Matt Harmon:
As the calendar turns the page from August to September, it means the start of a new academic year here at Monmouth. Plenty to talk about new hires, summer happenings, and so much more with university President Dr. Patrick Leahy. I'm faculty member Matt Horman. It's time for episode number 47 of our Monmouth Weekly podcast series. Thanks as always for listening.
Coming up on Labor Day weekend here at the Jersey Shore, usually marks the end of the summer, though officially on the calendar, still a couple of weeks. September is such a beautiful month here in the Garden state and around the Jersey Shore area, but it also means right after Labor Day weekend, campus back open, kind of on a more official basis and the start of a new academic year with university president Dr. Patrick Lehe, Matt Harmon here from the communication department. Really looking forward to getting back up and going here on our mom with weekly podcasts. We have taken the summer off as we've done over the course of the last couple of years since doing the podcast. And President Lehe, I'll start with just, Hey, how are you and how was the summer? I know you've become a huge fan of the summer months here in New Jersey.

Patrick Leahy:
Love the summer months here. Good to see you, Matt. The number of people who still ask me, Matt, oh, you work in education, what do you do all summer? It's just amazing as you pointed out. I mean the fall semester is beginning, but we are busy 12 months out of the year here at Monmouth, just the way I like it. But the summer months, it does dial down a little bit. All of us get our vacations, hopefully we all get our vacations to get that rest and relaxation that we all need in order to get ready to bring it here in the fall when the students come back. So it was a great summer. I can't believe it's nearly over, as you point out though, September and October here at the Jersey Shore, I mean they are often the two best months of the whole year, so we're very blessed in that as everyone else is winding down the summer. We still have a few weeks left, but it was a great summer,

Matt Harmon:
Fair to say, and I'll joke at your comment in education, oh, it must be nice to get the summer off. I mean, clearly that's not the way that a university or something in higher education works the summer. Extremely important for a variety of reasons. Number one, students are there taking summer classes. Number two, I would think from the perspective of once the spring winds down in between the spring semester and the fall, it's a pretty good opportunity with vacation and what you said, people being able to take a little bit of a breath. It's also an important time to probably catch up to make sure you are ready come the fall. What's been happening on campus that if you were there in May or June, but you haven't been there the last couple of months, what are you going to pick up on when you come back in September?

Patrick Leahy:
Well, just before I get to that, you're absolutely right. I mean, academic activity happens all year, including the summer. I mean, we had close to 10,000 credits earned this summer by our students, 10,000 credits, which means hundreds of faculty members gave up part of their summer break to offer classes, and I'm incredibly grateful for that. And then of course that says nothing of the scholarship and research and other activities that our faculty members are engaged in the summer, so that academic activity happens. It's just as you point out, not as noticeable. A lot of our summer classes are online, which is the way our students like them, so the campus densifies and then it gives us a chance to start working on maintenance projects that are tough to get to between September and May. So this summer as every summer, all kinds of maintenance projects to make the campus both more functional and more beautiful.
There's a bunch I won't go into. I will say we've made great progress toward the new space for our Center for entrepreneurship, which is a very exciting initiative here at the university. If you come back to campus, you will see the next phase of our new signage package being rolled out, and you might say, big deal, pat new signs, well, lemme tell you, new consistent, good looking signs in my opinion, just sort of lays a blanket of class over our already beautiful campus. So those are going in and we're getting ready for some of our bigger projects for the fall and into next year as well. So we spend the opportunity in the summer to make sure we're doing everything we can to get the campus ready when it fills up again in the fall.

Matt Harmon:
And one of the highlights clearly of the summer term in essence has been towards the end part of it over the course. I think of what the last week, 10 days was summer commencement, which has become now almost an annual thing at Monmouth. You've got the normal spring commencement ceremony, you've got one in the middle of the year for winter graduates or people that maybe couldn't be involved with the spring and now with summer one, which has become, listen, the traditional four year plan probably isn't what a lot of students do anymore. So I would think to break it up with different opportunities to celebrate graduation, have different commencement ceremonies. The summer ones become a big hit

Patrick Leahy:
And every year we contemplate whether to have the summer one because it is our smallest of the ceremonies, as you say. Of course, the spring is the biggest one, and we have separate ceremonies for undergraduates and graduates. We have a winter ceremony for the end of the fall semester, but a few years ago we started this summer ceremony because as you point out, I mean not everyone's all in the same cycle, and if you finished your credits in the summer and you're ready to graduate, it's become very clear to us, Matt, that students want to have that ceremony as close to finishing their commitments as possible. And every year when we contemplate, is it worth going through a major ceremony for, in this case only 78 graduates and their families? We go ahead, we host the ceremony and the feedback I get is so positive from the families, from the students themselves that pretty much we've decided that as long as I'm here, we're going to have a summer ceremony because in my opinion that is a student-centered university, is to try to offer those important ceremonies as close to their completion dates as possible.
I was thrilled that over 40 faculty members took up part of their last days of summer to join us. It was really exciting. So we will continue to do it even if they're small ceremonies because we believe that's putting the focus back on our students where it belongs.

