The community is invited to this year’s free 2026 Grawemeyer Awards Lecture Series:

• PsychologyÌę–ÌęSir Simon Baron-Cohen Stanford, founder and director of theÌęAutism Research CentreÌęat the University of Cambridge, will speak on Tuesday, April 14, 12 p.m., Middleton Auditorium – Room 101, Strickler Hall, about his pioneering scientific research into the prenatal sex steroid theory of autism. In 2021, he received a knighthood for his services to autism, and in 2023 he was awarded the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) Millennium Medal, for his work on the prenatal sex steroid theory of autism and his contributions to autism research and the public understanding of neurodiversity.
• World OrderÌę– Joshua W. Busby, a professor of public affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, will speak on Tuesday, April 14, 1 p.m., Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library. In his book, “States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security,” Busby explains how the combination of state capacity, political exclusion and international assistance determine the degree to which the impacts of climate change affect security for a country’s citizens.
• Music CompositionÌę–ÌęLiza Lim, an Australian composer will give a lecture onÌęThursday, April 16, 3 p.m., Bird Hall, School of Music. Lim is recognized for her visionary work,Ìę“A Sutured World.” The piece was commissioned by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO)/Musica Viva, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Cello Biennale, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Casa da MĂșsica Porto for the world-renowned cellist Nicolas Altstaedt.
• ReligionÌę–ÌęCandida Moss, a biblical scholar at the University of Birmingham, UK, will speak onÌęThursday, April 16, 7 p.m., Caldwell Chapel, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Throughout the history of Christianity, the authorship of the New Testament was credited mostly to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. But hidden behind these men are unnamed coauthors and collaborators. Their work is at the center of Moss’ influential book, “God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible.”

There was no education award given in 2026.Ìę

Charles Grawemeyer, a UofL alumnus and philanthropist, created the Grawemeyer Awards in 1984. An initial endowment of $9 million funded the awards, which have drawn nominations from around the world. Grawemeyer distinguished the awards by honoring ideas rather than life-long or publicized personal achievement, advocating that great ideas should be understandable to someone with general knowledge and not be the private treasure of academics.

Learn more about the lectures on the .

Watch segment on UofL’s and .

UofL is a proud community partner, and securing benefits on- and off-campus for our Cardinals is part of our commitment. A Cardinal Card grants you the ability for the day at the SRC. (Employees can take advantage of the bike benefit, too.) Showing a Cardinal Card also provides student access to on-campus privileges like the , located on the third floor at the SAC. Here, you can stop by and grab groceries, to-go foods and non-perishable items. Additionally, the ID gives students access to , which provides free donuts, coffee and hot chocolate every Thursday from 8 to 10 a.m. at the Red Barn.Ìę

In a vibrant and dynamic city like Louisville, all you need to know is where to look for something to do and the Cardinal Card can help.ÌęLocal entertainment amenities like memberships at the are offered at a discounted rate for UofL students and there is student pricing for in-town theaters like the Baxter Avenue Theatres, $15 tickets for the and $10 tickets for the . Sports fans can score student season tickets for per game and tickets every Friday, on home games. A Cardinal Card also gets UofL students, faculty and staff free admission to the during normal business hours.Ìę

UofL employees also can take advantage of deals like the at Kroger. UofL faculty and staff receive 10% off Kroger brands every Friday, Saturday and Sunday – just show your UofL employee ID and Kroger Plus card to the cashier to get your discount. In addition, discounts are also available for faculty and staff, offering a 15% discount on any item – from Adidas gear to Apple products. With employees’ well-being a priority, UofL partners with to allow faculty and staff to get a Black Card membership for only $19.99 a month, with no enrollment or annual fee.Ìę

UofL Alumni can also get in on the , including 10% off your purchase at Hex Head Mechanical Art to get durable artwork and show your support for the Cards. Additionally, Alumni have access to affordable insurance coverage through the Ìę

Cardinal Cards are typically issued to current students and employees during orientation sessions. Alumni are also eligible to order an ID card. Visit the office for more info and don’t miss out on your extra benefits.Ìę

By Maria Arteaga Mendoza

The showcase will feature a variety of projects, highlighting students’ skills in branding, typography, illustration and other areas. Portfolio Day provides a platform for students to present their work to potential employers, industry professionals and the public.

Senior Roann Carter emphasized the event’s importance, calling it “more important than a graduation ceremony” for students to display their work and network. Carter is particularly excited to present a packaging project created for a Japanese root vegetable company.

