Arts & Sciences is the oldest and largest college at the University of Kentucky, at the heart of the university’s mission to educate students and create knowledge in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematical and natural sciences. Our faculty are among UK’s most celebrated for their teaching and research, and our students often win the most prestigious scholarships and awards. These achievements have propelled the university’s growth since its founding in 1865.

Home to 19 academic departments that offer major degrees in 29 disciplines and 37 minors, A&S provides education in fundamentals to every undergraduate student at UK and builds foundations for advanced study in every field. Its faculty integrates innovative research with exceptional teaching and outreach, thereby providing paths to understanding the past, solving the problems of today, and imagining possibilities of tomorrow. In these ways, the College changes the lives of its students, Kentuckians at large, and communities across the world.

A&S is central to undergraduate and graduate education at UK, teaching 85% of general education credit hours and almost half of all undergraduate credit hours, and producing the most doctoral degrees at UK.

ADVANCING KNOWLEDGE:

RESEARCH, SCHOLARSHIP AND CREATIVE WORK

• Home to world-class basic and applied research across the humanities, social sciences, and natural and mathematical sciences, including Top 20 programs in Clinical Psychology, English, Geography, and Hispanic Studies.
• At the forefront in international scientific research on regenerative biology, energy materials, biological chemistry, nuclear physics, climate change, alcohol and substance abuse, and much more.
• Home to national and international leaders in trans-national studies, criminal justice, new mappings, social theory, and a wide range of historical, philosophic, literary and cultural studies.
• Averaging $18 million annually in external grant awards. A&S faculty have received numerous Guggenheim, NEH, National Humanities Center, ACLS, and Fulbright fellowships.
• 50% of UK University Research Professors are Arts & Sciences faculty.

EDUCATING A NEW GENERATION:

TEACHING, LEARNING, ADVISING AND MENTORING

• Excellence in classroom teaching by faculty members who are frequent winners of the Provost’s Outstanding Teaching Award and the Alumni Association’s Great Teacher Award (won by over 30 A&S faculty just in the past decade).
• Unparalleled state-of-the-art teaching and learning space in the new Don & Cathy Jacobs Science Building.
• Pioneering extracurricular innovation enhancing student-learning experiences, including FastTrack, Aspire, and Living Learning Communities.
• Home to STEMCats, providing first-year students with an intensive STEM research experience and funded by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant totaling $1,900,000.
• Committed to expanding high impact student experiences including undergraduate research, internships, and study abroad. A&S leads UK in the number of students who study abroad—nearly one-fifth of all 2016 A&S graduates studied abroad.
• An engine of Kentucky’s proud literary tradition from the founding of the Creative Writing Program in 1947 and the Kentucky Women Writers Conference in 1979 to the new MFA in Creative Writing that granted its first degrees in 2016.
• At the core of doctoral education at UK, with 18 Ph.D. programs that prepare students for careers in the academy and beyond.
• Committed to a global education for our students, teaching 11 languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian and Spanish.
• Offering an increasing number of interdisciplinary programs for our students: international studies, environmental studies, peace studies, neuroscience, African American and Africana Studies, and Appalachian Studies.

IMPACTING SOCIETY:

ENGAGING LEXINGTON, THE COMMONWEALTH, THE NATION AND THE WORLD

• More than 330 partnerships between A&S departments and external stakeholders.
• Engagement with community partners through sharing knowledge and understanding, stimulating conversations on issues of public interest, and encouraging students to work in and for communities.
• Fundamental commitment to supporting diversity and to building inclusivity on campus and throughout the Commonwealth.