Arts Administration Chair Wins 2026 William B. Sturgill Award
Each year, the University of Kentucky Graduate School recognizes exceptional faculty for their achievements in graduate education and scholarly research. The 2026 recipients of The Graduate School’s top honors — the Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize and the William B. Sturgill Award — are Guoqiang Yu, Ph.D., and Rachel Shane, Ph.D., respectively. Yu and Shane were recognized at the 2026 UK Faculty Awards Ceremony, held Thursday, April 30. Both have made lasting contributions to their fields, their students and the academic community.
2026 Sturgill Award: Rachel Shane
Rachel Shane, department chair and professor of arts administration in the UK College of Fine Arts, has received the 2026 William B. Sturgill Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to graduate education at the University of Kentucky.
Shane has played a central role in building and expanding graduate education in arts administration at UK and beyond. Under her leadership, both the Master of Arts and the Ph.D. in arts administration were conceived, designed and launched within the past 15 years. The doctoral program represents the first of its kind in the United States and the University of Kentucky’s first fully online doctoral degree. She also helped develop graduate certificate programs in areas such as arts emergency management, creative social entrepreneurship, and fundraising and development, expanding access to flexible, career-focused education for working professionals.
A key focus of Shane’s work has been creating rigorous, fully online graduate programs that expand access for working professionals, allowing students to remain connected to their careers and communities while pursuing advanced degrees.
“Receiving the Sturgill Award is both humbling and incredibly meaningful to me,” Shane said. “When we first began building online graduate education in arts administration, we were not thinking about awards or recognition. We were focused on creating access to a high-quality, rigorous graduate education for people who loved the arts and wanted to create meaningful change in their communities. I see this award not simply as a reflection of my work, but of the extraordinary students, alumni, faculty and community that helped build these programs together.”
Her commitment to mentorship is at the core of that work. Shane emphasizes a relationship-centered approach that supports and challenges students, helping them grow as scholars, researchers and leaders while remaining grounded in their professional practice and communities.
“What makes graduate education meaningful to me is the opportunity to help students recognize the value of their own experiences, perspectives and voices,” she said. “I find great meaning in helping students move from seeing themselves simply as practitioners to recognizing themselves as scholars, researchers and leaders capable of shaping the future of the arts and cultural sector.”
Established in 1975, the Sturgill Award is named in honor of alumnus William B. Sturgill, who contributed to higher education through organizing and serving as president of the Hazard Independent College Foundation, in addition to working with legislators to develop the community college system across the Commonwealth. Sturgill, who died in 2014, was born in Lackey, Kentucky, and graduated from UK in 1946. He was involved in a variety of businesses, including executive and owner of several coal operations, East Kentucky Investment Company, Fourth Street and Gentry Tobacco Warehouses and the Hartland Development Project. Sturgill served as both secretary of energy and secretary of agriculture under Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. He served 18 years on UK's Board of Trustees, including serving as chair for 10 years. The Sturgill Development Building is named in his honor.
For more information about the awards, visit gradschool.uky.edu/faculty-awards.