{"id":17037,"date":"2023-07-05T15:27:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T19:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=17037"},"modified":"2023-07-10T16:31:15","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T20:31:15","slug":"a-pivotal-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/a-pivotal-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pivotal Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This year marks Monmouth\u2019s 90th as an institution of higher learning, and this expanded issue of <em>Monmouth<\/em> magazine celebrates the many things there are to love about our University, past and present. As we continue to celebrate our institution\u2019s rich history, I can\u2019t help but think that future generations will look back on this past semester as pivotal in the trajectory of Monmouth University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This spring, we celebrated the largest gift in Monmouth University&#8217;s history: $21 million from a donor who has chosen to remain anonymous. This transformational gift, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=17365\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">which you can read more about in this issue<\/a>, will help us recruit and retain high-achieving students facing financial hardship, changing the life course of scholarship recipients for generations to come. It directly aligns with our commitment to integrating educational excellence and access, and I am incredibly grateful to the donor for their remarkable endorsement of our mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we pursue our mission of making Monmouth <em>both<\/em> more excellent <em>and<\/em> more accessible, it is imperative that we continue to do so in a fiscally responsible way. It therefore brought me great pride to see <em><a href=\"https:\/\/narratives.insidehighered.com\/excellence-access-ambition-monmouth-university\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Inside Higher Education<\/a><\/em>, one of the industry\u2019s leading news publications, laud Monmouth\u2019s ability to enhance infrastructure and increase student aid while remaining relatively debt free. It is a testament to the foresight of past and present trustees and administrative leaders that Monmouth is in such an enviable financial position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also celebrated other exciting historic firsts this semester. Our women\u2019s basketball team <a href=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/dancing-again\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">won the University\u2019s first Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Championship<\/a>\u2014and in the process earned the program\u2019s first automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in 40 years. The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music hosted its inaugural <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2023\/04\/16\/american-music-honors-jon-stewart-hosts-an-event-celebrating-a-vast-tapestry-of-musical-styles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">American Music Honors<\/a>, an evening that brought several entertainment icons to campus and showcased Monmouth\u2019s commitment to the arts in an unprecedented way. You can read about both of these accomplishments in this issue, as well as learn about the important work our students, faculty, and alumni are doing to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=17190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">protect our region\u2019s waterways<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/food-for-thought\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">provide food security<\/a> to the state\u2019s less fortunate, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=17376\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">discover pharmacological compounds<\/a> that can treat and cure cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of death globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed, there is much to love about Monmouth University, and many reasons to be excited for the future. The recent institutional successes and historic firsts shared on the pages that follow give me\u2014and you, I hope\u2014great pride in the work that we do here. Thank you for your continued support of Monmouth\u2019s mission. We wouldn\u2019t be who we are today without it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is much to love about Monmouth University\u2014and many reasons to be excited for the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":16762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":56,\"y\":32}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presidents-note"],"thumbnail":"<img width=\"200\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-200x300.jpg\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-16762 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" role=\"presentation\" style=\"object-position:56% 32%\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-1536x2304.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-1400x2100.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-828x1242.jpg 828w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-360x540.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02-9x14.jpg 9w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/new_President-Leahy-Portrait_20211215_MM_02.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>","catString":"President\u2019s Note","issue":"Spring\/Summer 2023","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17037"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17731,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17037\/revisions\/17731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}