Provost IMPACT Award: Preparing UK students to be work-ready

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 7, 2025) — Last fall, the University of Kentucky Office of the Provost announced the second cohort of the Institutional Multidisciplinary Paradigm to Accelerate Collaboration and Transformation (IMPACT) Awards winners.

The IMPACT Awards initiative, an internal funding program from the Office of the Provost, launched in 2023 to support innovation and transformation within UK’s colleges. The awards recognize the groundbreaking work conducted by faculty and staff across campus, and they create opportunities for transdisciplinary collaboration to occur between UK community members to help the university’s mission of advancing Kentucky.

In total, 15 colleges, including UK Libraries and the Graduate School, are working collectively to break new ground on ways to advance the Commonwealth.

This spring, UKNow is highlighting the 2024-25 IMPACT Award projects and the faculty who are leading them. Today, we learn more about the project titled “Enhancing UK Undergraduate Student Career Readiness by Integrating ‘Work Integrated learning’ into Sustainability Curriculum through UK Innovate Partnerships.”

More than ever, UK graduates need to be work-ready. The IMPACT team — led by Jeffrey Seay, Ph.D., professor of chemical engineering; John Peloza, Ph.D., associate dean for research, graduate, and international affairs in the Gatton College of Business and Economics; Betsy Farris, Ph.D., lecturer in the Gatton College; Gisella Lamas-Samanamud, Ph.D., lecturer in chemical engineering; and Kim Sayre and Serenity Wright, with UK Innovate — said giving students the opportunity to work with outside corporate partners to solve real work problems is one way to achieve this. Their project is focused on applying the principles of Work Integrated Learning to develop a cohort of UK faculty who are ready to implement this concept in their classes.

UKNow recently sat down with Seay to learn more about the project. You can read more in the Q&A session below.

How has the IMPACT award inspired innovation at UK with your research?

Our group is multidisciplinary which has really fostered collaboration between the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering and the Gatton College of Business and Economics. I haven’t collaborated with faculty in the Gatton College before, so this is an exciting opportunity that I hope will lead to further collaborations on other projects.

How did you decide on this particular topic or research area?

Getting students to think beyond the classroom is a critical skill, but one that is often overlooked. My colleagues and I had the opportunity to run a Work Integrated Learning project last year with CVG airport. It was a great experience for the students involved. We knew that this was something we needed to share to get other faculty across UK involved. The UK IMPACT Award was the perfect opportunity to do this.

What positive impact will your research have on Kentucky and beyond?

Our goal is to help our students become work-ready by providing real work projects with outside companies. Hopefully it’s a win-win with our students gaining practical experience and our partners gaining insight from the solutions our student team develop. The idea is to make these projects multidisciplinary. The principal investigators for the award come from the Pigman College of Engineering and the Gatton College. Our initial cohort of participating faculty will come from these colleges, but we want to see this concept spread across UK.

What comes next for your research?

Our team will be holding workshops for faculty to get involved with Work Integrated Learning projects. Our goal is to educate faculty on the benefits of Work Integrated Learning and help them connect with outside partners. If all goes well, we want to develop a cohort of faculty who can serve as mentors for other Work Integrated Learning projects across the University of Kentucky.