Board members at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts will appoint a committee next week to search for a new executive director.

The center’s two boards — its fundraising board and its operations board — will hold a joint meeting on Wednesday to appoint a search committee. They’re looking for a replacement for Paul Lasakow, who announced his resignation last month. He left Aug. 10.

Jack Eure, president of the center’s Foundation Board of Directors, said he hopes to have a replacement named by January.

Jackie Cherry, a longtime staff member at the center, is serving as interim director. Eure said everybody on his executive committee and on the operations board was in agreement that Cherry should be asked to be the interim director.

“Jackie Cherry has done a great job, as far as I’m concerned, as the manager under Paul Lasakow,” Eure said. “I think she’s done a great job as interim director. We needed somebody quickly. I’m real happy Jackie was there and available.”

He said the committee will be looking for someone who can handle all of the aspects of the center — fundraising, performances, arts education, gallery exhibits, building operations and more.

Eure especially hopes to have a new director appointed by the beginning of the year because that is when the two boards are set to merge into one — a process that was agreed upon when the center formed.

“My hope is that the decision will be made by the time the two boards merge in early January,” Eure said. “The same people will be involved in the merged board later.”

Eure also said he would welcome input from the city, donors and the general public on the new director.

“As far as I’m concerned, the more information, the better,” he said.

The new director would be the third in the center’s short history. The inaugural director, Michael Bollinger, left shortly before Lasakow came in March 2009.