UK wants your used cooking oil, professors get grant to study monuments, plus more news
A group from the University of Kentucky have received a three-year, $2 million grant to establish a workshop that looks at issues and questions around monuments in communities.
Zachary Bray, a professor in UK’s Rosenberg College of Law, and Melynda Price, a former UK law professor who is now the director of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender, received the grant from the Mellon Foundation for the Monument Workshop, the first of its kind. Drawing from their law background, the two have a goal of creating guidance and best practices for communities where questions arise around monuments, they said.
Price said Kentucky is an important state to look at monuments in because of its history, and to look at how the state has changed over time.
“Kentucky is geographically, historically and culturally important to all of the critical moments in American history, from the American Revolution, to the Civil War, to the civil rights movement,” Price said. “For all of those things, Kentucky is a place that people are coming through and thinking through ideas.”
For the workshop, monuments could include everything from Civil War memorials to cemeteries. The workshop is designed to be non-partisan, Price said, with the focus being on making space for community voices and questions around monuments to be heard and answered.
“Its focus is about history, stories and communities, not about some predetermined result,” Bray said.
Bray and Price said they will look at many different aspects of monuments and memorials. Some questions they’ve already considered are who owns monuments, how changing climates can impact monuments and memorials, and how technology can be used when examining existing monuments. While communities can vary in their approaches to monuments, Bray said the legal questions and issues will often be similar.
Those interested in learning more can contact the team at monumentworkshop@uky.edu.
“We hope that at the end of those three years, we will be a sustained project at the university that continues to work not just in Kentucky, but on projects nationally that help communities come up with better ways of dealing with their conflicts over monuments and memorial spaces,” Price said.
Have something that should be considered for the next round-up? Contact higher education reporter Monica Kast at mkast@herald-leader.com.
How to recycle used cooking oil
In one week, hopefully you’ll be enjoying some time off, eating good food and relaxing with loved ones. After you’ve finished cooking, you can recycle that used cooking oil at the Redwood Cooperative School as part of the annual Gobble Grease Toss.
The program, a partnership between the City of Lexington, the UK Center for Applied Energy Research, Redwood School and Kelley Green Biofuel, is in its fourteenth year. Some of the cooking oil goes to UK for biofuel research, and Kelley Green Biofuel converts the remainder into renewable fuel.
Recycling the oil keeps it out of landfills and avoids harming the pipes in your house when poured down the drain.
“The Gobble Grease Toss connects our research to the community by giving us access to a realistic waste feedstock, namely, used oil from people’s homes. The partnership with Kelley Green Biofuel ensures that the entirety of the oil collected is converted to fuel since CAER’s processing capacity is limited,” said Eduardo Santillan-Jimenez, Associate Director of the UK CAER and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the UK Department of Chemistry.
The program is free to all Fayette County residents, but businesses should not bring their used oil. It can be dropped off at 166 Crestwood Drive in a disposable, hard-sided container with a lid (not a bag) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, November 24.
UK announces rural medicine scholarships
On Thursday, UK and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid in Kentucky announced seven scholarships for students in UK’s Rural Physician Leadership Program.
The scholarships total $100,000 and will be awarded to fourth-year students in the program who have financial need and plan to practice medicine in a rural area. UK College of Medicine Dean Charles Griffith III said the scholarships are crucial in a state that faces many health challenges.
“This generous gift will equip more mission-driven students with the training to become doctors who can fulfill vital health care needs in rural communities,” Griffith said. “The College of Medicine is incredibly grateful for Anthem’s commitment to enhancing health care access and allowing more students to fulfill their dreams.”
The Rural Physician Leadership Program was developed jointly by UK, Morehead State University and St. Claire HealthCare. Each year, 12 students who are interested in practicing medicine in rural areas after graduation are trained. Students spend their first two years at UK, years three and four in Morehead, and rotate through St. Claire HealthCare and other rural clinical sites during their education.
