Provost Search Candidates to Visit Campus Starting Monday

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 15, 2022) — The message below was sent to the campus community today from Nancy Cox, UK vice president for land-grant engagement and dean of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, and Joe Reed, UK chief accountability officer and audit executive.

Campus Community,

After an extensive national search, we are pleased to inform you that the university will bring multiple finalists for provost to campus for forums and meetings, beginning April 18.

The chief academic officer for our institution is a critical position, and we are creating multiple opportunities to hear from — and engage with — outstanding academic leaders from across the country.

Our goal is to complete on-campus visits by the end of the month, so that President Capilouto can be in a position to extend an offer to our next provostbefore the end of the academic year.

Next steps

• The university is finalizing the itineraries for on-campus interviews, which will begin April 18 and continue through the end of the month.
• As in other major searches, names and CVs of finalists will be made available to the UK community 24 hours prior to each finalist’s campus visit.
• So, the first candidate’s name and CV for the April 18 visit will be posted April 17 — 24 hours before the forum — on our provost search website. You must have a link blue ID to access this information.

Here’s how you can be involved

1. Campus Forums

The first provost candidate forum will be:

• Monday, April 18, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Worsham Cinema, Gatton Student Center.
• The university will tape the forum, and you can view it on the provost search website here.
• An online survey about the candidate also will be available on the search site here.
• Feedback from the survey will be gathered for 48 hours after the candidate forum.
• The short survey will provide the opportunity for members of our community to assess strengths and areas of growth for each candidate.
• We will communicate to the campus regarding the dates and times for subsequent forums as soon as possible, utilizing the same process as described above for the first candidate.

2. Other avenues for feedback

• Small group meetings will be scheduled and held with each candidate.
• Invitations to those small group sessions will be distributed shortly as schedules for candidates are finalized.

President Capilouto formed the provost search committee last December. This committee had broad and diverse representation from throughout the campus, among our faculty, staff and students. We thank our fellow committee members for their excellent work in reviewing a large group of candidates. Thanks to this work, outstanding finalists for this critical position will be visiting us over the next few weeks.

The quality of these candidates, of course, is a testament to the quality of this community — our mission and our commitment to it and the growing reputation we have as an institution focused on excellence in education and teaching, scholarship and research, service and care.

We look forward to the opportunity you will have to interact with these academic leaders and understand more about their vision for the academy and the University of Kentucky.

We hope you will take the opportunity to participate in these important events in the life of our campus.

Thank you.

Nancy Cox,

Vice President for Land-Grant Engagement and Dean of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment

Joe Reed,

Chief Accountability Officer and Audit Executive