“The journey for this project was a long one and its evolution is probably the most satisfying of all my projects as it all came together beautifully in the end,” Carter said. “I’m also particularly proud of the way I used Illustrator to create the effects I was looking for.”

Canon, a valued UofL partner since 2018, is sponsoring the event. The company’s ongoing support provides mentorship, workshops and learning experiences for students. Canon also provided funding to enhance the graphic design program’s Digital Print Lab.

Peter P. Kowalczuk, Canon U.S.A., Inc.’s executive vice president and Client Services Group president, said the support for the program remains an important way for the next generation of designers to learn from – and connect with – members of the creative industry.

“We are pleased to again be part of Portfolio Day with the University of Louisville and its wonderful program that helps to inspire young artists and designers,” Kowalczuk said. “Providing talented students with the means to succeed in the world of design remains a worthy goal, and we appreciate all the hard work the team at the Hite Institute continues to put in to make this event so successful.”

Portfolio Day will be held at the UofL Belknap Campus, Miller IT Building, Bigelow Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.

Learn more about Portfolio Day and Canon’s involvement by reading UofL News’ recap of the 2024 event.

Two UofL College of Arts & Sciences winter graduates are looking to their hometowns for guidance in their professions and hope to serve the people who shaped them. Chloe Hale and Emmy Walters, studying anthropology and biology respectively, plan to continue their education in graduate school with the goal of utilizing their advanced degrees to support communities like those in which they grew up.

Documenting home

Moving to a city from a rural county can be a culture shock. Coming from Martin County, Hale quickly realized she had a different experience growing up in Kentucky than many of her classmates. Hale’s quiet anxiety around drinking tap water is something few could understand.

“It makes me sad to see on the internet when a place in my home county doesn’t have water and it’s not gonna be back on for two weeks or something like that,” Hale said. “Just the fact that I can drink the water here in Louisville from the tap makes me feel guilty, in a way, because my family members are there, and they can’t drink the water.”

Hale grew up in an Appalachian community where clean drinking water was not a guarantee or to be taken for granted. Martin County lost its regular access to safe water due to infrastructure, resource access, mining contamination and environmental destruction.

“I think when you can’t drink the water there’s this little piece of trauma in the back of your mind every time you drink from the tap,” Hale said. “It’s like, ‘Is it clean? Can I? Is this drinkable?’”

For an independent study, Hale chose to document how hairstylists back home struggled to work without guaranteed access to clean water. She asked her sister and fellow hairstylists to take pictures throughout their workday anytime they encountered the need to use water.

“I decided that it would be a good idea to examine water access through a group of women that rely on water for an income,” Hale explained. “Hairstylists need water for absolutely everything: to clean, to wash hair, to rinse hair, to make different cleaning solutions.”

The project used these pictures as a “photo voice” to document and display the obstacles the Martin County hairstylists encounter every day due to the lack of access to consistently safe tap water.

While returning home is a complicated option with the ongoing water crisis, Hale hopes to continue her education in Appalachian studies at UofL with her sights set on a future PhD to continue to document and uplift her hometown and other communities.

“I definitely love my hometown, but think I’ve been able to curate what it means to be Appalachian a little bit more just because it is its own culture and it is an identity I’m proud of,” Hale said.

A better vision for Kentucky’s future

Emmy Walters’ first connection to optometry was through her love of reading and an early vision assessment at school. She was one of the only members in her family to need glasses and this sparked a curiosity about the relationship between her vision and the biological mechanisms that supported her eyesight and her favorite hobby. As she aged, her curiosity for vision only grew as she understood the obstacles to both eye assessments and literacy in her community.

“Growing up, our access to eye care was sufficient, but then you get in surrounding counties where there won’t be an optometrist for 45 minutes,” Walters said.

Walters early childhood love for reading was protected by her access to an optometrist, and an early assessment allowed her natural curiosity toward books to go uninterrupted. Walters still reads regularly and will attend optometry school next year. After shadowing an optometrist in Campbellsville Kentucky, her hometown, she hopes to practice in a similar rural area.

“I felt like I was home, like I was talking to my own family members; the way that they approached me and talked about things is something I’m used to, and it was comforting,” Walters said.

While shadowing in the practice, Walters began to see the personal impact she could have as an optometrist practicing outside of a major city.

“At least a third of the people that came in had never been to an eye doctor or hadn’t been in a very long time, and most of the time those were people from surrounding areas,” Walters said.

