The consultant hired to aid in Eastern’s search for its next president is hosting an open meeting tonight for the public to provide feedback.

Jim Appleberry, of Academic Search Consultation Service, has invited any interested students, faculty, staff, administrators and members of the community to attend tonight’s 6 p.m. meeting in the Schahrer Room on the third floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

Appleberry also has scheduled separate meetings with groups of faculty, staff, administrators and community members, which will take place today and Wednesday.

Those interested are encouraged to attend tonight’s meeting and share with Appleberry their views on the university’s current status and future concerns.

“What they’re coming here to do is find out a little bit about Eastern,” Faculty Senate Chair Bud Fischer said Tuesday.

Fischer, a biological sciences professor, is one of the three faculty members on the Presidential Search Advisory Committee, which will evaluate applicants for the position. Fellow senate member Luis Clay Mendez, foreign languages professor, also serves on the committee, which last met Monday via conference call.

At that meeting, the search committee discussed compiling a university profile, which Appleberry’s firm would distribute to applicants to give them some background on Eastern.

“The discussion was ‘Do we really want to give them that much info or not?,”’ Fischer told the senate Tuesday.

He said most committee members agree that the profile would have to be general, outlining Eastern’s current status and stating future challenges.

Mendez expressed concern that the profile might affect the goals that a new president would set for his or her first two years at Eastern. However, he was pleased that Appleberry said the committee would have final editing control over the profile.

Fischer said committee members would have the opportunity to view some of the profiles Appleberry’s firm had developed for other universities before continuing discussion next week.