Matt Harmon:
On this episode of Monmouth weekly university, president Patrick Lehe talks about the university's decision to change the name of Wilson hall plus updates on the upcoming fall semester and all the latest news in happenings involving Mammouth university. This is faculty member, Matt Harmon. It's time again for Monmouth weekly. Thanks for joining us.

Matt Harmon:
As we work down towards, into the late stages of June, the summer months here at the Jersey shore are up and going. That has not mean things have slowed down one bit over on campus at Monmouth university. Happy to be back with you at his episode. Number 13 of our Monmouth weekly podcast faculty member, Matt Harmon, leading the way with university president Patrick Lehe on a, uh, good, uh, midweek morning. We're up in and recording this one, uh, close to the crack of Dawn to try and get it out and have people be updated on all things Monmouth university, after taking last week off, president Lehe, I wish you a very good morning, hope things are well on campus. I know there's been some, uh, some positive developments that will be able to talk about in terms of perhaps the campus community starting to get back to a little bit more normal, but it still does seem strange when you, uh, take a ride by, as I have or bike by sometimes and J and just see it still be pretty quiet up on, uh, one of the most beautiful campuses in the United States.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah. Good morning to you, Matt. Uh, happy summer to you. Um, I'm walking the campus every day and as you point out, it's just not the same without our normal activity, even our summer activity, but as you point out, I hope we'll be able to get into how we think the campus might begin to reopen

Matt Harmon:
When you, um, what, when we last spoke, we dealt a lot with some of the racial issues that were taking place across the country. How Monmouth could kind of connect to some of those issues, um, be at the forefront, which I know has been part of your platform since coming to Monmouth all the way back in August of, uh, 2019, you haven't even completed your first year as president in here. And it, and it's been such a crazy year when you factor in the coronavirus, when you factor in the racial protests and issues that have taken place across, um, the United States and worldwide, when you think of it, Monmouth this, uh, past week, within the past week, again, trying to, to, um, I wouldn't say necessarily be at the forefront, but when you think of it, try and make the steps to be a little bit more sensitive to the issues that are taking place. Uh, the, the email that you sent out to the campus community back on June 19th, the timing pretty good. Um, obviously with Wilson hall, not being Wilson hall anymore, it'll now be called great hall at shadow lawn. And I know things like that are not taken Fort granted decisions like that, not made easily and, and as many people that are probably happy that it won't be Wilson hall. Um, there's probably many people that are disappointed because that in, in a lot of ways is, is part of mama's history.

Patrick Leahy:
I'm hearing from them as well. <laugh> so, uh, let me, yeah, just share with you a little bit about how we got to that, if that's, uh, if that's okay, Matt. Sure. Um, you know, I've said to you at our, our previous podcast that since May 25th, that is the, that, uh, George Floyd was killed. Uh, I've tried to make myself as accessible as possible to the Monmouth university community as accessible as possible. Given the constraints that we find ourselves, uh, uh, enveloped in. Um, and I have met with faculty members and staff members and numerous student groups just to try to be available to them, to try to hear them try to understand better, uh, their concerns and, and their real pain that they, that they feel. And, um, through those conversations, I've been collecting recommendations, things that we can do as a university to more fully live up to our commitments, to becoming a, a truly diverse and genuinely inclusive community. And, uh, we are collecting all those ideas and developing a comprehensive plan because we know this work needs to be enduring. So we're developing that plan right now. And one of the things that came up, uh, across all those different constituency groups was, uh, they asked me if I would be willing to consider a name, change on our marquee building on campus. And, uh, they brought these recommendations to me, uh, um, quite respectfully, they were engaging and they were talking through with me how, why this, uh, would be an important gesture, certainly not the essence of our work, but an important gesture, uh, to the community. So, um, I felt it was a responsibility I had given that I've heard it from all of our different constituency groups to raise it again with our board. And, uh, so I started that process about 10 days in advance of our board meeting last week and, um, asked the chair of the board Mike wick, uh, if I could bring it to the, uh, to the board for consideration. And, uh, and we did, and I had to tell you it's one of the more satisfying moving. Uh, if I may say moving, uh, professional experiences that I've ever had, uh, having a real serious conversation with 35 members or so of our board, as you know, we'd already looked at this just four years ago. So, um, some folks were thinking, uh, why do we, uh, need to look at this? So, so soon after, and, um, I think two prevailing sentiments emerged Matt, the first is the times are changing and our country continues to evolve. Uh, so the context in which we would consider this now was different. And secondly, there was new leadership at Monmouth, uh, in, in me. So between the two, we thought now was a good time to reconsider this. And as I said, in that statement, it was unanimous that now was the time to, to, uh, make that name change.

Matt Harmon:
I would imagine, you know, as you said, unanimous, but with a lot of discussion, because it is the marquee building, it is the building that so many people associate, um, the university with and the idea of changing it, not an easy one. Um, talk a little bit, if you can, about why it will be called great hall at shadow lawn, because I'm sure there were, there were probably several, I'm not privy to the, to the, to the board of trustees meeting, but I'm sure there were tons of ideas about what, what the actual name of the new building could be.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, we, we took a, a few different boats and I don't, I don't think the board would mind me sharing, you know, the first vote was, should we in fact, take Woodrow Wilson's name off of the building. And, uh, we talked through that at great length and then decided unanimously that now was the time. Then the next question on the table was in the absence of that name, what should be the name and what we decided Matt was? Why don't we go back to the name of the building in 1966, when we first added Woodrow Wilson's name to it? Why don't we just go back to that as a, as a strong gesture to our history and to our roots as an institution, as you know, the campus, uh, the fundamental part of the campus is the old shadow lawn estate. And that is the, basically the epicenter of our campus, the biggest building and the most marque building. I think the national registry calls it, one of the, probably the most, um, significant private residents in all the state of New Jersey is the signature building on shadow lawn. And, uh, it was called the great hall. So we just decided, you know, it would be a really, uh, uh, important gesture to tie our, our, ourselves to our history. And, uh, just take it back to the original name, the grade hall. So the formal name, as you point out is the grade hall at shadow lawn, so that we can incorporate both of those historical names. But I think here forward, it will simply be known as the grade hall

Matt Harmon:
It's been on campus, the administration building for obviously quite some time, um, as many things as, as your office to the registrar, to the bursar, to admissions, all of those things incorporated. Um, it's been used as classroom space as well. It's been used as, uh, essentially meetings, banquets, um, dinners that take place on campus. But I think one of the interesting things in, in the name change as I'm reading is the idea to make it a little bit more student friendly. Obviously students are in and out of the building all the time, but it's not necessarily a student hub. And with the name change, that's gonna be one of the things that, that you and the rest of the administration, the board will try and incorporate a little more

Patrick Leahy:
That's right. And that's an important component of, of this whole change. This started way back in our strategic planning efforts. Uh, six months ago, Matt, where, when in talking with students, we realized that we really have a dearth of, of, uh, space for the students to study, to hang out and to work in small groups and to socialize. Yes, we have the Stafford student center, which serves that purpose. But as you know, that's crowded in there. You know, we have a lot of, uh, uh, offices in there and, and functions in there. And the students were saying that they wish they had more space for that kind of community building. You think what you would think naturally to our library, which is another historic building on the campus, but it was also a private residence and wasn't built as a 21st century library. So there were some constraints to creating that kind of space there as well. And it dawned on me that every day I go in and out of our marquee building on the campus and I walk through the first floor and then I walk up the stairs to that platform and then up to the second floor and I consider it terribly underutilized space. And so I just had this, uh, you know, vision for the building in consultation with the members of the strategic planning committee that we ought to put that building back to use and service to our students in a way that our alums of 20, 30 or 40 years ago have this affinity to the building. Because as you point out, they took classes in there. Some of them had their meals in that building. And so you can imagine a connection. They feel to the building. Well, our younger, our current students and our younger alums, I don't believe have that connection to the building because it's not their building. It is over the years become the administrative building. And unless you're there for some administrative reason, or you're invited to one of the events there, students don't really use the building. So we just decided, we were thinking of this for months, uh, leading up to this spring, we have to figure out a way to reprogram the grade hall, make it more student friendly, invite students into it, uh, create study tables, create, uh, soft seating. Uh, we have visions of putting a, uh, a coffee bar in there so that we could attract, uh, members of the campus community, students, faculty, staff, into the first floor of Wilson hall now the great hall and, uh, and really return it to its prior use, which is the hub of activity on the campus.

