Matt Harmon: As the academic year comes to a close. It doesn't mean that things stop at Monmouth university with university president Patrick Lehe, I'm faculty member, Matt Harmon. On this episode of Monmouth weekly, we discussed the year. That was the summer that is now. And a look ahead to the next year of 20 22, 23 it's episode, 40 of our weekly podcast. Thanks as always for listening Matt Harmon: A very good morning as we have turned the calendar into may. It's been a while since we've been up and going with our mammoth weekly podcast, but good to be back with you with university president Patrick Lehe. I am faculty member, Matt Harmon. Um, we have moved into the summer months, June, July, and August here at the Jersey shore and president Lehe. I wish you a very good morning. I mean, if, if I was gonna be my normal, sarcastic self, I would say, where have you been with the podcast? But I know that things have been extremely busy, winding down, uh, the academic year, getting ready for summer, looking ahead to the fall, all stuff that we're gonna talk about on the podcast today, but, but it is good to be able to, uh, grab you for a little bit. I know it's, it's a busy ironically Wednesday for you. You've got some faculty calls coming up and staff briefings and everything that kind of goes along with the ins and outs of the summer life of the university president. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. Good to see you too, Matt. I, um, I'm working hard to try to pro provide some content for our calls. So hopefully we can get into that, uh, in the intervening month. But, uh, it's funny, you mentioned, uh, we celebrated Memorial day weekend last weekend. And of course we joined people across the country and remembering our servicemen and women, uh, in particular, those who sacrificed, uh, their very lives for our freedoms. So, uh, never, never too late to recognize them. But, um, I got the question over Memorial day weekend that I've gotten a number of times in my career, which is pat. Now that commencement is over and the academic year is winding down. What are you gonna do all summer so, uh, trust me, there's plenty to do around Monmouth this summer. And, uh, I'll be very busy and I look forward to sharing some of those updates as well. Matt Harmon: Yeah, listen, I I'm, I'm sure the, the faculty and staff that will be on the open call later. We'll we'll see you. Um, I was gonna say disappointed to see you this morning, still shirt tie the whole, what happened to summer casual? You should be Patrick Leahy: Socks shoes. Matt Harmon: Flip flops. That's what you should be in. Maybe a t-shirt. I mean, I would, I would settle for a golf shirt even, but, um, you're running a tight ship up there if you're still going short and die and we've turned the calendar to June. Um, you, you know, on, on so many levels, this academic year of 2021 into 2022, I will say started with nothing, but question marks, right. But maybe finished with a lot of exclamation points. The way that the year kind of turned out. I, I was thinking of the way to say that, and that kind of popped in like, how is this year gonna be? And now that we're at the end of it, it's like, wow, we made it through a year. Feel free to grab that, put that on the staff call today. I, I won't even have to take credit for it if you want to use it. But I thought it was a really good way to kind of, to sum up what the year was. Patrick Leahy: You sound like a professor of English over there. Uh, I like the way you put that though. Quite frankly, I don't, I don't like, guess I don't know if that was spur of the moment or whether you've been that for weeks now. Matt Harmon: Listen, you've seen me work before, up in the booth. I don't, I very minimal notes almost spur of the moment seat of the pants kind of guy. Patrick Leahy: I mean, I look back on this academic year, which as you point out is, is winding down. In fact, we're well into our summer sessions academically. And I look back on it with a lot of satisfaction, you know, because there were a lot of questions going into the, to, into the year, last fall. And, uh, we had healthcare protocols still in place, and we were watching carefully to continue development of the pandemic. And there was a lot of nervousness around the campus. And I think, uh, as is customary of this community, uh, we all pulled together and, um, we created, uh, a really an exceptional academic experience for our students this year and, uh, you know, culminating in commencement, which we'll talk about. But, uh, I, I look back on it with, uh, a great deal of, uh, satisfaction, Matt Harmon: Satisfaction, and, and in so many ways, um, you know, my interaction with students that were graduating, it was, it was, it was unique because the seniors that I either advised or I've had in class for so many years in the communication department, it, it was, it was difficult to talk to 'em like, how was your four years at Monmouth? I mean, you almost forget in a way, because of the way that the year finished and everything kind of on an upswing. Um, again, not that COVID is gone, it's actually kind of bounced back a little bit. Not that COVID is gone, but you almost forget that for students that are graduating or have graduated in may, or even the course of the summer, in essence, for, for two and a half years of their collegiate experience, it was something that nobody has ever seen. You know, it's like, how was your four years? And I think students actually really struggle to answer that question. