The Presidential Search Advisory Committee will meet the nine remaining presidential candidates face to face this week.

The committee is holding off-campus interviews today and Wednesday at the Hilton Garden Inn in Champaign to narrow the candidate pool to four or five applicants, said Robert Webb, search committee chair and vice chair of the Board of Trustees.

He expects the individual interviews to last approximately two hours for each candidate.

“At that time then, we hope to select the four (or five) candidates that we feel will best have the qualities of leadership that we are looking for,” Webb said.

The committee previously narrowed the list of candidates from 14 to nine during a five-hour meeting on Feb. 20.

“We had originally talked about choosing eight, but the committee was most in agreement on those nine,” Webb said.

The committee members have agreed about the candidates during the process so far, Webb said.

“We’re all looking for different qualities I suppose, in a way, the committee has been very much in agreement all the way to this point, and we think that’s a good thing,” Webb said. “It gives us encouragement that when we get down to finalist we will pretty much be in agreement as well.”

Vicki Woodard of university communications said she anticipates the names of the final candidates to be announced by March 7 so that the campus community can prepare for on-campus interviews that could begin as soon as Monday, March 19, the first day of classes following spring break.

Today and Wednesday’s meetings will be in executive session for confidentiality of the candidates applying for the position. However, the final four or five applicants must agree to release their names in order to do on-campus interviews.

“Obviously, when candidates are on campus and meeting with various groups on campus, we’re going to know who they are and where they work and so forth,” Webb said. “We have to know who they are in order to evaluate their qualifications for this position.”

The confidentiality kept throughout the search process is meant to protect applicants who might be sitting president or vice presidents at other universities.

Webb said the campus should expect a university-wide e-mail that will include information about the on-campus interviews.

There were originally 58 applicants for the position. Webb expects the committee to recommend about three candidates to the board that will then vote on who will become Eastern’s next president.