Matt Harmon:
You know, the last little piece, uh, uh, of the changing of Wilson hall to, to great hall would be how to, um, with the, with the controversy, I would say around president Woodrow Wilson to actually swing it back with his name, being removed and try and honor the man who, who designed the building, Julian Abel, who was one of the, uh, first professionally trained African American architects and, and, and part of the design of what is now going to be great hall, what was great hall at shadow lawn? Um, how, how does that get incorporated into making Julian able be part of this renaming be part of the building since he was the, the one who essentially designed it?

Patrick Leahy:
Well, first of all, I think we all agree that we should be very proud of the fact that Julie and Abel, uh, designed that building on our campus. I mean, I guess as I understand it subsequently he designed numerous buildings at duke university. I think he designed one of the marquee buildings at Harvard. Why would we not want to celebrate the fact that one of the first professionally trained black American architects, uh, designed our marque building? So we all agree to that. The question is how, how to do that most suitably and the, the board charged me in the administration with figuring out a suitable way to recognize him. And, uh, because we were envisioning reprogramming the great hall anyway, Matt, uh, we thought the timing's perfect because once we, we get sort of that new furniture in, and some of those improvements into the, the great hall, there's very likely to be, uh, a, a space in the building or room in the building, which we can name the able room and build his name into the lexicon here at, uh, Monmouth university. So that is the goal which we think will allow us to, uh, quite appropriately recognize, uh, this important part of our history.

Matt Harmon:
You know, the one thing that I, that I do, I said, I was gonna finish with that. One other thing popped up. And, and it was something that was in an earlier answer that you had given, how do you respond to, uh, whether it's alums, current students, people that are connected with Monmouth in a variety of ways, how do do you, how do you respond to those that might say, why are we changing the name of Wilson hall?

Patrick Leahy:
I would tell you three things. And we've thought about this quite carefully. You can imagine how, how much I've been dwelling on this over the last couple weeks. Uh, first and foremost, that if there are students on our campus, who in any way feel like that is an obstacle to their feeling, genuinely included and genuinely welcomed, and generally respected. The question I would have is why aren't we doing something about it? If we have students of any kind who are, are, are feeling, um, in any way threatened by that name. So that's what prompted me to look at it in the first place is when students in particular brought it to my attention. I, I said, well, I need, I feel this responsibility as the new president to take a fresh look at this. And then when I did two things, uh, became clear to me, number one, Wilson's increasingly controversial legacy.

Patrick Leahy:
Um, I think most of us study what he, uh, has done in foreign affairs, but most of us don't know what he did in domestic affairs. And his domestic record is becoming increasingly clear. Um, his actions were racist. So I think it's a, a greater understanding of Woodrow Wilson himself. Number one. And number two, you probably know this Matt, his connection to our university is very thin at best. I mean, he never said foot in that building. The building was named, uh, 50 years after he even set foot on the property. Um, so to me, it was like, there's no real connection to Woodrow Wilson anyway, here at Monmouth. And for all these years, we've sort of manufactured that connection. So, you know, it's sort of the joint effort of both, you know, understanding more fully, uh, Wilson's legacy and finding that, uh, in many ways, an athema to what we believe here at Monmouth, and the fact that why are we fighting to preserve, uh, the name of somebody who has a, a really thin connection to the university? Anyway, when you put those two things together, not only did I come to this, uh, conclusion that now is the right time, but every member of our board did as well,

Matt Harmon:
University president Patrick Lehe, faculty member, Matt Harmon. We continue with our Monmouth weekly series. This is episode number 13, often during the course of the summer, uh, we will more than likely be on, on a biweekly, uh, episode instead of every week, which we had been doing through the first three months, should something pop up. We can certainly pop on and update you with news. Uh, president Le dare I say that with the, um, decision to change the name of Wilson hall, maybe the second part of the university update that you sent out on June 19th may have been a little bit lost in the shuffle. And I know it's something that you wanna talk about. That is the creation of the diversity initiatives fund that the board unanimously voted, uh, to establish.

