Issue date: 12/14/09 Section: News

Bob Martin was named the vice president for university advancement on Dec. 22.

Bob Martin, Eastern's new vice president for university advancement, is joining the school at a time of economic uncertainty.

"It's a sense of urgency that all universities are faced with," Martin said. "It means the development side is more important than ever. We have to build up an endowment for now and later years to weather this storm."

Martin currently serves as assistant vice president for development at Auburn University, in Auburn, Ala. He will begin at Eastern on Feb. 1.

"I've got to wrap up some projects I'm working on back at Auburn," Martin said.

His first priority upon arriving at Eastern will be familiarizing himself with the school, staff and alumni.

"I want to meet with all of the development staff and go over the goals and objectives for the next year," Martin said. "The main thing, though, is getting to know the alumni and students."

Financially, Eastern could be relying much more heavily on donations than it has in the past. For fiscal year 2010, Eastern has received approximately $5.7 million of the requested $30 million.

Auburn recently saw a $75 million cut in state-appropriated funding.

"It affected all of us in development," Martin said. "It's going to take alumni and friends to support the university."

Martin believes the state does what it can for higher education, although it is often not enough.

"We went from state-supported to state-assisted," he said. "We're happy to get what we get."

Martin and his wife Donna will relocate to Charleston. Their youngest daughter Codi will enroll at Charleston High School. The middle daughter Kerri will finish next semester as an honors student at Auburn before transferring to Eastern in the fall. Lindsey, their oldest daughter, has already graduated from college.

Martin beat out three other finalists to be Jill Nilsen's, vice president for external relations, replacement. He will be Eastern's first vice president for university advancement, a title change decision made by President Bill Perry to designate the position as one focused on philanthropy.

Perry and Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs, both said the candidate pool was strong.

"The search committee did not make a single recommendation," said Lord, who was also chair of the search committee. "Instead, we presented the president with a list of each candidate's weaknesses and strengths."

Perry was impressed with the work of the committee.

"The search committee brought four very strong candidates to campus," he said. "I'm very pleased."

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942 or seruholl2@eiu.edu.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools

The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.

Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.

Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.

If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.