Campus News

Watch: UK's 2021 Year in Review

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 3, 2022) — What is a community?

At the University of Kentucky, we define it as a place where people come together … to connect and serve … to help and heal … to discover and transform.

This past year, we celebrated times of winning and success and were there for each other in moments of loss and sadness.

Together, we experienced championship seasons on courts and courses, fields and ballparks.

Together, we heralded discoveries and breakthroughs in labs and in classrooms ... in vaccination clinics outside football stadiums and in church gyms ... in hospitals and across farms, in every corner and county of the Commonwealth.

Together, we served, in communities across a state, whose name we have taken as our own and whose future we seek to advance.

At the University of Kentucky, we define community as people who have come together around what’s wildly possible in an uncommonly special place.

And this past year, we experienced it all — the triumphs and the trials, the successes and sorrows. 

We met each moment and challenge, opportunity and success, as we always do … together, as a community.

photo of UK graduates throwing caps
May 2021 graduates celebrating on Kroger Field. Pete Comparoni | UK Photo.

As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.   

In 2022, UK was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best Employers for New Grads” and named a “Diversity Champion” by INSIGHT into Diversity, a testament to our commitment to advance Kentucky and create a community of belonging for everyone. While our mission looks different in many ways than it did in 1865, the vision of service to our Commonwealth and the world remains the same. We are the University for Kentucky.