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Including Hogan, seven candidates interviewed for the position in Des Moines on Nov. 10 and 11. Several members of the 19-member presidential search committee confirmed Hogan was one of the four finalists unanimously submitted to the Iowa state Board of Regents on Nov. 14.

Hogan said he was interviewed for about two hours and it was a polite, civil atmosphere. Members of the search committee, the campus advisory committee and all nine regents participated in the interviews.

"It was a very professional interview. I enjoyed it. I thought it went very well. I was very pleased by the atmosphere, the questions and my responses. I thought they were receptive," Hogan said.

Regents, including President Michael Gartner, Ruth Harkin, Amir Arbisser, president pro tem and search committee chairwoman Teresa Wahlert -- who all sat on the search committee -- voted 6 to 2 on Nov. 17 to reject the finalists and dissolve the search committee. The decision has caused uproar on the UI campus, included pending votes of no-confidence in the regents by student, faculty and staff governing bodies.

Hogan declined to comment on the fallout from the regent decision and what is next for him.

Hogan said he was nominated and applied in August for the job vacated by David Skorton, who was named president of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Skorton hired Hogan as provost in 2004. Former business dean Gary Fethke is serving as interim president.

The list of four finalists included three sitting provosts on large campuses with health care operations and a president at a mid-sized college, search committee members said.

At UI, all five health science deans report to Hogan.

Gartner has noted the finalists lacked health science experience and there was a lack of diversity among the finalists, particularly that there were no women, as reasons for rejecting the finalists. One finalist was black.

Search committee co-vice chairwoman and UI history professor Katherine Tachau had questioned the diversity make-up in a pool of 21 in an Oct. 18 e-mail to the committee. Nathan Sutton of Heidrick and Struggles, the firm paid $110,000 in state money to help with the failed search, said the field included racial, ethnic and gender diversity.

Tachau has said she thinks the search was called off because Gartner favored a female candidate that was not among the names forwarded to the regents.

The Des Moines Register has reported that Deborah Freund, a former vice chancellor and provost at Syracuse University, was one of the final seven and Gartner's preferred candidate, but not one of the final four. Freund has not returned phone messages.

It is unclear when the search for the president will resume or what its structure will be.