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. And, and, and rightly so. I mean, they had a unique experience in college that, you know, people in a hundred years haven't had, I guess, uh, so I know that it, it was very unique. I know it, it was not what they expected in many respects. Um, I give them a ton of credit for continuing to stick with it and sustain their engagement, uh, through the last, uh, number of years to get to the end of the road here, you know, commencement, despite that the number of students who, uh, came up to me during the commencement ceremony and talked about despite all of these challenges, um, you know, they'll say these are the best four years of their, of their lives. Despite all these challenges, my message at commencement is don't believe that for a minute. Don't let anybody tell you somehow that a 22 year old or 23 year old has already had the best four years of their lives. I mean, my my message is a lot more hopeful that they will have these amazing lives throughout the 21st century and with all the, the developments and the changes and the exciting things happening in our world that, uh, no way of my am I prepared to admit that the best years of their lives are behind them. They are still very much ahead of them, you know, but it was still really satisfying to hear them talk about how meaningful their experience was here. Matt Harmon: Yeah. And let me, let me go back. When I talk about a student's experience over the course of the last four years, it's, it's not mama specific. It's everywhere. I mean, I, I, I, you know, I work on the beach, so now I've seen other, other students come back for the summer and they say the same thing. Like, it, it it's been crazy to kind of navigate. Um, and, and Monmouth did, I would say a fantastic job over the course of the last two and a half years, trying to get everybody through it. Um, you know, speaking of commencement I'm, I'm reminded because I had done the name reading for the, the first of the ceremonies, which was the masters and the doctoral, um, proceedings and Jack Ford was the keynote speaker who addressed. And I, and I thought his message to go along with what you just said in your message. I'm, I'm struggling to remember. I think it was, it was Jack who said, now go do better at the end of his speech. You know, like it was kind of the same message, everything as it's been the last couple of years, this was a great time of your life, but now go do better. And that's what you would always wish for anyone who's graduating Monmouth or any institution of higher learning you finished now go do better. That's kind of what you're saying as well. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. J and, and it was Jack Ford who delivered that message. And, uh, what an honor for me to be able to recognize him with my first honorary degree here at Monmouth. I mean, I've had the great privilege of bestowing those at other places, but my first one here at Monmouth, because I approached him, you know, two and a half years ago, to be the commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient at the 20, 20 commencement. And even though we had all those ceremonies, they were broken up so much that I just asked Jack to wait until we could come back to some semblance of normal, but he, um, he's a professional and, uh, his, uh, address reflected as much. And I think his point and mine, uh, in a different kind of way is students will look back on this experience. And I don't know if they'll fully appreciate everything that they learned until they get a few years removed from it, because there really were important life lessons that were learned over these last four years that will stand them in good stead as they, um, develop their careers. So, um, it was just such a great thing. You know, I, my message to that group is always, um, you know, with, with increased abilities comes increased responsibilities, and, uh, that's a good message for our masters and doctoral students, frankly, for all of our students, given, given the importance. Now they have, uh, educational attainment that when you look worldwide, very few, uh, very few people worldwide have. And with that has to come some added responsibility. Matt Harmon: Tell me from the standpoint, and then we can kind of Mo move ahead a little bit. If you thought back over the course of the last year, 20 21, 22, the academic year we're talking about and compared it to when COVID started in 2020, and then that whole next year of 20, 20, 20, 21, how was this year maybe different than the, the first year and a half. And, and what were the unique challenges that maybe went along with it? Patrick Leahy: I mean, I think of the first year everything was going along at just perfectly normally. And then we had that very, very dramatic shift. So that was a unique year in and of itself because of how radically we had to shift. Then you go to the next year and we had so much hybrid stuff going on. We had some academic programming online and some here, and some people in the residence halls and some