Twenty faculty nominees out of 33 different candidates are willing to run for the two seats reserved for faculty on the Presidential Search Committee, according to Chair of the Faculty Senate Prof. Sabine Von Mering (GRALL).Interviews for membership to the Student Advisory Committee, which will provide the Search Committee with student feedback, are also under way and are expected to be completed by the end of this week, said Student Union President Andy Hogan '11, one of three people conducting the interviews.

Union Junior Representative to the Board of Trustees Heddy Ben-Atar '11 and Union Senior Representative to the Board of Trustees Jonathan Kane '10 are also interviewing student candidates.

University President Jehuda Reinharz announced his intention to resign in a Sept. 24 campuswide e-mail.

Reinharz will remain president until a new president has been selected or until June 30, 2011, according to a Sept. 24 University press release.

Board of Trustee members and faculty will be on the Presidential Search Committee, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Malcolm Sherman told the Justice on Oct. 6.

Sherman also said that he hopes to form the Presidential Search Committee in time for the Oct. 28 Board meeting.

Sherman was out of the country and could not be reached for comment by press time.

Von Mering said that the Faculty Senate received 110 nominations for 33 candidates, and after contacting the candidates, 20 of the nominees were "able and willing to serve."

The Senate and Faculty Representatives voted to rank the 20 candidates at a meeting last Thursday, Von Mering wrote in an e-mail to the Justice.

She declined to disclose the names of faculty nominees until negotiations are over.

"We want faculty to search on the Committee . who are nationally recognized for their scholarly work. We need people who really understand and know Brandeis well," Von Mering said.

Von Mering said that final faculty candidates for the Search Committee will be selected after negotiations with Sherman about increasing the number of faculty on the Committee are completed.

Von Mering said that, in keeping with how other universities form presidential search committees, she hopes that 40 percent of Brandeis' Presidential Search Committee will be comprised of faculty members.

The Senate is researching the ways in which past presidential searches have been conducted at Brandeis and at other educational institutions in order to convince the Board to increase the faculty ratio on the Committee, Von Mering said.

Hogan declined to disclose the number of applications received for membership to the student advisory committee.

In a Oct. 7 e-mail to the student body, Hogan wrote that the advisory committee will include six to 10 students and said in an Oct. 15 interview with the Justice that its members may meet once every week.

Student candidates have been interviewed for up to 10 minutes on what they hope to contribute to the Advisory Committee and what they want to see in the next University president, Hogan said.