By Dan Adkins

The presidential search committee will screen candidates and give the trustees a list of finalists.

The search committee, appointed by UK Board of Trustees chairman Billy Joe Miles, is made up of five trustees, three faculty members, a graduate student, an undergraduate student, one staff representative and one alumnus.

The committee will screen candidates and give the university’s trustees a list of finalists.  The group has chosen a leading professional search firm, Chicago-based A.T. Kearney Executive Search, to assist in looking for a new president.

Established in 1946, A.T. Kearney has more than 100 years of combined team experience in placing university deans, presidents, chancellors and other institutional governance across North America, for private and public institutions including the universities of Georgia, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Virginia, and Louisiana State University and Vanderbilt University, among others.

Jan D. Greenwood, Ph.D., a nine-year veteran of higher education placements and vice president of education practice at A.T. Kearney, is coordinating the search effort with the UK committee.  She has conducted searches for major research universities, and was a vice president and professor at a research university and administrator and faculty member at two additional research universities.

Greenwood said she believes there is an extraordinary opportunity waiting at UK for the next president.   “The commitment from the state you have here makes this a tremendous opportunity for someone to come in and make substantial strides,” she said.

A key component to the presidential search is identifying desirable candidate characteristics.  The UK Senate’s Futures Committee, a group of faculty members, staff and students, submitted a report last March listing leadership attributes of UK’s next president.   According to the report, the new president should be a strong academic with teaching, research and high-level administration experience.  This person also should be a visionary leader who inspires, energizes and mobilizes diverse groups.

The search committee continues to seek input from Kentuckians at town meetings across the state.  Meetings currently are scheduled Aug. 7 at the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville; Aug. 10 at Paducah Community College in Paducah; Aug. 21 at the Greater Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce Building; Aug. 28 at the Drawbridge Inn in Fort Mitchell; and Aug. 30 at Norsworthy Auditorium in Lexington.

The public also can offer comments and obtain current information about the presidential search committee at its Web site at www.uky.edu/PresidentialSearch/. Feedback forms for comments and suggestions can be found at the site.

With the help of the forums, the Web site and the professional search firm, the tentative schedule for the search process shows a list of applicants for review as early as September.  The committee hopes to begin interviewing semi-finalists in November and December and select finalists in January.  This schedule calls for the full Board of Trustees to name the eleventh UK president early next year.