people stay at home and we had athletic, uh, contests, but half of what we normally do in terms of the schedules, you know, so that was a unique year in that we, we had to integrate a lot of different things in order to get through the year. And then this last year, I feel like we were back. Uh, now there was anxiety about being back rightly so, and would things continue to develop positively, but we were back. And, um, despite, you know, just having to comply with a few added healthcare protocols, um, most people were thrilled to be back and to be actively involved again on campus and to be engaged with one another in person. So I see my hope is that next year will even be more normal than this year. And the only difference there would be if things are calm enough that we can relax all of our healthcare protocols, that would be the only, the only thing missing now, cuz you know, we still did some masking this year. We still, you know, encourage people who feel more comfortable to remain masked up indoors. Um, my hope is that we won't have to go to any mandatory masking. We'll still allow people to mask if they choose, but once we do that, Matt, we are back, I hope to normal. And um, and that would be really, really, uh, exciting for us to be able to open up the school year without having to manage testing and, and other protocols and distancing and, and the like, and I hope we're headed that way for this coming year. So I think of as three distinct sort of years, Matt Harmon: And you had mentioned, um, you know, the summer at Monmouth is, is busy on so many different levels and maybe different ways than it is during the course of an academic year. And I hate to say, you could use the summer as, as a trial and error period, but this summer session, it, it, it, it's almost in a way, okay, where are we? What works? You could maybe try something if you wanted to, during the course of a, of a, of a summer session to see how students feel about it, how faculty feel about it, how staff feel about it. Um, so I know the, the summer is really important on so many levels, but to also just kind of get a gauge maybe of where people are at. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. I mean, and our summer activity as you well know, academically is really, is really strong. I mean, um, I don't, I, I don't know, 10,000 credits are gonna be earned this summer, something like that. And it's down a little bit this year, over previous years, I think a, a, a result of, you know, a few things. Um, one is, you know, we, we went to from 128 credits to graduate to 120. So right there, it's just like our students need fewer credits to graduate. That's a perfectly market based adjustment, incidentally. I mean, everybody across the country requires 120 credits. We were, we were unique in, at, in, in requiring more. So we think that's the biggest part of it. A lot of our, on our, uh, our, uh, credit, our course offerings in the summer are online. And, um, I think in a typical summer, that's enticing to students. Maybe they're a little fatigued about, uh, online, uh, delivery. So maybe that's that's it, but you're right in that the summer can be treated as a laboratory in some respects and you can try different things and you can, you have to reor, you know, sort of redesign your courses in order to pack, you know, really good quality work into a compressed period of time. I think that fosters a little bit of academic innovation. So I always say, I, I, I want us to operate as a university, 12 months of the year. And what does that mean? It means that we need to be a had offering academic programming to students all months of the year, not just eight months of the year, but, but, or nine months, but 12 months because students want to have access to those courses to get ahead or to catch up or whatever. And if we want them to graduate on time, we need to be available to them by offering these courses in the summer. So we, we have a very active summer in terms, in terms of academic programming, which I'm really pleased about Matt Harmon: University president, Patrick Lehe, faculty member, Matt Harmon, we're on our 40th episode of our Monmouth weekly podcast. Um, just kind of breaking down the, the year that was and on, on so many levels as you look ahead, maybe to, um, the year coming up in 20 22, 23, you're also kind of reminded that, um, students are still picking up acknowledgements and, um, I'll, I'll throw this one at you. And I know it's something you're extremely proud of having a couple of students on the, on the Fulbright list, right. That will represent Monmouth and be part of that, um, highly esteemed and very difficult program to be part of, Patrick Leahy: You know, when I arrived at Monmouth, I asked three years ago, you know, what's our Fulbright story. And to be honest, Matt, we didn't have one. And, and it just dawned on me like, wait a second. We have among our student body, the talent to apply for prestigious postgraduate fellowships. I just don't know if we had the infrastructure in place to support the students in the, in those pursuits. And so we added some things over the course of the last few years, and it resulted first couple years ago with our first like NCAA postgraduate, uh, fellowship, which is a extremely competitive postgraduate