The Presidential Search Committee will meet Wednesday to set the application deadline for Eastern’s ninth president and establish the timeline for the search process to replace interim President Lou Hencken.

The search committee, consisting of 13 members, will meet at 10 a.m. in the Scharer Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. The committee consists of faculty, administrators and Board of Trustees members.

Betsy Mitchell, a BOT member, will serve as chair of the committee.

Jone Zieren, director of financial aid, said the meeting will also discuss what type of president the university is looking for and any advertisements planned for the position.

The university has been searching for a full-time replacement for former President Carol Surles since she resigned in July 2001 because of breast cancer. Hencken, who had previously served as vice president for student affairs, assumed the presidential role on an interim basis Aug. 1, 2001.

A nationwide search spanned nine months, but Eastern’s top choice, John Cavanaugh, the former vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, took a job at the University of West Florida.

The last search began in September 2001 and concluded in April 2002. Zieren says the committee will use last search’s timetable as a reference point, but she said this time the process will “hopefully move it up a bit by a month or so.”

Administration editor Tim Martin can be reached at noles_acc@yahoo.com