We have now entered the last -- and most important -- phase of our search for UK's 12th President.

On Monday, the Presidential Search Committee completed its work, recommending a small number of finalists for the presidency to the full Board of Trustees.

The 13-member search committee -- composed of faculty and staff leaders, students, alums and board members -- has done a superb job as they have worked tirelessly to find the best candidates to lead our university at a critical moment in its history.

As I told the faculty senate Monday afternoon, any one of these candidates would be a tremendous president. But the responsiblity now of our board is to pick the absolute best person to lead the institution.

Over the next few weeks, I'm sure board members will be reviewing the resumes and backgrounds of the finalists. We will meet the last weekend in April in Northern Kentucky to interview those finalists and select a preferred candidate. If all goes as planned, that candidate will spend a day on campus meeting with faculty, students and staff on May 2.

We are creating an on-line survey so that those who listen to and interact with the candidate can provide instant feedback to the board, which we will use in further evaluating this critical selection. Our hope -- and, indeed, our expectation -- is that we will be in a position to extend a formal offer to UK's 12th president on May 3rd during our regularly scheduled board meeting.

The new president and spouse would be in a position then to begin the busy work of transition before formally starting July 1.

It has been a whirlwind several months since we embarked on this process last fall. We created an ambitious timeline, but because of the diligent and focused work of our search committee -- and many others -- we are on the verge of moving forward in selecting UK's next president, someone we will depend upon to build on the strong foundation that President Lee T. Todd Jr. has created the last 10 years.

As I told the faculty leadership Monday, Dr. Todd's vision -- and their intellectual drive and achievement -- have resulted in consequential and significant accomplishments over the last decade, even as we have been confronted with a challenging and often stagnant economy. By every measure of progress -- research, student achievement, faculty quality and service to our Commonwealth -- this university, the University of Kentucky, is on the right track. We are stronger, more vibrant and more nationallly recognized for our academic achievement than at virtually any time in our nearly 150-year history.

Now, with our next leader, we must position ourselves and this institution to chart a bold course forward. We will continue toward our goal of Top 20, not for the sake of reaching some numerical goal, but because Kentucky needs us to reach higher, to dream bigger and to accomplish more.

The last several months, and the last week in particular as we have moved toward a decisive phase in this process, have affirmed for me that we are on the right path.