Brandeis’ Presidential Search Committee will announce its choice of search firm to continue to look for the university’s next president by the end of the month, and hopes to present the faculty with candidate profiles by the end of February.

The announcement, which was made on the newly launched presidential search website www.brandeis.edu/presidential-search, did not disclose a deadline for picking a new president.

Chair of the search committee and member of the Board of Trustess Meyer Koplow ’72 told The Hoot that a presidential search firm was necessary in order to take the initiative in the search.

“You don’t want to just sit back and wait for people to send in their applications,” Koplow said. “You want to look for people who are a perfect fit for us, but who maybe don’t know it yet.”

Koplow added that the search firm will be helpful not only for finding candidates, but for vetting candidates once they have been chosen and conducting background checks.

While Koplow did not have any figures for the firms salary, he said a typical arrangement with a presidential search firm would “cost about one third of the new president’s first year compensation.”

Current President Jehuda Reinharz, who resigned in October saying it was “the right time” for him, has a yearly salary of $384,801, meaning that if the search firm had found Reinharz for Brandeis, their salary would total at $128,267.

At the time of his resignation, Reinharz said he will remain president of Brandeis until June 30, 2011 or until the Board of Trustees finds a replacement President.

In preparation for choosing the President, the search committee released an online survey to the student body over winter break in order to gage what Brandeis students are looking for in the next university president.

“We want to make sure we reach out to all of the constituencies to see what they want Brandeis to be in 2020,” Student Union President and Presidential Search Committee Andy Hogan ’11 said.