While STEMCats may be one of the newest Living Learning Communities on campus, it is providing incoming students with many unique opportunities. Students are not only able to live on campus and take courses with like-minded peers, but STEMCats also allows incoming freshmen students to participate in research and connect with peers, upperclassmen, and professors. In this podcast, we talk with several Undergraduate Instructional Assistants, or UIA’s, who have been building connections with STEMCats freshmen through sharing their experiences.

Shale is the University of Kentucky's own undergraduate literary arts journal. Comprised of fiction, poetry, and visual art from talented UK students, Shale is published once a semester to much fanfare. Part of that fanfare is the traditional reception, an event that is free to attend to an art-loving public. Students published in Shale, fans of the magazine, and a number of faculty members meet to celebrate another successfully assembled issue, as well as share their work in a public reading.

In Fall of 2015, a new initiative to connect campus and community will open its doors. LEXengaged, a Living Learning Community connecting undergraduate students to the city of Lexington, will welcome its first students. Lynn Phillips and Rosie Moosnick, faculty advisors and co-directors of the program, explain LEXengaged and the inspiration behind it. 

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman.