Jim Salmo is the second of four candidates for the position of vice president for university advancement to visit campus.

Salmo, of Coumbia, Mo., will be on campus all day today, interviewing and meeting with different groups including the council of directors and President Bill Perry.

An open meeting for members of the campus community will be held at 4 p.m. in the 1895 Room of Blair Hall.

Salmo hopes to bring his experience in working on a major fundraising campaign to the position. His current position at Missouri University as associate vice chancellor for development for health sciences involved a major fundraising campaign.

“They needed somebody to come in to restructure in order to get the campaign moving because it had kind of stalled,” Salmo said. “We were pushing to get $163 million for health sciences. When I came in 2003 they had $33 million, but the end of the campaign we had $134 million.”

Salmo explained the deficit came from a proposed $65 million research center that was never built.

“For the $163 million goal, $65 million of it was for a building that never saw the light of day,” he said. “There was a concern that when the building was done there would be stem cell research going on.”

The change of the position’s title from vice president for external relations to vice president for university advancement is intended to put more emphasis on fundraising, but the position also includes alumni relations and communications and marketing.

“I like the direction that Eastern is going because they have all three under one vice president,” Salmo said. “They’re like the three legs of a stool.”

In order for the stool to stand, the different components must work together to achieve a common goal.

“I think it’s important that alumni and development staff work together seamlessly,” he said. “There is a way to get the university as a whole to work on developing relations with alumni and friends of the university.”

After all four candidates have visited the campus, the search committee will discuss the options and make a recommendation to the president.

Perry will then make a recommendation for hire to the Board of Trustees.

“I’ll make the decision in pretty short order after that, within the week,” Perry said. “I’d like to have all of those considerations done by the middle of December at the latest.”

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942

or [email protected].