The university is conducting a national search based on best practices that includes listening to stakeholders, engaging a specialty search firm and identifying an advisory group to the president. The search process has included listening sessions with students, faculty, staff, alumni, student athletes, student athlete alumni, coaches, athletic department staff and the community.

The Planning Group will share feedback with Interim President Lori Stewart Gonzalez and an Athletic Director Search Advisory Group, which will work with the search firm to create a leadership statement/job description for the athletic director position and to inform decisions made during the search process.

The search firm will be retained within the next few weeks. From that time, the search process should take three to five weeks, Gonzalez said.

After structured interviews, background checks and other key elements of a structured search, the Advisory Group will advise the president, who will select the final candidate pending input from the Board and any necessary approvals.

“We have committed to a thorough search conducted with integrity and diligence,” Gonzalez said. “This process will help us secure an athletic director who will have the skills and experience necessary to lead our program now and in the future.”

The committee charged with finding UofL’s next president cited those and other traits when discussing their ideal candidate.

The 16 committee members held their first meeting in Grawemeyer Hall March 15. They focused on organizational issues, including the establishment of two subcommittees, one to develop an RFP for a search firm and the other to compile a list of characteristics and qualifications to use in finding the university’s next leader.

Committee Co-chair David Grissom will lead the characteristics subcommittee; Co-chair John Schnatter will head the RFP group.

Stressing the strengths of his fellow committee members, Grissom said the group “cannot fail.” He stressed that the group should look for someone “who can manage what is and imagine what will be,” and who has personal and financial integrity.

Faculty, staff and student reps Enid Trucios-Haynes, Will Armstrong and Aaron Vance stated the need for someone who appreciates shared governance, who is dedicated to diversity, inclusion and transparency and who holds a “students-first” focus. Trucios-Haynes also stressed the need for significant, formal faculty input, as called for in the Redbook, the university’s governance document.

The group also discussed a timeline for the search. While stressing the need for action, the group agreed that preparatory work — including gathering input from faculty, staff, students and other constituencies — will take two to three months, with interviews probably beginning no sooner than late summer or early fall.

Citing resolution of issues like the current SACS probation and a forensic audit of the UofL Foundation, Grissom stated that the university needs some “wins” before it pursues candidates.

“We need to do (the search) right rather than quickly,” he said.