Shakespeare, entrepreneurship and online learning: Monmouth University's new president

WEST LONG BRANCH - Shakespeare matters.

That’s the view of the onetime English major and former entrepreneur who will take over Monmouth University as president in August.

Patrick F. Leahy, the president of Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was named the successor Friday to Grey J. Dimenna, an attorney who stepped into the role in February 2017. Leahy will be Monmouth's 10th president.

Leahy will bring with him an array of skills from different fields as the tectonic shift in the culture and economics of higher education continues.

The onetime business major, who switched to English literature at Georgetown University and then went on to get his master's of business administration and master’s in labor relations at Cornell University, had an earlier career steeped in business.

He has worked as a salesman for the Deluxe Corp., an investment officer for Allied Capital Corp. and a development officer at Georgetown. He co-founded and led a 15,000-member "online education community," Business Affairs Forum. 

“Dr. Leahy is a strategic, entrepreneurial thinker,” said Henry D. Mercer III, past chairman of the Monmouth University board of trustees, who headed the search committee. “He has a clear understanding of how a private university works and knows how to get visionary initiatives realized.”

Liberal arts and the humanities have long been under pressure as a 21st century workforce demands mostly “hard” tech-oriented skills.

But Leahy says a liberal arts education gave him the “soft skills” that most senior business executives would highlight as a necessity for success: critical reasoning, being able to articulate and defend your ideas and working in teams.

“We run a risk of doing a disservice to our students if we only prepare them with the hard skills that will make them, of course, attractive candidates when they graduate," he said. "But we need to make sure they are learning those soft skills that will stand them in good stead throughout their careers."

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Leahy, who earned his doctoral degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania, shifted into higher education in 2004, when he became a vice president of university relations at the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania. There he undertook a $100 million capital campaign, raising $129 million.

In 2012, he became president of Wilkes University. At Wilkes, Leahy netted four of the five largest donations in the university's history.

During his tenure there, the school developed an online graduate nursing program, drawing 1,000 students from 2014 to 2017, Leahy said. The school now has an undergraduate enrollment of 2,500 and a full- and part-time graduate student body of 3,000.

Monmouth University has an enrollment of 6,167, with nearly 5,000 undergraduates.

“I’ve talked at length with the search committee and (Monmouth University) board of trustees of my interest in hoping to grow online graduate programming in particular," he said. “Colleges and universities who resist too much taking their graduate programming online do so at their peril. Online learning allows you to grow your recruiting base almost infinitely.”

The southern Jersey Shore has always meant vacation to Leahy, who spent more than 14 years in eastern Pennsylvania. Persuading his wife, Amy, and four children to move there was easy, he said.

“This is a home run situation for me,” he said.

Ken Serrano: 732-643-4029; kserrano@gannettnj.com