The search for Eastern’s ninth president will start again from scratch because after one candidate dropped out, the remaining two were not a proper fit for Eastern.

Eastern’s Board of Trustees announced Monday the three original finalists either dropped out of the race or were not a good match for Eastern. The board will meet sometime in May for a special session to decide on a timeline and procedures for rerunning the search.

The board will also vote on a possible 3.5 percent tuition increase, which it did not vote in favor of or against because Eastern did not provide it with the proper information to make a good decision.

BOT member Bob Manion, chair of the Presidential Search Advisory Committee, said the board would make an offer to extend interim President Lou Hencken’s contract until a new president is chosen. Hencken’s current contract will expire on July 31.

On April 19, Eastern announced the search was in negotiation stages with one of the candidates, and Manion said Monday “he turned us down.”

John Cavanaugh, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, was offered the job but dropped out of the race because of personal issues, Manion said.

Cavanaugh, who is currently one of three finalists in a presidential search at West Florida University, said he wants to keep his options open.

The other two candidates, Livingston Alexander, vice president for academic affairs at Kean University, and Philip Conn, vice chancellor for special programs at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, were still in the running, Manion said on Friday, but neither were offered the job during the BOT’s meeting Monday.

During the summer, the search committee will take a look at the position’s description and advertisement, Manion said. The description was the major factor in determining who the next president would be, he said. Manion said the committee would probably not make any changes to the description or the advertisement of the position.

Once the advertisement is finalized, it will run for two weeks to let applications pile up before the committee will begin reviewing them.

The new search will accept new applications, but the search committee will also look at the other 48 applications it received in January. The committee received a total of 51 applications in January.

In its May meeting, which does not have a decided date, the BOT will decide how and when it wants to continue the search.

Also, all present members at the search committee’s meeting Monday agreed to continue serving on the committee. Manion said he would continue chairing the search because no one else seemed interested.

Cynthia Nichols, director of the Civil Rights, Affirmative Action and Diversity Office and member of the search committee, was not present at the committee’s meeting.

Student committee members Daryl Jones, student BOT member, and Katie Cox, the Student Senate’s appointment to the committee, will not serve because they are graduating in May. Marty Ruhaak, vice president for public affairs for the upcoming 2002-2003 academic year, has already been appointed to replace Jones. Although a final decision has not been made, Cox said she expects the Student Senate will appoint Alison Mormino, student body president for the 2002-2003 term, as her replacement.

Cox said she had previously talked with the Student Senate in the event the search may continue.