Paul Brown takes over as Monmouth University president with a global vision

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Paul Brown, a former Lehigh University dean, took over this summer as president of Monmouth University, promising to bring big changes to the private school in West Long Branch by adding more international students and expanding graduate programs.

(David Gard/For The Star-Ledger)

WEST LONG BRANCH — Paul Brown and his teenage daughter like to joke they're both counting down the days to their freshman year.

An excited Emma Brown is headed off to Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania to be a first-year student while her equally excited dad has just arrived at Monmouth University to be a first-time president.

"We joke she’s going off to college and I’m going off to college," the elder Brown said, sitting in his new office on the West Long Branch campus.

Brown, former dean of the business college at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, takes over Monmouth University with plans to bring a more global focus to the mid-size private university on the Jersey Shore.

Founded as a junior college in the 1930s to offer evening classes to cash-strapped local students, Monmouth has grown into a 6,500-student university on a picturesque campus less than two miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Its student body is largely white and from New Jersey.

Brown says he plans to create more diversity on campus by bringing in more international students and a more global focus in the classroom.

"It’s too centric," Brown said. "We love New Jersey, but there’s a world beyond New Jersey, too."

Brown replaces Paul Gaffney, a retired Navy vice admiral who spent a decade as the university’s president. Gaffney retired to South Carolina, but will serve as president emeritus and as an advisor to the new president.

Paul Brown, a former Lehigh University dean, took over this summer as president of Monmouth University, promising to bring big changes to the private school in West Long Branch by adding more international students and expanding graduate programs.

Though he has never been a college president, Brown was selected for the Monmouth job last spring from a slate of candidates that included the president of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and a vice president at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Nancy Mezey, a Monmouth University associate professor of sociology who served on the search committee, said Brown won over the committee within moments of sitting down for his interview.

"This really is a person with a good ear and a good sense of process," Mezey said.

Monmouth’s board of trustees voted unanimously to appoint Brown. The board did not release Brown’s salary, but his predecessor earned an annual base pay of $697,142, according to the school’s latest available tax returns.

Brown arrived on campus earlier this month and moved into the plush corner office in historic Wilson Hall, an opulent 130-room mansion built in 1929 to replace a former residence that served as the summer White House for President Woodrow Wilson. Brown has had a steady stream of visitors.

"I’m really excited about him starting and I get the feeling the entire campus is excited," Mezey said.

In addition to expanding the number of international students and bringing a more global flavor to classes, Brown said he is looking into expanding and refocusing the school’s graduate programs to better align with what businesses are looking for from graduates.

Brown is also considering adding more online components to classes. But don’t expect Monmouth — which charges undergraduates more than $30,000 a year in tuition and fees — to follow the growing movement toward online degrees.

"I don’t see 100 percent online programs, not at all," Brown said. "I think you lose that personal experience."

Brown, who declined to reveal his age, grew up in Lancaster County, Pa., amid Amish and Mennonite farmland. He used to accompany his father, a state farm inspector, on his trips to local farms. Neither of his parents went to college.

He said he was unsure what he wanted to major in when he got to Franklin & Marshall College, eventually settling on economics when campus officials told him he had to make a choice. Brown excelled in the field, earning a doctorate and master’s of professional accountancy degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

He went on to teach and serve as an administrator at New York University before moving to Lehigh University.

While at NYU, he met his future wife, Joan Fishman, who worked in the advertising industry. Earlier this month, the couple and their daughter moved into Doherty House, Monmouth’s sprawling presidential residence.

In addition to moving his daughter to her new college later this month, Brown said he has a packed schedule. It includes everything from attending a local town council meeting to dining with the school’s big donors and meeting with low-income students attending pre-college summer programs.

On freshman move-in day, the new president plans to be at the curb helping new students carry boxes into the dorms.

"One of the wonderful things about being a president is the diversity of what you get to do," Brown said.

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