Standing in front of a room of smiling faces, Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell bid an emotional farewell Tuesday ahead of his June retirement.

“It has been emotional and we’ve not been afraid to express it,” Ransdell said of he and his wife, Julie. “That’s what we want for our students. We want all of our students to be all in.”

Students, faculty and staff met to celebrate Ransdell’s 20-year tenure during a retirement reception hosted by the WKU Alumni Association. Many who attended said they’ll remember Ransdell as a leader who shepherded WKU through a transition from a regional college to a nationally recognized school with international horizons.

Among them was President Robert King of the Kentucky Council for Postsecondary Education.

“He had in mind a destiny for this place,” he said, describing WKU’s vision to become a leading university with international reach. “It is what he saw as what this place needed to become, and he has made it that … this university has achieved that stature.”

Scott Lyons, the graduate school dean, agreed.

“I think his vision for the university when he got here was transformative,” he said, stressing development of the campus’ facilities, doctoral and other academic programs.

“The success of the College of Health and Human Services has been tremendous,” he said.

David Lee, vice president for academic affairs, also praised Julie Ransdell for her poise, grace and as someone “utterly unflappable.”

“In some ways, I think the really hard part of her goal is reading those unarticulated expectations coming from so many different perspectives and charting a course for herself that is true to the person she is,” she said. “There’s no roadmap for that sort of thing and Julie has done that amazingly well over 20 years.”

Jeffrey Katz, dean of the Gordon Ford College of Business, said that he was convinced to come to WKU because of Ransdell’s vision of community engagement and student-centered focus. After six years as dean, Katz described Ransdell as a role model and transformational president.

“He’s a visionary. He’s a tireless worker and he rallies people around him to share in that vision,” he said.

Dean of Libraries Connie Foster, who’s retiring in June after 41 years in the university’s library system, appreciated Ransdell’s support for campus libraries. She’s sad to see Ransdell and his wife, Julie, go, she said.

“He’s done it with huge dedication and enthusiasm,” she said.

Ransdell hasn’t been idle in his last year as WKU’s president. He recently led an effort to create a new state higher education funding model based on performance on outcomes such as graduation rate and credit hour accumulation.

The process involved getting the state’s competing higher education institutions to agree on a recommendation to lawmakers, which they then passed into law.

King told the Daily News that reining in the institutions’ varying interests took a skillful diplomat and compromiser.

“It was a very significant undertaking that he managed to do really superbly,” he said.

Although King joked that he sometimes has to “rein in” Ransdell, he said he wished all of the state’s university presidents were as ambitious.