(Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part series looking at what campus leaders want in Eastern’s next president.)

By Pat Guinane

Associate news editor

Faculty and staff representatives want the university’s next president to understand where Eastern is as an institution and also possess the vision necessary to plan for the future.

To carry out such a vision, Eastern’s ninth president may need to commit to staying at Eastern for five or even 10 years. This was not the case with the university’s last president, Carol Surles, who was forced to resign because of breast cancer. Surles resigned in July, just over two years after coming to Eastern in March of 1999.

Faculty and staff members want their new president to be a strong voice that can relate to outside constituents in many matters, the most important of which is funding. Some feel that Surles provided that voice, but others believe that their next president must also be approachable on campus, a trait they relate more to interim President Lou Hencken than to Surles.

Hencken, vice president for student affairs since 1992, has been at Eastern for more than 35 years and many agree that the university’s next president should know the university’s history the way Hencken does.

David Radavich, English professor and president of Eastern’s chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois, the faculty union, said getting to know the university’s history will allow the next president to understand the core goals of the institution.

“Anyone who comes in would have to understand the 100-year tradition that we have,” he said. “We have strong liberal arts tradition and we also have strong emphasis on teacher education and so that’s the core of who we are.”

To foster that knowledge, Radavich would like to see a president who has teaching experience or who at least understands the process and what teachers and students go through. He said Eastern’s seventh president, David Jorns, who Surles replaced, had that quality.

“I thought David Jorns, for instance, understood what being in the classroom was and understood teachers and liked students,” Radavich said. “I think he had that strength in the way that some other presidents did not.”

Luis Clay Mendez, foreign languages professor, is a member of the Faculty Senate and serves on the current Presidential Search Advisory Committee. He also served on the committee that recommended Jorns. He wants the next president to provide a voice for the university.

“That’s what I thought Carol Surles, was very good at,” he said. “Even if some people consider her to be lacking in a person-to-person sort of ability, she was a wonderful spokesperson for the university.”

However, the president must also maintain a presence on campus.

“Those wonderful qualities, when it came to public speaking and addressing the legislature on our behalf, were diminished somewhat by this ability to communicate on campus,” Mendez said of Surles, admitting that Eastern’s eighth president could be a bit intimidating. “Where, for example, Lou Hencken is so approachable. You see him at any kind of get together and say ‘hi’ and he’ll take the time to talk to you.”

Balancing act

Sandra Bingham-Porter, data processing analyst and Staff Senate chair, said Eastern has seen presidents who work well on campus and those who have excelled working with outside constituents. Bingham-Porter said that she is not alone in thinking the university needs a president who can balance the two realms.

“It’s kind of a middle of the road because we have had both ends of the spectrum,” she said. “A lot of staff members feel that way also.”

Bingham-Porter also said that because Eastern is the largest employer in both Charleston and Coles County, the president must be aware that decisions the university makes have far-reaching implications. She would like the next president to realize how greatly the university affects the local economy and consider programs that encourage students to spend money locally.

As for the university spending money, faculty and staff members agree that the next president will have to go and seek out that money first in the form of state funding and private donations.

“The new president needs to understand the realities of fund-raising and have the ability to work with the legislature, donors and the (EIU) Foundation,” Radavich said. “That’s an important part of the job too.”

Bingham-Porter agrees that fund-raising is an essential part of the president’s job.

“The president has to be on board for lobbying for funding,” she said. “Whether private money or public money, that is a big factor of what’s needed.”

Looking to the future

Increased state support and more private giving will allow the university to undertake new projects. Radavich and Mendez said Eastern’s ninth president must possess the vision to look down the road and plan for such projects. They also want the next president to stay around long enough to carry out his or her vision.

“With all things being equal, give me someone who has a vision for the next five years,” Mendez said. “I would hope that our next president is at least able to commit five-to-10 good years – at least five.”

Radavich agreed that the university needs a president who is willing to stay for at least five years. He said a candidate’s resume can reveal his or her career plans.

“There are some candidates who only want to spend two or three years in a place and that’s something that shows up in their resume,” Radavich said. “The average in Illinois now and nationwide apparently is three years, which I think is way too short, really, because it probably takes a year to become familiar with the job.”

Eastern just this year hired a new provost, Blair Lord. Radavich said that when the interview process was going he was impressed with the fact that Lord had been at his previous institution, the University of Rhode Island, for 23 years.

Mendez served on the committee that recommended Lord and he said the committee didn’t recommend another candidate because that person gave the impression that he or she might retire in a year or two.

“And to a lot of people on the committee, that was a red flag,” Mendez said. “That person was not going to provide the stability that we were hoping to get in a (provost), which is the highest academic officer on campus.”

Mendez said that coming from a communist country, Cuba, he enjoys participating in the democratic process. He said he was proud to serve on the committees that appointed both Jorns and Lord and hopes he will be just as proud when Eastern finally selects its ninth president.

“When we selected Jorns, I thought that we had done a wonderful job and when we selected Blair Lord, I thought he was going to be the answer to every one of our expectations. So I want to say the same thing about the next president,” he said.

“I want to be able to say proudly, ‘Guess what? I was on the committee that appointed that guy.'”