Matt Harmon:
And obviously at the end of the academic year and then the start of a new academic year, you are going to have some staff turnover, which listen, being at Monmouth one way or the other since 1993 up until now, seen a lot of people come and go, but I've seen a lot of people come and stay so that when people do leave, it's usually I'd say noteworthy. And at the end of the academic year this year, you saw the retirement of Marianne Nay of Jeff Stapleton, provost Pamela Scott Johnson moved on to back to her alma mater, which opened the door for you to, let me think of the right way to say this, and correct me if I'm wrong, almost reimagine what your cabinet and your upper administration would be. And I know right now you feel really good about three of the new people that you have brought in. There are more, just to be clear, but those three people in those positions, let's start with the student life position and Jim Pilar who in essence takes over for Marianne Nay, who was at the school for the better part of four decades almost.

Patrick Leahy:
She was, and we celebrated her appropriately at the end of the year. She served this university with incredible distinction. It gives me this unique opportunity to figure out in her absence, what do we do? Do we go out and do a national search? Of course there would be plenty of people interested in coming to Monmouth in that role. I think from working with me over the last few years, I have a preference if possible, that is to look first internally to see if there is in fact talent already on the campus who's interested in stepping up into new leadership positions. And once I employ that model, Jim Pilar was a natural. He's been here for many years as the number two and has a real hunger to take his opportunity in the top position in student life. We did a little search, you were involved in that search as I recall, and interviewed some good candidates within the campus community, but Jim stood out. I'm so thrilled to have him in this position. He brings both the institutional knowledge and to hunger to look at things with a fresh perspective and maybe make some adjustments in a way that would serve students well today. So Jim is in place right now and is doing a fantastic job in his early days.

Matt Harmon:
When you think of that position, because it is so student centered, I mean, of the jobs at Monmouth, that one kind of highlights because it touches on so many different areas and so many different aspects. If you were a student who might listen to our podcast, if you're a parent who would listen to our podcast, what is it about Jim that maybe students would notice or parents would notice a change or a difference over the course of maybe say the first two months of the semester? Yeah,

Patrick Leahy:
A deep abiding commitment to students, period. I mean, he's got a doctorate, so he's, as you can be in the field, he has all kinds of experience. He's seen almost every situation over his time here at Mama. So he brings all of that body of experience that you would want in this position. But more important to me, Matt, is a deep abiding commitment to students trying to collaborate closely with academic affairs and with athletics and with other areas around the university to ensure that each individual student, to the extent possible, has a life transforming experience here. And he's got ideas, things that I think he's been waiting patiently for years, say, wow, if I ever had the top job, I might consider doing things a little bit differently. So Jim, Jim, I think Matt, he's a wonderful person. He's deeply committed to this place. He lives right here basically on the campus.
He's totally involved in the life of the university, can't be more excited to partner up with him at Monmouth. It's not just what happens in the classroom. Yes, that is the heart of the matter, let's be honest. Any educational institution, what happens in the classroom and in labs is the heart of the matter, but to offer a life transforming experience, all those sort of complimentary experiences on athletic fields and in dance studios and in the residence halls and on the campus are a critical part of the full experience. And Jim now is in charge of those sort of co-curricular activities.

Matt Harmon:
For the longest time in athletics, Dr. Marilyn McNeil oversaw things again, better part of 30 years, her retirement a couple of years ago, and her number two and basically right hand man for almost her entirety was Jeff Stapleton. He helped Monmouth guide that process of going from the Mac into the C A A, which obviously was a game changer for the university. He stepped down at the end of the academic year last year, and right now with an acting athletic director, Jen Vero, who kind of moves, what moves a spot over from being the senior woman's administrator and overseeing so much over there. She right now is the person who is in charge of athletics.

