The awaited new LGBTA Student Resource Center will open its doors within the week while the search for a center director continues.

The center will serve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and ally students in place of the LGBTA Resource Room, a facility that operated under a different department. The center will have its grand opening once a director is selected.

Art Carter, assistant vice president of student affairs, said the center's graduate assistant will begin holding office hours as soon as possible.

Interviews of two directorial candidates occurred last Tuesday, and two more candidates will arrive this week for evaluation. Both staff and students are participating in the selection process.

"We wanted to have student involvement, and we really want to have a sizeable student turnout to give us feedback about the candidates," Carter said. "That's very important."

Jennifer Storm, a student member of the selection committee that searched the nation for a handful of potential directors to interview, said she is excited about a director being selected and her involvement in the process

"I'm glad that I'm a part of it," she said.

In the Spring Semester, conflict arose over student involvement in planning for the center. The center, scheduled to open at the end of the Spring Semester, was not equipped with features that students wanted, some concerned students said.

In the move from the Grange Building, where the Resource Room was located, to 101 Boucke Building, where the new center is, a transfer was made between the departments overseeing the center and its affairs. Previously, it fell under the Office of the Vice Provost for Educational Equity, but now it is part of Student Affairs.

"Unfortunately with the switchover to Student Affairs we lost some people," said Matt Leifer, director of Allies.

Many staff members who had worked with LGBTA affairs in the past stayed with the Office of Educational Equity, so students will be interacting with a new staff this year.

Storm said the staff change may be a tough adjustment for some students. "They (the old staff) are the people that students felt 100 percent comfortable with."

Carter said the center will have a full-time director, a staff assistant and a graduate assistant. Storm said she and other students think a full-time assistant director will be needed as well.

Although Leifer himself was unable to attend one of Tuesday's candidate interviews, he said that members of Allies are pleased with the call for student input.

"They really like the fact that (Student Affairs is) trying to get students involved in the decision," he said.

Although student inclusion in a national search process is something she welcomes, Storm said many students had a director in mind for the center who is not on the nomination list.

"I still think that the perfect person for the job is not in that position right now," she said, "And that sucks."

Each candidate who arrives on campus has a full day of scheduled interviews and meetings, one of which is specifically set as a forum for students and community members.

The next two open forum interviews will be on Wednesday and Friday at 2:45 p.m. both days. The Wednesday interview will be in 233 HUB, and the Friday interview will be in 110 HUB.

Information about the new center is being posted on its door. Office hours of the new graduate assistant as well as information about interview times and locations also will be available there.

Notifications of interview times and information about the candidates were sent out through various LGBTA student groups.

"We want to get more students to the forums," Storm said.

The move to the student resource center is still a work in progress. New furniture must be put in place, a director must be selected, and during it all, programs and activities will continue.

"It is progressing, and it's going as well as a switch like this could go," Leifer said.