URBANA — A new chancellor for the Urbana campus may not be named until July, President Michael Hogan said Monday.

Hogan said the search is "in good shape" with "very, very good and competitive" applicants.

But he added, "The timeline is a little bit behind where I want it to be."

He said a chancellor should be named by the end of July, and search committee Chairman Doug Beck, a professor of physics, concurred.

Both were hopeful the new chancellor should be able to arrive by the start of the new academic year on campus, which officially begins Aug. 16.

A typical search of this nature takes about six months, Beck said. Hogan didn't appoint a search committee until mid-December, and with the holidays, work couldn't begin in earnest until early January, Beck said.

"I didn't really have any expectation that it was going to go a whole lot faster," he said.

Neither Beck nor Hogan would discuss how many candidates remain in the running, citing a concern for confidentiality.

"I'm pleased with the progress. This is about where we expected to be," Beck said. "We promised everybody that it's going to be confidential. The people are very good people at very good places. We certainly don't want to jeopardize their positions at their institutions."

The current chancellor, Robert Easter, is serving on an interim basis and plans to retire once a new chancellor is named. He replaced Richard Herman, who resigned in October 2009 following disclosures about the UI's "Category I" admissions scandal. A state investigative panel, following up on media reports, concluded that in a five-year period scores of politically connected students were admitted to the UI over more-qualified applicants because of pressure brought by trustees and other influential backers.

The chancellor now also carries the title of university vice president.