is supported by our UK Human Resources team. 

By taking care of our people, we are able to inspire ingenuity throughout the state. Our capacity for research and creativity directly impacts Kentucky and the challenges our communities face.

As a university, we hold a leading role in advancing Kentucky, and to do so, we must continue ensuring greater trust, transparency and accountability in everything we do. Transparency in how our processes and university evolves instills greater trust in each other, uniting us in our mission of advancing Kentucky. 

And as a university, we are bringing together many people into one community. You are part of a powerful community of faculty that is continually pushing the boundaries of what is possible in your respective fields. 

Each year, I am consistently grateful to work with faculty who are so dedicated to our university’s mission of advancing Kentucky through education, service and care. If you would like to hear more about the great work you do as our faculty body, you can listen to the “Behind the Blue” podcast where I was invited as a guest. 

Your work and care for our students — for our entire community — is one of the greatest strengths of UK. I am eager to see how far we will advance our university and our Commonwealth this year. 

Thank you for championing UK as an institution of learning, discovery and innovation. 

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost