The last of three finalists in Eastern’s presidential search arrives Friday for interviews and tours of the campus and community.

John Cavanaugh, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, will be interviewed by deans, directors and department chairs; each of the members of the President’s Council and the president’s direct reports; the Board of Trustees and the search committee on Friday and Saturday.

An open session primarily for staff to interview Cavanaugh will be held at 10:40 a.m. Friday in the 1895 Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. The student-geared open session will be at 3 p.m. the same day in the same room, and at 5 p.m. will be an open forum for the campus and community in the 1895 Room.

On Saturday, faculty will have the opportunity to interview Cavanaugh at 9:40 a.m. in the Arcola/Tuscola Room in the Union.

Cavanaugh’s other administrative positions include vice provost for academic programs and planning, associate provost for graduate studies, interim associate provost for admissions and financial aid and chair of the department of individual and family studies at the University of Delaware.

At Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio Cavanaugh took on administrative positions including director of the Institute for Psychological Research and Application, special assistant to the dean of the College of Health and Human Services and vice chair of the department of psychology. Cavanaugh also acted as director for behavioral research at the at the Northwest Ohio Dementia and Memory Center at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo.

In his current position at UNC-Wilmington, Cavanaugh decentralized the academic affairs budget to transfer power to deans, chairs and directors. As vice provost for academic programs and planning, he restructured the university honors program.

Cavanaugh earned his master’s and his doctorate in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Research in Human Learning and the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. He received his bachelor’s in psychology with high honors from the University of Deleware and attended St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia.

Eastern began seeking a new president last July when Carol Surles, the university’s eighth president, resigned to pursue treatment for breast cancer. Since then, Lou Hencken, then vice president for student affairs, has acted as interim president.

Once the on-campus interviews are complete, the search committee will send its critiques of each candidate to the Board of Trustees, which will make the final decision.

The search committee’s first finalist, Livingston Alexander, vice president for academic affairs at Kean University in Union, N.J., visited Eastern Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, Philip Conn, vice chancellor for special programs at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, came to Eastern for tours and interviews.