Writer

Kenneth Best

Ken Best served as editor of UCONN Magazine for 10 years. He is a co-host of the UConn 360 Podcast. He previously covered news and sports in Connecticut for The New York Times, edited the Weekend section for the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time, wrote arts and culture stories syndicated by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service and was the media coordinator for Yale-New Haven Hospital. During the summer of 2015 he hosted “Walking a Blues Road,” a weekly program on WHUS in Storrs based on the holdings of the Samuel and Ann Charters Archives of Blues and Vernacular African-American Musical Culture at UConn’s Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. He is the author of Eight Days a Week: An Illustrated Record of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Pomegranate Books).


Author Archive

The seven four-foot ants marching toward the Biology/Physics Building invite visitors to follow them inside to view an exhibit on the complex society of army ants and their guests. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

Army Ants March into New Exhibition

'The majority of the guests are microscopic. Since we couldn't scale the exhibit's visitors down, our solution was to scale the army ants and their guests up.'

The University of Connecticut baseball head coach Jim Penders (right) watches his team practice at Dodd Stadium Thursday, with player Bill Ferriter (left). UConn meets Oregon in the opening game of the NCAA tournament Friday night, their first tournament appearance in 16 years. CLOE POISSON|cpoisson@courant.com ORG XMIT: 10014879A

The Quiet Genius of Coach Penders

Baseball is in the blood of UConn Huskies baseball coach Jim F. Penders ’94 (CLAS), ’98 MA – not just figuratively, but also, one may argue, literally.

World War I Victory Gardens poster. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

How the ‘War to End All Wars’ Shaped Connecticut

Art and artifacts on display at the Dodd Center and Babbidge Library recall the U.S. entry into World War I on April 6, 2017.

The photo shows a replica of Thoreau’s best-known boat, Musketaquid, named for the Algonquian word for 'grassy plain,' used to describe the area that became the town of Concord. (Photo by Juliet Wheeler)

Thoreau: Out of the Woods and Onto the River

UConn professor Robert Thorson says Henry David Thoreau, best known for writing about life in the woods, was also a boatman and scientific expert.

Students attend the 2017 Spring Career Fair in the Gampel Pavilion on Jan. 29, 2017. (Ryan Glista/UConn Photo)

New Graduates Enter a Good Job Market

'The number of recruiters at UConn's career fairs are double what they were four years ago,' says the director of the Center for Career Development.

Guest artist Michael Lewis (Harry Fatt) is the union leader in Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s production of 'Waiting for Lefty' by Clifford Odets, onstage through March 5 at Nafe Katter Theatre. (Gerry Goodstein for UConn)

Stage Left: Playwright Enters as CRT Director

Michael Bradford directs the Connecticut Repertory Theatre's production of two one-act plays, headlined by 'Waiting for Lefty,' which opens today.

The Eye That Cries (El ojo que llora), Lima, Peru. (Photoholica Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

From Conflict to Peace: The Role of Art

Memorials commemorating a nation’s past conflicts can help build a more peaceful future, say two UConn researchers.

Michael Patrick Lynch, professor of philosophy and director of the UConn Humanities Institute, left, listens while Paul Herrnson, professor of political science, answers a question during a panel discussion on the presidential election at an event held at the Hartford Public Library on Sept. 22, 2016. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

Grants Target Broken Landscape of American Discourse

The research awards, ranging from $160,000 to $225,000, provide two-year fellowships for applying cutting-edge research to improving public discourse.

Retroactive Autorretrato, 2013, by Negar Ahkami, gesso, acrylic, and glitter on canvas stretched on panel. (Courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery)

New Exhibition Treads ‘Sacred Ground’

'UConn Reads: Sacred Ground' at the Benton Museum is based on this year's UConn Reads selection, which outlines a vision of America where people of all faiths can make a country where diverse traditions thrive side by side.

An employee displays traditional Russian wooden nesting dolls depicting US President-elect Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin at a gift shop in central Moscow just days ahead of Trump's inauguration. ( Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)

What Set the Stage for Current U.S.-Russia Relations

As Vladimir Putin sees it, the U.S. has interfered in many elections around the world, including the 2011 Russian parliamentary election. These resentments set the stage for where we’re at now, says UConn's Frank Costigliola.