The Human Touch
“I love teaching! I love teaching!” So exclaims Renee Human, doctoral student in the College of Communications and Information Studies. This semester, students in Art 300 and Telecommunications 322 are benefiting from the enthusiasm of this passionate teacher. “I taught for six or seven years at a community college,” says Renee. “I still get emails from students I had five years ago.”
Renee didn’t start out as a teacher. “I came out of a career in graphic design and arts administration,” she explains. She’s used those skills here at UK in designing a web page for UK’s Solar Decathlon project http://www.uky.edu/solarhouse/ and she’s a part time faculty member in Fine Arts.
Renee was awarded the Sypher Memorial Scholarship for her work in organizational and mass communications. The scholarship was established by Drs. Beverly and Howard Sypher, former professors in the College.
Although there’s no doubt that her scholarship offers some relief to the financial burden every grad student experiences (her husband, Jay, is also in graduate school and she has a ten year old daughter, Lydia), Renee appreciates the scholarship on a different level. The recipient is recommended by a professor and selected by the graduate faculty. “Getting that scholarship was a kind of affirmation that I was on the right track,” she says.