Walters hopes to one day combine her interest in optometry with her love for reading by supporting literacy through eye exams and philanthropy.

Interested in pursuing a degree or certificate program with UofL? Check out theÌę to find a program.

During the April 20 event, participants of CeLOUbrate Print engaged in printmaking by creating large, hand-carved wooden stamps, or “woodcuts” and driving over them with a steamroller. With a quick training, a driver’s license and a rental steamroller, Singel was prepared to operate this unique printing press.

“The whole premise is building community,” Singel said. “One of the many reasons I fell in love with printmaking is it’s the democratic multiple. Where would we be without printmaking in terms of it is the way that we disseminate information?”

This art process involves creating an image via a woodcut, etching or engraving and using ink to create copies on paper or canvas like a stamp. Lithography and screen-printing are also forms of printmaking. An original work can be replicated endlessly with basic supplies and processes which eliminate boundaries to sharing work or marketing art.

Printmaking is inherently collective by nature and is a simple form of mass production of artistic work. The creation, production and sharing of a print can all be completed by one operator, removing many obstacles to sharing artwork or messages to build community connections. Additionally, many prints will have small variances from shifting equipment or blotting ink so despite being a mostly mechanical process, each print will have its own unique characteristics and value from the artist’s production.

“When people pull their very first print, it’s this really magical moment because their mind is blown, but they also understand exactly how and why it’s happening,” Lewis said. “You get to watch the light bulb go off.”

In addition to UofL, several sponsors and local businesses supported Singel and Lewis in their effort to bring more people together through CeLOUbrate Print and its workshops including Fund for the Arts, Printed Zine and Portland Museum. UofL alumni William Smith served as Lewis’s collaborator from Portland Museum and assisted with grant writing, advertising and planning the event over eight months.

Ahead of CeLOUbrate Print, Lewis organized over a dozen woodblock carving workshops to help prepare participants to make prints with the steamroller press. The workshops were an addition from Singel’s steamroller press events in previous years. Lewis’s passion for the project comes out of the desire to make printmaking more accessible and this is the driving goal of their studies in printmaking and public humanities.

“Printmakers assume things have to be in a very specific way, your borders have to be clean, no smudges so it’s usually done in a shop – it’s done with a press,” Lewis said. “It’s done this way, so I really wanted to have an event that not only made people know what printmaking is, but it also made that knowledge accessible and doable in your kitchen.”

Alongside the CeLOUbrate Print event, the Portland Museum unveiled a new printmaking exhibit titled The museum invited Louisville printmakers to display their work but encouraged the featured artists to invite other printmakers from outside the region to also participate. The exhibit is a practice of building connections between Louisville’s artists and other pockets of printmakers across the nation. “Shop Talk” will be on display at the Portland Museum until the end of August.

To keep up with UofL’s art students and programming, visit .

Hamilton and Nielson are the 2024 recipients of the which recognizes innovative ideas with the potential to improve educational practices and student achievement.

Their findings argue that decades of public funding cuts have crippled public universities’ ability to serve racially and economically disadvantaged students, with schools enrolling the most marginalized students receiving the fewest resources.

Hamilton and Nielsen pinpoint three major developments in higher education over the past 50 years that contribute to a separate and unequal system: demographic shifts in student enrollment at public universities, significant cuts to public funding for higher education and the decline of race-based affirmative action during this period.

“These issues are deeply interconnected,” Hamilton said.

The book identifies a cyclical pattern of racial resource allocation within universities, driven by the three historical dynamics. The cycle has five elements:

• The social construct of ‘merit’
• The racial segregation in higher education
• The racialized organizational hierarchies
• Unequal access to private resources and
• Inadequate student support

“We see a cycle whereby resources are allocated through mechanisms that distribute them along racial lines,” Nielson explained. “The cycle channels educational resources to universities that serve more privileged student populations and starves universities serving primarily racially and economically disadvantaged students.”ÌęÌę

Hamilton and Nielson also emphasized the importance of reminding the public that higher education is a public good, benefiting everyone, not just a private commodity.

“That kind of thinking traps you because you can’t step out of it and think about what it looks like to actually design institutions for social good rather than for people we think have successfully competed in the market to attain those services or goods,” Hamilton said.

The Grawemeyer Award in łÉÈËֱȄ has been presented yearly since 1989. The annual $100,000 prizes also honor seminal ideas in music, world order, psychology and religion.