prestigious scholarship for athletes. And then this year, as you pointed out, we had three students make it to the final, uh, sort of cut if you will, for the Fulbright. And two of those three actually were awarded Fulbrights one undergraduate student, one graduate student. And that is so significant for us. I mean, um, it just demonstrates to the world and to the marketplace that we have that kind of talent here at Monmouth, if, if properly supported and developed, uh, they too can compete against fine students at every other school in the country. You, you know, and Fulbrights are awarded to schools all across the country, all the finest schools in the country, uh, have Fulbright scholars every year. And I'm just glad that Monmouth is now one of them because you know how competitive I can be. And, uh, it's really important anytime our students can compete against students from other fine schools and compete well, it burnishes the reputation of our university. And, and, um, so proud that this year, you know, we had the three finalists and then two winners, and I hope this is the beginning of an annual, uh, process that, that we can put in place. Matt Harmon: Yeah. And, and, you know, I, I was also reminded of, um, even though on just about every level athletics is now kind of in a, um, a quiet period, the university also has one student that will go to, uh, the NCAA outdoor track and field championships, Evan Naroski, um, in the, in the javelin, Patrick Leahy: The javelin yeah. Matt Harmon: Will go and compete, um, at the university, Oregon coming up in a, I think another week, it's the second, second week of June. Um, he, he's the only athlete in essence, that's still competing for Monmouth as part of this academic year. I mean, that's, that's pretty amazing on, on a lot of levels. Patrick Leahy: It's interesting. You should think of it that way. Yeah. He's our final sort of athlete of this current year. That's still competing and, uh, he's doing really well. I mean, I, I forget exactly, didn't he finish 10th in the region or something which qualified him to the nationals. And, um, do I have this right, Matt? Is he a freshman? Is he a first year or a second year student? I mean, he is, he's, he's on the earlier side of his academic experience, I think. So, um, really, really excited about that. Hold On chance To compete on a national stage. And every time we do that, it Burnes our reputation just a little bit. Matt Harmon: Yeah, you're right on, right on the money with that a, a, a freshman right now at Monmouth. So, I mean, I guess we should probably think in three more years, he probably should just win the whole thing. I would imagine . Um, but, but you, Patrick Leahy: Yeah. And then this is so ju we're here June 1st and July 1st, uh, is when the, uh, the major transition formally occurs from the Mac and the big south and the America east to the, uh, colonial athletic association. So we're getting prepared, prepared for that and very, very excited about that move. Matt Harmon: Yeah. And, and I'm sure that's part of, um, again, what the, what the summer months are in terms of planning, prep, um, not just for athletics, but usually it's a time that things take place on campus that the, the common everyday person that's not there during the course of June, July and August wouldn't necessarily know about until maybe they showed back up in September. What are some of the, what are some of the summer things that are, are happening that when people show back up in September, they, they might notice or things that they might not notice that are also important. Patrick Leahy: I hope there's very noticeable, uh, changes from now to say from June 1st to September 1st, um, you know, the summer months, as you know, having worked in the academy for many years now, they are very, very busy months. Maybe the type, the activity type changes just a little bit, but I already talked about how active our academic programming will remain in the summer, but the summer on a college campus is often the time for, um, adjustments to the campus and investments in the campus and capital projects and construction projects. And, um, it's such a limited window that we move quite quickly in the summertime to try to get things completed from commencement to the beginning of the fall semester. So this year in particular, we have a ton of things happening. Um, I'll just run through a few of them. There's a very complex set of space moves, and I won't go into all the detail, Matt, but a very thoughtful plan was developed over the last year to figure out there's certain things we needed better space, which was consistent with our strategic plan. We needed a better place for our intercultural center and we've identified it. We needed more and better space for our career development center, which is an important part of our strategic plan. And we've identified it. We needed to figure out a new home for our police department, if you know the current home, you know, that it is in desperate need of, of, uh, new space. So we've identified it. We needed better space for our alumni, um, uh, affairs effort during the, the beginning of a major campaign. We found it. And the beauty of this is we found it in existing space around the campus. We don't have to build anything new. We