Interim President Lou Hencken will present his State of the University Address at 3 p.m. Tuesday in University Ballroom of the Martin Luther King, Jr. University Union.

This will be Hencken’s only State of the University address. His replacement is expected to take over sometime this summer.

Hencken was unavailable to comment on the speech Monday because he was in Springfield “defending our budget to state legislators,” said Shirley Stewart, vice president for student affairs.

Hencken will probably discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of the university, Stewart said. He may also give direction to areas Eastern needs to work on, she said.

This year, Eastern finally completed a $21 million renovation of Booth Library which took over 30 months, partly because of delays.

The first delay came when the south entrance stairwell had to be redone. That delayed the project an additional 38 days.

Then the university had to wait until the north entrance was completed in order to open the doors.

The university also saw the opening of a brand new university food court. The $4.5 million dollar project in the Union took about 13 months.

Now, the university has a food court with more options. A student is no longer restricted to Subway or Chick-Fil-A. Burgers, pizza, and various appetizers are now available. There is also a section with soups, deli sandwiches, desserts and even cappucino.

The new food court also has more cashier stations, which is supposed to cut down a student’s waiting time.

Eastern also suffered several rounds of cuts to its operating budget for this and next fiscal year. Hencken and other administrators worked to cut spending to give back $2.3 million in state funds this year and are developing a plan to handle a base budget cut next year.