Patrick Leahy:
And maybe over the long run, this will be the more impactful of the two decisions. And th this came about Matt because, um, I knew that the spring board meeting was coming up and I said to myself, what could the board do to be supportive of our initiatives here of our efforts here? Um, one we knew would be the, the possibility of a name change, and the board had the jurisdiction over that. And two, I thought they could put resources toward our efforts, um, cuz we're going to need resources. So we went to the board and we talked to them about the idea of creating a diversity initiative fund, which would be, uh, a fund that were proceeds would be available every year. Uh, so that individuals around the campus community can petition this fund for resources to bring in speakers or to host training programs or to send people to conferences, uh, to present papers or to collaborate with, um, you know, historically black colleges and universities, which is something that we've done as a university, uh, over the years, just some money that would be available. And it's one thing to allocate in next year's budget or the budget after that. But what we decided was we would go to the board and ask them to allocate 3 million in a, in an endowment, the proceeds of which would be available year after year after year to support these initiatives. And, uh, I didn't, I didn't even have to sell the board on, it rolled out the idea. The board said, fortunately, we have the resources, we can redirect money to this, uh, purpose in particular. And, uh, they, I, once again, unanimously endorse the idea of creating this, uh, permanent endowment for the diversity's diversity initiatives fund. And I'm very proud of that and you know, the way endowments work, Matt, you, you only really take 5% of the Corpus every year, but 5% of 3 million is still real money, which I think will help to advance our efforts in the coming years.

Patrick Leahy:
I just wanna make one thing clear and that is, we never suggested that these two, uh, what I believe are bold initiatives alone would solve any of our problems. But what they do do I believe is allow the board to make a bold statement at the beginning that they're behind our efforts to create a genuinely diverse and inclusive community. And they're doing the two things that they can do right now, uh, in order to support that. So, uh, this is the beginning of, uh, a comprehensive plan that we wanna put in place to, uh, to build that kind of community here at Monmouth.

Matt Harmon:
Yeah. A beginning to, to change and change is something that I think everyone would agree doesn't necessarily take place overnight steps can be made immediately to start to Institute change. Um, but, but something that I did wanna talk to you about and, and not spring it on you, but I think it's important that you have at least an opportunity to comment on, uh, something that was published also on June 19th, the same day that you had sent out the correspondence to the university community about the change of Wilson hall, about the diversity, uh, fund that's now created. There were some students leaders that, uh, published a, uh, article to you, the administration and the board of trustees that, uh, was published on the outlook website. Obviously we're not getting physical copies of the outlook right now, uh, because school is, is not in session. Um, but it was something that in, in a lot of ways, um, called the university to continue to be part of the change. And I, and listen, I I'll be honest, there were certainly some controversial things in there. Um, and might be something that we can talk about in a full episode down the line a little bit, but I, but I think it's important for the students, the university to have you as the president, maybe comment on it a little bit. And, and, and I'll lead you in this way saying that you have been a proponent since taking over at moth in August, that the students have a voice and, and that voice can and should be heard.

Patrick Leahy:
I mean, absolutely. I mean, we exist for our students, so I respect in a, in a huge way, their right to, uh, share their thoughts and their concerns and to offer recommendations, um, uh, that that's who we are. And, and I always say, I, I can't try to fix problems unless I know about them. So I I'm really, uh, uh, supportive of our students, voicing their opinions. And, um, you know, I've said this to somebody the other day, Matt, that what we want to do here at Monmouth university is to, uh, develop students who are gonna be change makers in their communities. I mean, that, that's what we want <laugh>. So, uh, I have, uh, I've received those, uh, recommendations with that spirit that, uh, this is, these are well intentioned to try to make even better. So I'm in the process now of adding their recommendations to the recommendations that I've, uh, collected from all over the community. As I mentioned, faculty members and staff members and, and other student groups have shared with me, uh, thoughts, alums have shared with me their thoughts, we're collecting all those ideas and we're developing a comprehensive plan, which, uh, we will continue to roll out. One thing I will remind folks is that, uh, at one point in an earlier podcast, I think we talked a little bit about our strategic planning process and that there were going to be six themes in our strategic plan for the next five years. The one enveloping theme, which was already embedded in our strategic plan was building a genuinely diverse and inclusive community. So all of these recommendations that, that, uh, I'm collecting right now will go a long way to developing, uh, that component of our strategic plan. So, um, I'm glad I'm glad to receive this, uh, information. Uh, I don't always like what I hear in them, but, uh, that goes with the job and, uh, at the right time, I will, uh, uh, reply, uh, to that open letter, just so you know, I, I have met with numerous student groups, uh, and I've invited this group to, uh, to meet with me personally as well. So, um, you know, I hope I hope to have the opportunity to sit down with them and to talk through some of these recommendations in person

Matt Harmon:
Let's finish the last couple of minutes of, uh, episode 13. Um, the, the information about the potential of the fall semester, which has always been kind of a, a, a topic of, of interest to everybody that wants to get back to campus, get back to normal. Um, nothing's totally specific yet, but as the weeks go on, there's a little bit more information that the state has been able to share.