don't have to incur those, um, you know, these, those additional expenses. Yes, we will spend some money to make sure that, you know, those spaces are equipped adequately for their new functions, but a whole series of space moves, continued investments in our north campus for the benefit of our, our sort of residential students who, who live up there. So many things happening, no one of which is itself dramatic, but I hope to sum total of those will make the campus a lot more functional for our students. I mean, these were student centered moves, and I'm really excited that our hope is we can get all of that done between now and the beginning of the fall semester. In addition to that couple other big things, the ocean first bank center will get a brand new jumbotron this summer. Great thing about that is as you know, Matt, when you build the ocean first bank center and you decide to put a jumbotron like that in that we have, it's got like a 10 year useful life. I mean, it's just is it's, it's a, it's, it's the nature of the, that kind of equipment. And we're coming up to more than 10 years of useful life. So we needed to replace that anyway. And our advancement team went out and, uh, raised the resources from private donors to pay pretty much for the entire project. So we will get this summer, um, not only a new jumbotron with the latest state of the art technology to enhance the experience in the ocean first bank center, but it will have been paid for, uh, by, uh, supporters of the university, uh, almost entirely. I mean, there's about a 50 or a hundred thousand dollars investment we need to make, but everything else was covered by donors. I mean, that is such a home run because that was a deferred maintenance issue for us. Anyway, one way or another, we were gonna have to spend upwards of a million dollars to replace that equipment. And Amanda and her team were able to get it paid for by third parties. So that's gonna happen again, not itself, some major project, that's gonna change the nature of the university, but that's gonna happen while all these other things are happening. And then the last thing I Hope's gonna happen is we're gonna get our signage package installed on the campus. I maybe have mentioned to you in the past that, you know, I look around the campus, I see all kinds of different kinds of signs. Some of 'em are faded others aren't of the same family. It just doesn't look like a unified first rate university. And so we've meticulously designed, you know, new signs that will go up all over the campus. I mean, who knew we had some 250 signs on the campus that need to be replaced, and the hope is that they're gonna start that process and get most of that done this summer as well. So the goal here, as you point out is if you leave campus in may and don't return until September, I hope you'll see some very noticeable changes in our continuing development of the campus, Matt Harmon: Which in, in so many, I'll say ways and levels. Some people might be thinking, oh, what's the big deal about signs. Let's just say were some of the other things that you mentioned it's and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just thinking of it as, uh, again, someone who's been at the university for a long time, who has a son who goes there, who talks to people on tours and is people come in and out of the, the planned year center, um, you need to look organized, right? I mean, it's just that simple. You need to present a good front because as you and I have talked about so many times, and it will lead us into maybe our last point of the day, it's extremely competitive to get people to decide. This is where I want to spend the next 4, 5, 6 years. If you're on a grad program, um, years of my life and give money to and be part of it, it, you need to put up the best front possible. Patrick Leahy: And this is an actually in my opinion, a pretty cost effective way to do that. I mean, when you have to put 250 signs up, it's gonna cost, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna kid you. I mean, it's, you know, it's real money, but relatively speaking, um, it's, it's a, a, a small, uh, reasonable price to pay, to create that unified look and feel and functionality to the campus. And, uh, I, as soon, once again, this is one of my, you know, the last two places that I worked, Matt, we changed out the, the signage package. So, you know, that was coming, uh, when they, when they hired me, but I looked around and I said, you know, this, this could look even, uh, even better than, than it does right now. And I was so heartened the other day, just a quick story that I, uh, one of our newer board members who joined the board during the pandemic and has pretty much been, um, engaged, you know, through zoom calls. Um, and you know, the, the few meetings that we've had in person on campus, he called and requested a tour of the campus. Just, just like you were prospective student, which first of all, I really appreciated his interest in learning about the campus. And the bottom line after a 90 minute visit was he was like so many people, very impressed with what we've got. And he sees a lot of other colleges and universities because, um, he actually runs a foundation and other colleges and universities are petitioning him for support. So he's