UK’s provost is one of two finalists for a university president job.

Provost Kumble Subbaswamy will visit Iowa State University’s campus Wednesday through Friday to meet with different university groups, according to an Iowa State news release.

Roger Underwood, Iowa State’s search committee co-chair, said Subbaswamy “communicated a great passion for the job.”

Subbaswamy will attend a one-hour public forum on Thursday, Underwood said.

Iowa State spokesman John McCarroll said the search committee began its search for a new president in June, after current president Gregory Geoffroy announced in March he would retire by July 2012.

Geoffroy is a Kentucky native, Underwood said.

The search committee hired Parker Executive Search out of Atlanta for the search, McCarroll said.

Four candidates were originally invited to be finalists, search committee co-chair Labh Hira said in the news release.

Two of the finalists withdrew, Hira said, leaving Subbaswamy and Steven Leath, vice president for research and sponsored programs at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Underwood said the committee is “very satisfied with the two finalists.”

McCarroll said both candidates will be on campus this week for public forums. Soon after, the search committee will convene and review online comments. The committee will then report its findings to the Board of Regents, which will invite the candidates to meet with it.

“We will be deciding on our president next week,” Underwood said.

UK President Eli Capilouto said Subbaswamy informed him that he was a finalist.

“In the short time that we have worked together, we are building a close and strong working relationship,” Capilouto said in an email to the Kernel, “so I am not at all surprised that another high-quality institution would be interested in him, given his outstanding work at UK.”

Iowa State is a public research university in Ames, Iowa. It has an enrollment of almost 30,000, according to its website.

This is not the first time Subbaswamy has interviewed for a university’s president position.

An Illinois newspaper reported this summer that Subbaswamy was a runner-up for the University of Illinois’ president position last year.

In July, UK spokesman Jay Blanton said the provost didn’t have any comment on the matter.

Blanton said Subbaswamy relayed to him that the Illinois interview process happened more than a year ago.

“He was honored with their interest, but he is very happy at the University of Kentucky,” Blanton said.

Subbaswamy became UK’s second provost July 1, 2006, according to UK’s website. He first came to UK in 1978, when he joined the physics faculty.

During his first 18 years at UK, he served as associate dean of arts and sciences and chair of the physics and astronomy department, UK’s website said. He left UK in 1997 to be the dean of arts and sciences at the University of Miami, before going to Indiana University in July 2000 as the dean of arts and sciences, where he stayed until 2006.