The Presidential Search Advisory Committee Monday extended its timeline and agreed to draft a profile of the university for potential candidates to view.

Committee member Bud Fischer, biological sciences professor and Faculty Senate chair, said the committee has pushed back its schedule two weeks. An additional week was added to budget time for checking the references of preliminary candidates and another week was added to compensate for spring break.

However, the revised schedule still has the committee making its final recommendations before Eastern’s Board of Trustees meets on April 15.

The preliminary reference checking will take place the week of Jan. 28. That will be followed by the selection of eight to 10 candidates to be interviewed off campus the week of Feb. 11. Between Feb. 27 and March 1, off-site interviews will be conducted in Indianapolis.

Then finalists will visit campus the week of March 18 and the search committee will conclude its work on April 4 when it will select at least three finalists to submit to the BOT.

The committee instructed Jim Appleberry, consultant from Academic Search Consultation Service, the firm hired to aid in the presidential search, to begin drafting the university profile on Monday. The committee will review that profile on Jan. 7, the first day of the spring semester, Shelly Flock, Media Relations director said.

Appleberry was at Eastern last week, meeting with various campus and community groups to discuss issues currently relevant to the university. Flock said Appleberry described Eastern as a “strong, very committed institution ready to work with the next president,” and that the need for stable leadership was a concern expressed by many of the groups he met with.

In addition to the profile, Appleberry will also provide committee members with a form designed to aid them in reviewing candidates’ credentials, Flock said.