Honoring those who serve our campus, Commonwealth

Video produced by UK Public Relations and Strategic Communications and UK Marketing and Brand Strategy.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 24, 2025) — At the February Board of Trustees meeting, University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto thanked UK employees who work — often during adverse weather conditions — to care for patients, support students and keep our campus safe. He also acknowledged how the UK community came together last week to support Kentuckians affected by devastating and deadly flooding. 

Recently, Capilouto dropped in on some of these employees to thank them for their work. Watch the video above to see some of those moments from the past few weeks. 

Below, you can read what Capilouto shared with members of the Board of Trustees during the meeting on Feb. 21, 2025. 

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Donta Goodwin has worked at the University of Kentucky for 13 years. He started in dining, but he loves being outside during the day. So, he transferred to the grounds crew. 

Now, he works 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day outside and then from 4 p.m. on in the evenings with dining on campus for Aramark. 

As he stood recently in a garage, deep in the bowels of the Peterson Service building early one morning last week, he told me the 18-hour day have been worth it. 

He loves his job. He has been able to give his four children a better life. 

Donta hopes his youngest, a daughter who recently graduated from high school, will attend UK.

Across campus, on another frigid February morning, Lorra Miracle begins a shift before sunrise at UK HealthCare. 

A staff nurse, then nurse manager, she's been with UK for nearly 40 years. For the last several years, she's served in an administrative role, working with health care's supply chain. 

During COVID, folks considered her a champion. “We had Personal Protective Equipment because of Lorra and her team,” one hospital official said.

Often, when she approaches a patient, the refrain can be heard: “here comes my miracle.”  

Taking care of people — the miracle of health care — is her calling. 

Between Donta and Lorra — on snowy sidewalks and icy roads, inside classrooms and labs, in operating theaters and on patient floors — there are literally thousands of people we may never meet, but whose work we unmistakably know and benefit from.

They keep this campus safe and operating… no matter the conditions a Kentucky winter may bring.

Over the past week, as a small token of appreciation, we provided coffee, donuts and other snacks to some of the folks who ensure that our campus can continue operating. 

After having served alongside you for nearly 14 years, I have seen and experienced so many things — moments of triumph and trial … challenge and change … I know one thing to be true:

Everyone has a story. I was moved by so many stories our employees told me during our visits.

Collectively, one of the most compelling stories of our campus is the heroic work of so many — facilities and grounds crews… UK Police and other public safety and transportation officials… student success staff and health care providers — who work to ensure our campus and hospitals are safe.

They are the unsung heroes of our community. And in so many ways, they play as large a role in the success of our students — and the health of our people — as anyone else. They, too, are essential to how we advance Kentucky in all that we do.

And their stories reflect how much they mean to this community and, in turn, how much this community means to them.

In the Peterson garage last week with about 100 of her colleagues, Ashley Hinds — who helps support the call center in Facilities Management — has a smile on her face and an ear headpiece still in place when she tells me her story. 

Flanked in the garage by her coworkers and some of the tools of her trade — an all-utility terrain vehicle and a skid street loader — Ashley recounts that she and her husband both work at UK. They’ve been together for nine years and proudly have a six-year-old. 

It’s wonderful to work at UK, she says. Their child has good daycare. She enjoys her job, knows it's important and appreciates the flexibility that makes it possible to raise a family.

A few floors up from us, Quennon Wilson — his colleagues call him Q — is cleaning the Peterson Service Building. 

He tells one of the administrators in the building that he is blessed to be at work, ready to tackle the day. That may mean cleaning a building one day or taking a shovel and clearing a walkway the next. Q also has earned more than 120 credit hours as he works to continue his education.

He takes pride in what he does and, like so many who make this place special, dreams about what's next.

During inclement weather, the teams work 12-hour shifts, around the clock, for several stays straight. 

No matter their title or specific responsibility, they do the work that needs to be done.

I live on campus. I hear their work — early in the morning and often late at night. I see the results. 

They, too, work miracles.

It’s that spirit and commitment that inform not only our efforts on campus, but the work we do to advance — and protect — this state. 

This past week, the sweep of our state was hit by torrential storms and flooding. Roads are washed out and impassable. Some communities, particularly in hard-hit Eastern Kentucky, lack basic supplies and access to water.

We opened our Emergency Operations Center on Sunday and, again, without hesitation, teams of people across our campus converged, ready to listen, poised to act. There, we coordinate requests for help and how we can best respond.

We emailed more than 20,000 UK students living in impacted areas to reach out and offer sources of support. About 30 Health Sciences students, based in Hazard, needed drinking water and other supplies, and we made sure they were delivered.

Working with our Facilities Management Teams, we've transported water, supplies and vaccines to community health partners and others in Pikeville, Hazard and Manchester.

We updated a website — go.uky.edu/floodrelief — so that people could donate money to help students and employees in need and also give to larger community efforts at Team Kentucky.

We established drop-off locations for supplies — working with Trustee Duff and Student Government — here at the Gatton Student Center and at Chandler Hospital. Before the game Wednesday night, we collected supplies outside the main entrance to Rupp Arena.

By no means are we the only institution — or group of people — reaching out when our state and her people are in need. 

Many of your businesses, the state government and folks in communities throughout the Commonwealth are there to lend a hand and offer support in so many ways.

But I know, too, that this community — our mission, our very reason for being — is to always answer the call, no matter the need … the time … or the place.

At the University of Kentucky, after all, community is not simply a noun.

It is, in the best sense, a verb. 

Community is a practice. 

We work at being a community, and then putting community into action, every day. 

It’s why when I say that we are the University of, for and with Kentucky, I know that those aren't simply words: They are a creed for a community that exists to advance this state. 

We face many challenges right now. And nothing I say here should diminish the substantive questions and issues we face and with which we grapple. 

Today, perhaps more than any other time I remember, we confront questions and scrutiny about what we do and how we do it. 

Those challenges have provoked, understandably, moments of question and anxiety, concern and, in some corners, fear about what happens next.

I share some of the concerns, but I don't have any doubts about the value of what we do and the impact that our people, with your leadership, make.

Yes, I have the benefit of being able to look back and reflect on the long arc of history. 

But I also have the privilege — honed and strengthened over the ebbs and flows of 14 years with you — to see our people up close. The images you've seen on the screen over the last few minutes speak to our commitment and capacity. They underscore our resilience and resolve — no matter the challenge or circumstance.

You already know the work our faculty, staff and students do to educate and serve, find discoveries and extend healing. What these people do — and their stories — are remarkable, too.

They always respond. 

They always stay focused on our north star — Kentucky and her future. 

As a result, we have a record — now 160 years strong — of delivering on our promise. 

I wouldn't bet against our record over the next 160, either.

Mr. Chairman, with your permission, we have a small cross-section of colleagues who have done so much over the last several weeks — and even into this week — to keep our community and our people, here and throughout Kentucky, safe and well. 

I would like to ask them to come up so that you can recognize and thank them.

They — our community — are my report this afternoon.