UKNOW University of Kentucky News

Timeline for UK presidential search unveiled

We've reached another important milestone in our process to name the University of Kentucky's 12th president.

Today, we released a tentative schedule that outlines our course over the next few weeks in terms of selecting and interviewing finalists and then, ultimately, making sure the campus community has the appropriate opportunity to provide needed input before our new president is selected.

The attached link -- www.uky.edu/PresidentialSearch/timeline.html -- outines the schedule in detail. In short, though, our search committee -- which has done an outstanding job and worked so well together -- hopes to select a handful of finalists on April 11.

The full Board of Trustees will then review those finalists and their resumes on April 30 and conduct interviews on May 1. A preferred candidate will be selected and announced by the board the evening of May 1. On May 2, a series of forums for faculty, students and staff will be held on the UK campus so that this critically important community will have the opportunity to meet the person we hope will be our next president.

We are in the process of creating an on-line assessment tool so that those attending the forums can provide immediate feedback about our preferred candidate. That feedback will be reviewed by board members before their meeting the next day, May 3, at which time we hope to formally announce UK's 12th president.

It's important to note that we have asked the members of the search committee who are not on the Board of Trustees to attend the upcoming board meetings and provide us with their feedback and thoughts. We are doing that because of how much we respect what they have brought to the table in helping lead this process. I knew, going into this search, that we had some incredible faculty, students and staff.

Interacting with some of them during the search as part of the committee has reinforced and strengthened that feeling of respect for the work they do and the quality they exemplify for this instituiton.

I also continue to be excited about the quality of the candidates we have interviewed. I am confident that, at the end of this process, we will have a new president poised to build on the undeniably strong foundation of progress built by President Todd and so many others at UK.

We live in challenging times. But those challenges also mean opportunities for us as we work, together, to lead Kentucky to a brighter, more prosperous and educated future.