“Our hope is that the book can be used by universities with limited resources to fight for more support,” Hamilton and Nielsen said. “The Grawemeyer Award is a powerful platform to amplify our message that public universities need public funding. We are thankful for this recognition.”

The $100,000 Grawemeyer prizes also honor seminal ideas in ,Ìę,ÌęÌęandÌę. Winners visit Louisville to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

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It was an opportunity for her to put her work in context for herself in a way she had never done before, Vrebalov, 53, told the audience at the University of Louisville on April 11.

Vrebalov, a Serbian-American composer who now resides in New York City, was awarded the 2024 for “â¶Ä˜.”

The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, which was the first of the five , typically receives 150 to 200 entries each year from around the world.

The work’s Latin title translates to “Mass Above Words” in English. The nontraditional work, which is performed by string quartets and girls’ chorus, features just two words in English.

“Words are not essential,” she said. “And I will say again – words are not essential for us to understand, and have insight into the abstract concepts of creativity, truth, beauty and love. These concepts represent the mental aspects of human existence and transcend language.”

Kronos Quartet, a group long known for nurturing musical innovation, and San Francisco Girls’ Chorus, a Bay Area group for young women from diverse backgrounds, premiered the work in 2018 in San Francisco.

Following her presentation, the audience had the opportunity to fully take in “Missa Supratext” by listening to the 22-minute work, which includes handbells, Tibetan bowls and musical saw.

Vrebalov said through her music, she hopes to bring people together.

“It’s about my own yearning for a world that’s filled with love and a world in which we can experience connection and belonging,” she said.

ÌęThat’s why “Missa Supratext” deliberately has no recognizable language, she said.

“We have reached a point of realizing individual freedoms as never before in history, and at the same time, our communities are fragmenting into increasingly separate worlds that often exclude each other,” Vrebalov said.

Her idea – to create a work that forces people to confront human existence – inspired her to “bypass traditional language elements and focus on a nonverbal dramatic narrative.”

“Words move us, but music can move us in ways that are not always easy to explain because it doesn’t require language,” Vrebalov said.

The $100,000 Grawemeyer prizes also honor seminal ideas in ,Ìę,ÌęÌęandÌę. Winners visit Louisville to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

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On Thursday, April 11, Masten presented her ideas to a full auditorium at the University of Louisville, which included psychology students as well as visiting high school students.

Resilience science began around 1970 as a search to explain how some children who face severe adversity seem to thrive while others do not. In recent years, resilience research has transformed practice in clinical psychology, pediatrics, psychiatry, school psychology, counseling, social work, family social science and disaster response.

“As I studied children and families dealing with war, disasters, poverty, violence and homelessness, I found a consistent set of surprisingly ordinary but powerful factors at work,” she said. “Resilience didn’t depend on special qualities but on a capacity to adapt that we develop over time as we are nurtured, learn and gain experience.”

Masten’s current resilience research, along with others in her field, shifts the focus to positive outcomes, strength-based, promotive and protective processes, and building capacity at multiple levels: within individuals, in religions and other cultural systems and in community and society systems.

According to Masten, a “short list” of psychosocial factors that play a part in nurturing resilience in children include ones you might expect to see such as effective parenting and safe, effective schools and communities, but also things like purpose, sense of meaning, hope, faith and optimism, positive routines, rituals and cultural traditions, and positive view of self, identity and capabilities.

Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACES, has become a buzzword in modern social science and child development studies, and includes experiences such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, low education or parental incarceration. Masten spoke about the importance of also examining and measuring positive childhood experiences, (PCEs), such as having at least one caregiver with whom you felt safe, beliefs that gave you comfort, and at least one teacher that cared about you.

Resilience is not something that just lives in the individual, said Masten, but is embedded and interconnected more broadly in families and cultural, community and society systems.

Masten used the pandemic as an example of a turbulent time that catalyzed a “striking mobilization of multisystem resilience, demonstrating the capacity of a system to adapt successfully to challenges.”

Masten’s findings have shaped policy and practice in many fields outside psychology such as pediatrics, school counseling, social work and disaster response. People in more than 180 countries including Ukraine have taken part in her online course about the resilience of children in war and disaster.

A licensed psychologist in Minnesota since 1986, Masten holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree from Smith College. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021 and has received mentoring and lifetime contribution awards from the American Psychological Association.

