Geography will be a variable the university looks at when the Alumni Association locates possible replacements for three recently resigned Board of Trustees members.

To ensure equal demographical representation, board members are selected in part according to where they live. The three board members who recently retired are from Hinsdale, a southwest suburb of Chicago; Savoy, a town near Champaign; and Springfield.

David Sluzevich, the president of the Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, is responsible for contacting the prospective candidates. Also, unlike other state universities, all of the eight board members are Eastern alumni.

Sluzevich hopes to find six candidates to submit to the state’s Office of Boards and Commissions, filling both of those criteria.

“I’m kind of approaching it from a two-prong attack,” Sluzevich said. “Hopefully, we can maintain the geographic balance from the board and remain unique that we have all EIU graduates.”

The board’s Vice Chair Betsy Mitchell (Savoy) and board member Julie Sullivan (Springfield) retired in light of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s Tuesday signing of an ethics bill disallowing any state board member to be a lobbyist. Bob Manion (Hinsdale) resigned in August, citing a lack of time as the reason.

Sluzevich would not supply the names of the possible candidates for the board, which serves as the university’s governing policy.

“I simply hate to see us lose Betsy and Julie,” said Steve Rich, director of Alumni Services. “I think they were great board members.”

President Lou Hencken said Sullivan and Mitchell were the two board members who always inquired about student and tuition fee increases.

The search will also include members from the Charleston and university community. The earlier the university supplies the names of potential candidates to the Boards and Commissions office, the sooner the replacements would be appointed by Blagojevich.

Once the list of candidates reaches the Boards and Commissions office, a background check will be conducted. A timeframe for the replacement process, which Blagojevich press secretary Tom Schafer said would take at least a couple of weeks, was unclear on Thursday. Schafer could only promise the governor would act on the issue “as quickly as he could.” He did hint that those boards who are in threat of not reaching quorum would be filled first.

“How long might it be?” Schafer asked. “It depends on the circumstances and depends when the names have gotten to us.”