President Bill Perry’s time as Eastern’s president will end in June, but before leaving, he took some time to meet with the four presidential candidates and offer them insight into his current position.

“I think they’re excellent candidates,” Perry said. “I believe the search committee has done a great job in developing the candidate pool and in selecting the finalists.”

Perry said he believes each of the candidates have a good experience in higher education, and whoever is selected will be able to work with all the faculty, staff and students and be able to deal with the challenges ahead.

“I think it’s going very well and I’m looking forward to seeing who the board selects and brings here as the next president,” Perry said.

The Board of Trustees will make its decision out of four finalists: Margaret Madden, David Glassman, Sam Minner and Guiyou Huang by its March 13 meeting.

Each finalist is currently the provost and vice president for academic affairs at their respective institution.

While he has no final say in choosing who will become the next president, Perry said that he met each of the candidates individually in an hour-long session in his office.

“I spoke with each of the finalists for an hour on the phone, and then when they come to campus for the day long itinerary, I meet with them in here for breakfast,” Perry said. “My approach in both of those has been to just see how I can assist and answering questions, giving them information, insight, anything I can do so that the finalist are well informed.”

Perry said he will miss some things after he is no longer Eastern’s president.

“The thing I’m going to miss the most is of course the daily interaction with people, inside the office and outside the office,” Perry said. “What I’m doing this semester is that when I go to these event on campus, I’m really being attentive because I know that this will be the last time that I’m going to these events as president.”

While he will no longer be the president of Eastern, Perry said he still plans on coming back for Homecoming and other events on campus.

“I think it’s really important that everybody should pay attention to all the great things that go on here and participating in them,” Perry said. “You’ve got to seize each day and just get everything you can out of each day.”

Perry said he plans on moving to Dallas because his family lives in Texas.

“I want to get better at languages,” Perry said. “I want to get involved with more hands-on community service. I want to learn to play a musical instrument. There’s traveling, visiting with family and we want to spend a lot of time with our grandson.”

Perry said he would like to do some consulting after he vacates his position at Eastern.

“I like activity; I like being busy,” Perry said. “For 44 years, I have been working in higher education, and I’ve enjoyed it all. But it’s time to do some other things.”

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or lpmartinez@eiu.edu.