seen a lot of campuses and he just reminded me, uh, what a, what a, what an asset we have here. And, um, I just told him that I'm glad that he's saying that now. Um, with his support as a board member, uh, this could look even so much better and be so much more functional in the years to come. Matt Harmon: Let's finish with a look ahead to 20 22, 23, um, get through the summer, start the academic year, right after labor day as Monmouth traditionally does what would be, um, uh, maybe a summation of the academic class that will be coming in, or wanna take that a step further returning students that will be coming back, um, in, in terms of the enrollment numbers, which I know we're always right now, a little bit of a challenge for any institution of higher learning and a little bit of, Hey, again, we need to recruit, we need to move forward. What's this coming academic year look like? Patrick Leahy: Well, first of all, the, the class itself is a great class. And, and what I mean by that is, you know, there's so many different, uh, variables that you measure in terms of assessing the quality of the class, right, Matt. So the first is what is the, what is the academic preparation preparedness of the class? Well, at least by the measure of average grade point average, it is the most prepared academic class we've ever enrolled at Monmouth. Now, some could argue, well, there's been great inflation over the pandemic, or, you know, we're still, uh, S a T optional. So that's not all I'm telling you is that when you take the number of students that are enrolled and you average out their GPA, it's it's by far the best academically prepared class to ever come to Monmouth, that is part of our strategic initiative. Number one, number two, as you've heard me say, uh, a few times, we have to reduce our reliance on the state of New Jersey by increasingly recruiting out of market. If you will, secondary markets that could be as close as Pennsylvania to the west or Florida or California or internationally, you know, this year, um, well over 30% of our class is, will be enrolled from outside the state of New Jersey. That is a strategic imperative of the university. We have, uh, still a high percentage of our students that are, um, underrepresented minorities, 27%, I think last, last measure, that's down a few points from last year, but it's still a very, very strong number and allows us to continue our, our, our philosophy at integrating excellence and access. Um, a really interesting point is of our first year class by far a record number are enrolled already in five year programs. So as you pointed out a minute ago, I mean, we're not, we're about 25% or, or maybe even a little bit more of our class has already signaled that if all goes as planned, they'd like to be with us not for four years, but for five years, that's a wonderful thing. So for all those reasons, it's a great class. Now, the one issue that everyone will harp on is that it is a smaller class than we were envisioning. We were hoping for around nine 50, we're gonna end up around 900, 900. So is that gonna, is that a negative variance to our operating budget for next year? Yes. Is that gonna put added pressure on, on finances and resources around here? Yes. And so they're not, I'm not minimizing those challenges. I will have to help steward the university through those, but that's a budgeting challenge. That's not an enrollment challenge. I mean, the enrollment numbers are, are really strong and I'm very excited about, uh, the class that's coming in. It's just gonna be smaller. I mean, even that smaller class, our hope is that the same number of students will not the same percentage, but the actual same number of students will live with us in residence halls. That is a strategic imperative of the university. So when you line it up against our strategic plan, it's a very good class. The, the, the challenge and what we'll get a lot of focus is it's smaller than we were anticipating. And that always creates, uh, anxiety around around the university Matt Harmon: Creates anxiety, just because like so many other schools, Monmouth is in essence tuition driven, right. Is that the best way to say that? So if you have 50 less, that's, that's less, as you just said, foreign operating budget to then turn around and put it towards whatever the university would put it towards. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. I mean, 50 fewer students this year has a certain effect. And then remember that's 50 fewer students who will retain into the sophomore year and then retain into the junior year and the senior year. You, you know what I mean? So, um, I'm not, I'm not sugar coding challenges that might emerge as a result of that. Um, I'm just saying that that's, I think of that more as a budget challenge than an enrollment challenge, because it, the class itself in a very competitive market where the demographics are starting to move against us, um, that class is a really strong class and, and we didn't, uh, you know, we didn't, you know, academic quality didn't take a hit as a result. You know, some of those other key measures did not take a hit. That would be an enrollment challenge. You see what I mean? Sort of like, it's just a number if I told you that our goal was to enroll 900 students. And I