All over Kentucky, fossilized brachiopods are common. Rebecca Freeman, a lecturer in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, studies brachiopods and how they interacted with their prehistoric environments according to the fossil record. When I interviewed her about a recent line of research that identified a previously unknown species of brachiopod, I also got a ghost story from Lexington, Kentucky.
Just recently, the Linguistics Program's Andrew Byrd was interviewed by the BBC's Newsday radio series. The interview served to highlight Byrd's work studying the "Proto-Indo-European" language which dates back thousands of years. In the interview, Byrd gives listeners a glimpse of the language's history and a chance to hear the language given breath.
If you are taking SOC 101 this semester, you will want to participate in this discussion of how to excel in sociology by learning to see the world through a sociological lens. Like all other disciplines, sociology has a lot of specific content, but the students who do best are those who develop the ability to use sociological insights to look at the world in a different way. For that reason, courses in sociology often put considerable emphasis on the development of a "Sociological Imagination". Come meet faculty and gain insight on how to succeed in sociology courses while using them as a basis for the meaningful exploration of new ideas.
