Dear Members of the Monmouth University Community:
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the start of Monmouth’s 89th academic year. I hope that you had a healthy and restful summer, and are looking forward to an exceptional year at our University.
Monmouth’s 900 incoming first-year students were enrolled from nearly 9,000 applications and recorded the highest average GPA (3.61) and the highest average SAT (1209) in the University’s history. Among the Class of 2026, more than 36 percent are first-generation students, over 27 percent identify as ethnically or racially diverse, and 31 percent are eligible for federal Pell Grants – all strong examples of our dedication to educational access. Additionally, more than 30 percent of the Class of 2026 comes to West Long Branch from outside the state of New Jersey, representing 22 U.S. states and eight foreign countries. This marks the greatest geographic diversity in our history. We also welcome another 190 transfer and 500 graduate students to our University. We are so pleased that all of these outstanding students have chosen Monmouth as their new educational home.
Over the past several months, our team has been working diligently to plan for our students’ arrival this fall. We are eager for you to see the changes and improvements to our campus, including: 1) an upgraded Career Development Center, 2) an improved Intercultural Center co-located with the Educational Opportunity Fund offices, 3) a reprogrammed and newly outfitted Great Hall, and 4) a new Alumni House for our more than 55,000 accomplished and dedicated alumni. All of these upgrades are designed to improve the experience of our students and alumni.
This fall, a new era in Monmouth athletics begins as we start competing in the Colonial Athletic Association, one of the top NCAA athletic conferences in the nation. This move to the CAA increases our athletic competition, broadens our recruiting footprint along the east coast, and burnishes our university brand by enabling regular competition with leading institutions like Delaware, Drexel, Elon, Northeastern, and William & Mary, to name a few.
Whether you are returning to Monmouth or joining us for your first year, we are so pleased to have you as part of our Hawk family. While we expect this year to be a continued return to more ordinary campus operations after the challenges of the past two-and-a-half years, we also hope this will be a year of extraordinary scholarship and achievement. My best wishes to each of you as we embark on the 2022-2023 academic year at Monmouth.
Sincerely,
Dr. Patrick F. Leahy
President