Patrick Leahy:
Well, we did in fact receive, uh, at the end of last week and the beginning of this week, the, uh, state guidelines for reopening in the fall from the office of the secretary of higher education. Those were the guidelines that I'd been saying for months now, Matt, that, uh, that we were waiting on in order to develop our, our, our, uh, final plan for the fall. So we do have those we're working through them. Uh, the office of the secretary of higher ed has given us, uh, guidelines around 10 different areas that affect, uh, colleges and universities, everything from obviously the academic delivery, but also housing and dining and athletics and the library and computer labs and transportation to and from. And all those guidelines, uh, are intended to do of course, is to make sure that when we reopen, we're doing this as safely and as responsibly as possible, my commitment to our constituents here is that we will meet the letter of those guidelines and the spirit of those guidelines. And then we will no doubt go beyond the guidelines to try to make sure that our students, our faculty and our staff feel as safe as possible coming back. So I, I don't see anything in there that would be a constraint to our ability to reopen in some fashion this fall. Um, but I think maybe at our next podcast, in, in a couple weeks, uh, our plans will become even more clear. And at that time I might be able to roll out, uh, some more specifics, but, uh, we are making good progress and I think we'll still be able to meet, uh, I think my stated, uh, timeline that, uh, by early July, we'll have, uh, clarity around what we're gonna do this fall.

Matt Harmon:
When you think of it, probably one of the early questions would be from an athletic standpoint because, um, take, take the summer classes out, out of the loop a little bit. The first time students are generally back on campus would be with the fall athletes, um, with, well, let's say football being in the big south, they might have their own guidelines that they're following, but, but traditionally for most of the sports that are within the Mac, what's the conversation been among the, the, the president's athletic directors about bringing ath athletes and athletics back to campus.

Patrick Leahy:
I think the conversation is, uh, let's do it and let's do it safely. The, uh, the state of New Jersey has suggested to us that their guidelines consist of following the NCAA guidelines, as well as whatever your respective conference guidelines are. Um, we have done that and, uh, we're following the, the big south guidelines, uh, in football, for example, some of our big south com competitors are already up and running and have been, uh, conducting at least voluntary workouts for, uh, the last week or so. So we'll, we'll be a little bit behind them in that regard, but, um, when we receive that guideline, those guidelines from the state, of course, that allow, frees us up to make sure that we're meeting all of the requirements of the big south. And we think that we are, uh, we have, uh, we, we will be submitting to the state, our, our plan for athletics and for housing and dining. You know, when you bring athletes back, we have to house them, we have to feed them. So we have to make sure that those, uh, few components of the plan are, uh, are set and we're ready to do that, and we'll have to submit them to the state. And then there's a 14 day waiting period so that, uh, this information can go out publicly to all of the constituents, you know, the, the student athletes and their families and to our conference. And, uh, our hope is that we will go ahead and, and submit those plans today, start the 14 day clock. And then sometime, um, the early part of mid part of July start bringing our students back for the first time since March

Matt Harmon:
President Lehe. I appreciate your time. We've got a scheduled week off next week to enjoy, uh, the 4th of July holiday. So I'll look forward to talking to you that first full week of July, get back up and going with our mammoth weekly podcast. Um, it's great information here today as always the renaming of Wilson hall, the diversity fund, um, responding to the students from the outlook article. And of course, the continued planning for the fall semester enjoy the rest of your week and your weekend. Um, appreciate you taking the time here today and look forward to, to talking to you in, in another week or two, we should always remind people that if something does pop up, we, we quickly have the ability to adjust and, uh, throw something back in on more of a weekly basis. But our plan right now to get through July and into August would be every other week continu with our mom to weekly podcast.

Patrick Leahy:
I appreciate it, Matt, it's always a pleasure to be with you.

Matt Harmon:
That wraps up episode number 13. We will talk to you in a couple weeks, thanks as always for joining us. If you've got any questions about anything, feel free to comment in mHarmon@monmouth.edu. You can contact president Lehe directly as well. We're both on social media for continued information, go to monmouth.edu, enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks so much for joining us here. We'll talk to you again. Episode number 14.