Chancellor search committee members met all day Monday with faculty, staff, administrators, and alumni legislators, looking for input on what people want in UMass Boston’s next chancellor, as several students launched a campaign for Interim Chancellor J. Keith Motley.

At the open forum for students, five to six brought “Let’s Keep Keith” signs with them, while student government officials and others expressed their support for the interim chancellor, who took over in August when Jo Ann Gora departed for the presidency at Indiana’s Ball State University.

Senior Jobian Herron, head of Jobian’s Society, a talk-show style club where students drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and discuss current events, said Motley has handled himself well during his three month tenure and interacts with students.

Since he came from Northeastern University, where he was dean of student services, in September 2003, Motley has proved popular with many in the student body. The public support amongst students and some faculty for Motley appears to be holding strong as he continues to go through a “honeymoon” period. Some faculty members remain concerned about his lack of experience in academia, with Motley having risen up through student services.

It appears unclear at this early stage in the search what effect such public support for an internal candidate will have.

“It’s not uncommon to have a good internal prospect,” said Shelly Weiss Storbeck, a consultant from the search firm AT Kearney aiding the committee, who is reaching out to the firm’s database of hundreds of sitting provosts and presidents who might be interested in the position, or know someone who is. She said a better sense of the effect could be taken after meetings with other potential candidates.

“A lot of students have spoken about who their candidate should be,” said Tuan Pham, student trustee and a member of the search committee, after the meeting with students. “I think it’s important for all of us to see who the complete slate of candidates are.”

Others spoke of where the university could be in the future, and what makes UMass Boston unique enough to attract candidates.

Senior Adnan Usman, an international student and president of the student Senate, said in seven to 10 years he saw UMass Boston as the next University of California-Los Angeles or Berkeley.

Caroline Coscia, head of the Graduate Student Assembly, said she would like the next chancellor to notice, utilize, and market graduate students, who number at 2,000 and come in the afternoons and nights, and whose programs make up a third of those offered at UMass Boston.

“We’ve been forgotten the last few years,” she said.

Erica Mena, a student senator and editor of the campus’s literary magazine, The Watermark, said the university has been through a lot of changes since her first year here. “Everything we’re getting here is the best,” she said, adding that Gora helped with that. “We need someone who can continue to do that.”

At an open forum held earlier, faculty and staff showed up to have their say, mentioning dorms and the urban mission, two hot topics on campus over the last several years.

“I think the university is in good shape,” said Joan Arches, a professor in human services. “I think we really need to build on the urban mission.”

When asked about the dorms, the room was divided. “I think students would need some kind of affordable housing,” said one student, but not dorms per se.

But the majority of students at the open forum for students appeared in favor of dorms, with many of them raising their hands when pressed by search committee member and UMass trustee Robert Sheridan on how many of them would like dorms.

Some students on campus, numbering over 300, live in the Harbor Point apartments down the road, but interim Athletics Director Pat Burns noted it is private real estate where the university has no authority or control. “If a student needs attention, the university can’t provide for that,” he said.

Coscia says she personally would have liked dorms for her first two years at UMass Boston, but for academic reasons and to cut down on the stress more than the dorm life.

Robert Johnson, a professor of Africana Studies and a search committee member, switched hats during the open forum, coming back to the uniqueness of the university.

Johnson said he sees students coming from the same background he did, growing up in the projects. “They have families, they have jobs,” he said. “That’s the jewel of this place-the students.”

The faculty, he said, are high-class in training and commitment in working with the students. “I don’t think you can find that combination anywhere else,” he said of faculty and students.

Even as the search gets underway, the search committee membership may be expanding. Search committee head Stacey Rainey, a UMass trustee and former deputy chief of staff to former Gov. Jane Swift, said the committee, after meeting with university staff, will be looking to address the lack of representation of staff on the committee.

“We heard that loud and clear,” she said.

Last week, as the Board of Trustees was set to formally approve the search committee, Trustee Robert McCarthy, the president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, asked if a labor leader could be put on the committee as well.

The search committee will be meeting with candidates over the next several months as applications and nominations come in, with finalists expected by April and an appointment and approval by UMass President Jack Wilson and the UMass Board of Trustees, respectively, by May.