Margaret E. Winters will participate in on-campus interviews Wednesday for Eastern’s position of provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Winters, current interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs and research at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, is one of five final candidates in the search for a permanent vice president for academic affairs at Eastern.

“Generally I recommend campus constituents come to the university senate’s meeting or the open session,” said Bonnie Irwin, chair of the search committee for the vice president for academic affairs.

The open session meeting will be held from 4:30 to 5:20 p.m. in the 1895 room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. The university senate’s meeting, which consists of the staff, student and faculty senates, will be held between 1 and 1:50 p.m. in the 1895 room of the union.

“I find the job very interesting and challenging,” Winters said in a Daily Egyptian, SIU’s student newspaper, article about her current position. “In some ways, this position represents faculty and advocates faculty.”

Winters was one of the final candidates in SIU’s own search for a permanent vice chancellor of academic affairs and research before the search was canceled in May of 2000 by SIU Interim Chancellor John Jackson, who was reacting to faculty concerns about hiring a vice chancellor while the chancellor position was not permanently filled.

Before being appointed to her current position, Winters served for six years as associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, where she held the responsibility for academic personnel issues, negotiation and administration of contracts with the SIUC Faculty Association (IEA/NES), according to her resume.

As interim vice chancellor of academic affairs and research, Winters has responsibility for and oversight over a budget of about $120 million; approximately 3,500 faculty, graduate assistants and staff; and programs for 11 colleges and Schools.

In all, Winters has worked at SIU for 22 years, working her way up from assistant professor of foreign languages in 1978. She began her career at SIU shortly after receiving her doctorate in romance linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania.