Daniel Vivian named 2025-26 University Research Professor
Today, the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees approved Associate Professor Daniel Vivian as the College of Design’s University Research Professor for the 2025-26 academic year. Established by the Board of Trustees in 1976, the professorships program recognizes research excellence across all UK colleges.
“Daniel Vivian is a thoughtful and imaginative historian, and a great teacher. In his most important work, he insightfully explores the landscapes of the South and shows how beautiful places designed for leisure helped perpetuate a culture organized around racial and class distinctions,” Dean Ned Crankshaw said. “We are pleased to have the College of Design represented by a scholar who is distinguished in his research and respected by students for his attention to teaching and learning.”
Vivian is a faculty member in the Department of Historic Preservation. As a historian and preservationist, his research explores the cultural landscapes of the American South, especially during the Jim Crow era. His work focuses on how memory, heritage and the built environment intersect, with particular attention to elite landownership, tourism and historic preservation practices in the 19th and 20th centuries.
He is the author of “A New Plantation World: Sporting Estates in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1900–1940” published by Cambridge University Press in 2018 and coeditor of “Leisure, Plantations and the Making of a New South.” His scholarship has been published in top journals such as The Public Historian, Winterthur Portfolio and Ohio Valley History. He has served as a guest editor, written numerous book reviews and contributed to national conversations on preservation through essays, reports and blog publications throughout his two-decade career.
He previously held leadership roles as department chair and director of graduate studies and currently co-directs the university’s Graduate Certificate in Public History. His teaching, which spans public history, preservation theory and American architecture, has earned numerous accolades, including the 2024 Tau Sigma Delta Silver Medal for promoting excellence in design education.
“Dr. Vivian exemplifies the caliber of scholarly excellence that the University Research Professorship is designed to recognize,” Design’s Associate Dean for Research Lindsey Fay said. “His nationally recognized research not only advances academic discourse through top-tier publications, but also offers meaningful insight into how history, memory, and the built environment shape the communities he studies. With a clear and ambitious research agenda ahead, Dan brings distinction not only to the Department of Historic Preservation but also to the College of Design and the wider academic community.”
As a University Research Professor, Vivian will receive a one-year award of $10,000 to be used for archival research at the Avery Library of Columbia University and the South Carolina Historical Society and participate in other events planned around the program. University Research Professors may also be given the opportunity to present a short description of their research endeavors to the Board of Trustees once over the course of the award year and will be featured in a Q&A with UKPR about their research.
“It’s a great honor to be selected as University Research Professor for the College of Design,” Vivian said. “I’m looking forward to sharing some of my current work with colleagues and students during the coming year. The funding will allow me to conduct research at archives in New York City and South Carolina and move several projects toward publication.”
To learn more about Vivian’s work, click here.