just told you what I told you, we'd be celebrating the fact that, you know, we hit every conceivable target in our first year class. It's just that we were hoping for a little bit larger, a larger base and, and doesn't look like we're gonna get that. So Matt Harmon: I know that, um, I, I, I know that, uh, you have an open staff call today. Um, and some of the things that we talked about, I know we'll get explained to everyone during the course of that call. So I, I will wrap up by saying good luck. , isn't that the best way to say that going into the, going into the staff calls. And I know, I, I know for you, those have been, those have been really important, right? Those have been extremely important for you to connect with people at the university level on any level, because they're open staff calls, um, and be able to explain things in detail, maybe not to everyone's satisfaction, always as I have sat on those calls and listened to some of them as well. Um, but I, I, I would say the one thing is that you, you always give everybody an opportunity to say whatever it is they feel like they need to say. Patrick Leahy: I mean, we, we started that the, those, uh, open calls at the beginning of the pandemic, the way in which you and I started this, this podcast, which was to try to find every, every try to find every conceivable avenue to communicate with people during these really challenging times. And some of those calls, uh, literally Matt, I get seven or 800 of our colleagues on, on a zoom call. And so, um, there's always an update on where we are with the pandemic. There's always updates on what's going on at the university in general. And then there's always a segment that opens up the floor to questions and comments. I mean, and I understand that if there's six, 600 people on a call, some people might not be comfortable asking the question they really wanted to ask, but as you know, uh, a lot of 'em are not bashful about asking whatever it is they want to ask. Patrick Leahy: And I just feel like that's important to, to be available to the campus community, um, certainly during the pandemic, but it's become, um, I'm getting such feedback that they're so valuable to the campus community, that they want me to continue them, even if we are through the worst of the pandemic. So I will do 'em a little less frequently. I mean, I was doing 'em pretty much every week there for a while, or every two weeks, we've fallen into about a monthly pattern, but I look back on 2026, uh, 2021, the calendar year, 2021, I hosted 26 open calls. I guess someone could say that I'm too accessible and wow, you're, you know, every really every two weeks you needed to, to, to host a call, I, I would rather be criticized for that than the individuals who say, we never hear from that guy. He's never available to us. He never takes our questions. He never stands, stands up and defends his decisions. So , I'm just trying to find the right, the right integration of those two extremes. You know, Matt Harmon: Let's finish on a, uh, on a lighter note, summer plans. I know you're busy at the university, but is there any fun that gets thrown into mix for you, your wife, your kids. I know they're all scattered in at different stages of their life, but what, what does summer 2022 bring for president Lehe and the rest of his family? Patrick Leahy: Um, you will find me, uh, at the beach, uh, this summer, because, uh, I think you, you knew this when I arrived at Monmouth that, uh, one of the things that was so attractive to me was, uh, my long enduring love of, uh, the Jersey shore. So, um, we'll spend time in south Jersey with my family, where, where, uh, as you know, I, I grew up, uh, going down south. We'll spend a lot of time in and around, uh, Monmouth county beaches as well. You know, when time allows, uh, I just love that time with my family. You know, you're working the beaches and I'm, I'm, I'm enjoying the beaches. So, um, I'll sit there and read a few books and, um, you can keep an eye on, uh, everybody and make sure they're safe. Matt Harmon: I will do that. Not a problem. Uh, great to wrap up the academic year with you look forward to continuing this, um, during the course of, of the summer, and then into next year, probably on a little bit of a, of a different level. I know we have some stuff that we can throw out to people the next time, probably that we, uh, chat, but these, these have been tremendous as we, as we record our 40th episode and finish our 40th episode, um, I will wish you a fantastic summer, um, and my best to, to you, your wife and the kids enjoy, hopefully what will be a fantastic, um, season of, of weather and sun and beach time. And I will look forward to catching up either real soon. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. Thank you, Matt, for everything. And, uh, en enjoy the summer Matt Harmon: For university president Patrick Lehe for all involved with our Monmouth weekly podcast, faculty member, Matt Harmon, we say, uh, so long for this episode, we kick off the summer months here in 2022 at the Jersey shore comments, feedback, feel free to, uh, reach out to myself or president Lehe during the course of your time of listening to us and we'll catch up real soon. Enjoy the summer. It's that great time of the year at the Jersey shore.