The Presidential Search Committee this week completed more than 30 hours of interviews – over a little more than three days – with the candidates for UK President.

As exhausting as the last few days have been, in an important sense, the search is about to get even more challenging.

That’s because the quality of the field of candidates is so high and impressive, I think our most difficult task in the weeks ahead will be cutting a list of several potential presidents down to three-to-five finalists. For more about the interview process, read http://uknow.uky.edu/content/uk-presidential-search-track-finalists-selection.

That’s a good challenge to have, though, and I’m confident – given our process thus far and the impressiveness of those in the pool – that we have a field of finalists eminently qualified to be UK’s 12th President.

I’m also confident we will select finalists when the search committee meets again April 11. But, more importantly, my hope – and my expectation -- is that over the last 48 hours or so, we’ve interviewed the University of Kentucky’s 12th president. That’s how impressed I was with the depth and breadth of experience and the exciting ideas and sense of innovation that many candidates brought to the table the last few days as we interviewed preferred nominees in Northern Kentucky.

Once we decide on finalists, the full board will then interview the candidates and make a decision about a preferred candidate or candidates to present to the campus before a final vote and execution of a contract.

We remain on track to complete this process by early May. It’s important that we keep moving forward quickly. But the more important thing is to do it right.

Several of our candidates, I believe, are vying for other top-level university posts. So, we need to move expeditiously with our process.

To that end, we have narrowed the pool – slightly – of candidates about whom we want more information. We will now do what our consultants call a 360-degree vetting. We will check their resumes, talk to their references and review in more detail what they told us during the interviews.

What did  we learn about our candidates the past few days?

Our candidate pool is diverse in terms of gender, race, ethnicity and background.  Most are from universities, but we also have talked with candidates from the private and governmental sectors. 

I think the best of those we interviewed are emboldened by the Top 20 mandate. And we made clear that we are not backing off the mandate. It’s not simply a state requirement. We  told candidates it’s the right thing for UK. It’s the right challenge for Kentucky.

With that, we also discussed the financial challenges confronting UK and the state, which while significant are not as severe as those confronted by many states.

Yet, many of them discussed ideas about how to  generate additional resources, while also continuing to emphasize support from the state and a continued and increased emphasis on fund-raising.

Some talked about international programs and students; some discussed innovations in on-line learning and instruction, an initiative we’ve started in earnest in the last couple of years under Dr. Todd’s leadership and plan to expand going forward.

We also discussed in great detail the need to deepen connections with  those we serve out in the state. We want to continue to improve relations with Lexington as the city’s largest employer and its economic engine, something Mayor Gray and I have discussed at length.

At the same time, we are not the University of Lexington. We are the University of Kentucky. And that was a point stressed to us  by people across the state during our recent 16-city tour and forums. We don’t have the community colleges any more, but we could and should increase services and connections with them. And we want more of their students graduating from UK. We also have the extension service, which operates in all 120 counties and engenders great support from across the state. We can utilize that service even more in solidifying and deepening connections.

We have been building those connections under Dr. Todd through research focused directly on Kentucky’s health, education and economic development challenges. It will up to us, and our next president, to strengthen and expand those connections and that level of service throughout the Commonwealth.

President Todd – along with our faculty, staff and students – has built a strong foundation with his Top 20 Business Plan. Now, we are looking to someone to build on that foundation.

I think we have that person in our pool.  Now, we face the challenge of narrowing down our pool of candidates and recruiting that one person to lead this institution over the next several years.