The $100,000 Grawemeyer prizes also honor seminal ideas in , , andÌę. Winners visit Louisville to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

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“Welcome to the design world,” Michael Di Tizio, a senior graphic design specialist with Canon U.S.A., replied with an affirming chuckle. “If your brain isn’t hurting, you’re not designing.”

On March 22, University of Louisville senior graphic design students experienced direct personal mentorship from professionals at , a wholly owned subsidiary of , in preparation for , the capstone project for the bachelor of fine arts in graphic design program. The Canon designers provided expert feedback as students presented their past and current projects in groups, over a multi-session virtual meeting.

“I am always eager to see what the new generation of artists will bring to the table in this industry,” said Veronika Levin, senior manager of creative services at Canon U.S.A. “I believe the group of students I met has a great foundation and strong pieces to showcase for their Portfolio Day.”

During UofL’s Portfolio Day on April 26, seniors showcased their culminating work to community professionals, network with potential employers, celebrate with friends and family, and are awarded their red berets—a symbol of completing their degrees and entering the professional design world. The mentorship sessions were part of Canon Solutions America’s extensive support of UofL activities, including its flagship sponsorship of Portfolio Day.

Suzanne Oddsen, senior graphic designer for Canon U.S.A., felt inspired by the fresh ideas she saw in the students. “They all had unique takes on the same project and professionally conducted them. I provided feedback about how we work in the corporate world, and what we want to see when interviewing,” she said.

In addition to the portfolio review sessions, Canon provided other engaged learning experiences for the graphic design students, including a virtual workshop to help hone their video and still photography skills using Canon cameras, and hands-on sessions at the university’s Canon Solutions America print shop to teach students how to use large-format printers, prepare files and select papers and finishing options for their portfolio projects. In total, Canon Solutions America provided more than eight hours of instruction, helping students bring their projects to the next level with newly gained insights. The organization, which has partnered with UofL since 2018, also offered the graphic design seniors complimentary printing of their portfolio materials and provided the department with a printer, benefitting students for years to come.

Trysh Wahlig, assistant professor and head of graphic design at UofL, lauded the partnership as “truly a win/win.” Not only can instructors create class assignments that take full advantage of the technology and expertise Canon provides, but “the work our students create allows Canon to showcase its printing and imaging technologies in a practical educational setting,” Wahlig said.

“Canon is able to see the next generation of creativity as well as what students are looking for in the workforce, so that we can stay up-to-date,” said Oddsen. “For the students, it is a great way to gather insight of the real-world tools they need to prepare for working with clients or interviews.”

Corporate partnerships such as these lead to student success and offer an advantage in the professional world. They also demonstrate UofL’s role as a premier metropolitan university striving to better serve its students and the community.

Kronos Quartet, a group long known for nurturing musical innovation, and San Francisco Girls’ Chorus, a Bay Area group for young women from diverse backgrounds, premiered the 22-minute work in 2018 in San Francisco with Valerie Sainte-Agathe conducting. The piece also incorporates bells, Tibetan bowls and musical saw.

“â¶Ä˜â€™ is unrelated to any religion because the creative force driving all life does not care about culture, language or religion,” Vrebalov said. “The words are made up and have no meaning. The piece goes beyond verbal narrative to show how all life on our planet is interconnected.”

The work’s Latin title translates to “Mass Above Words” in English.

“Vrebalov’s music transports and envelops the listener,” said Matthew Ertz, music award director. “Her winning piece emphasizes the universality of human expression through music, bypassing a single language, style or tradition. She blends together diverse harmonies, rhythms, styles and improvisations, conveying her devotion to music and to the uniqueness of all things.”

, 53, who lives in New York City, moved to the United States in 1995 and became a U.S. citizen in 2015. She has composed more than 90 works, including orchestral, chamber, opera and experimental pieces. She often starts by drawing and painting colorful images reflecting her ideas before converting the images into musical notation.

Ensembles worldwide have performed her compositions. Kronos Quartet alone has premiered 15 since 1997, and more than 25 other organizations such as Carnegie Hall and the English National Ballet have commissioned her work. Composers Edition in the United Kingdom distributes her self-published scores.

Vrebalov taught music at Serbia’s Novi Sad University and City University of New York and has been a resident or visiting artist on three continents. The Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Golden Emblem from the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are among her honors.

Recipients of next year’s are being named this week pending formal trustee approval. The annual $100,000 prizes also honor seminal ideas in world order, psychology, education and religion. Recipients will visit Louisville in the spring to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.