Patrick Leahy:
Yes. What do they say, Matt? On a basketball bench? There's a big difference. That foot between the head coach and the first assistant is a big jump. Well, as you point out, in Jen's case, she was like the number two person, I forget the senior associate athletic director. Jeff brought her to Monmouth incidentally about two years ago. Similarly, I decided I'm not sure what to do yet. For the long run, I will do a search of some kind. I've committed to the campus community that we will do a search, but when I saw the talent that we have right here already working in our department quite successfully, I thought, I'm just going to name Jen as the acting athletic director for now. And she knows this. If she's listening in on this podcast, she knows that someday I will do a search of some kind and invite her in as a candidate, but that we don't have time to spare.
We got a lot going on. As you know, in athletics, moving into a new conference presents opportunities and challenges, and we just felt that Jen is really well equipped to take over, at least in the short term, if not the long term in her role. And again, I think she's doing a good job. I mean, before I made that move, Matt, there were key people in athletics whose opinion I really trust, whose sounding I took on that, and I was really impressed by the level of support that Jen had, and that gave me confidence to place her in this role again, at least for the coming months, if not longer. And it allows us to just keep moving because we are as a university with ambition,

Matt Harmon:
When you look at it, speaking of busy summers, you get to see the athletes pretty much before any of the normal students would come back on campus with the return of fall sports, women's soccer up and going men's soccer up and going field hockey up and going, football opens this weekend. So I'm sure you've had an opportunity. Those are usually what those would be the first students that you kind of see and interact with even before September rolls around, because they're pretty much here the entirety of August.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, I mean, I think most of them, them are here doing their two days or three a days or whatever they do now come August 1st. So that's what I mean. We're a 12 month university. I mean, yes, there were certain months where it's a little bit slower, but only a couple months is it a little bit slower. And once August hits, we got to get ready to roll. I think you know that this year we went to this summer Fridays model, which to try to demonstrate to our staff our appreciation for their incredible work throughout the year. We gave 'em Fridays off in June and July. Well, I've gotten petitions. Why don't we continue that all the way through August? Can't do it because once August rolls around, we've got to have all hands on deck getting ready for bringing the students back and getting ready for the fall semester. So I think that schedule worked really well in June and July, but come August, we're ready to roll and it starts when the athletes come back.

Matt Harmon:
Last kind of higher level, upper administrative move from an academic standpoint, Dr. Pamela Scott Johnson, who was the provost over the course of the last couple of years, went back to her alma mater, which I know you were excited for her to have that opportunity. But opens the door for a longtime member of the faculty who has served in so many different roles and Dr. Rich VI to come in and act as the provost right now. And I mean, listen can tell you from someone who has known him for the better part of 25 years, you can't really find someone who's more Monmouth and more centered from an academic standpoint than Dr. Vi.

Patrick Leahy:
No question. And I know you know him personally and can vouch for him personally, I'm really proud that Dr. Scott Johnson left here to become the provost at her alma mater. You pointed out Spelman College down in Atlanta, which is the finest institution or one of the finest institutions of its kind anywhere in the country. So really proud of her that she went on to that position. But as you pointed out, it gives us an opportunity to look around to find someone within our community with both the experience and the standing around here and the hunger to continue to improve and move academic affairs and in part move the university forward. You don't have to look very far to find the right person, and that's rich white. We did a search, there were a number of first rate candidates from right around the university community, mostly of course faculty members.
In fact, I think all faculty members and the committee and my opinions synced up perfectly in the person of Rich White. And he's just, again, totally student centered. He is been here for a long time. He is a full faculty member. He's got's a bonafide academic when it comes to his scholarship and research. So he is not only great in the classroom, he's great in his particular field, and he has the personality and the style that I think will be very, very positive here at Monmouth. And again, he's been in the job only since July 1st and so far he's doing a great job. So thank you for mentioning him.

Matt Harmon:
Tell me from a standpoint as those were three that we decided to highlight student centered, academic centered, athletic centered, maybe other changes that have taken place over the course of the last couple of months that the common everyday Monmouth person, student, faculty, parent, even administrator might not know about that are still important.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, I mean if you think about the provost and the vice president of student life, the senior vice president and provost, the vice President of Student Life, the athletic directors, those are directly student facing positions, critical part of the student life cycle, if you will. A couple other important positions that you wouldn't necessarily see is that vice president and general counsel, Charlene Diana has been offered and accepted the job on a permanent basis. She's doing a great job. Tim ORs, our executive Director of campus Planning and Facilities, he was in the job in an acting capacity. He has been given the job on a permanent basis and those are no less important, just less sort of seen with the core constituency our students, but talk about two critically important positions. I sit down now with my senior administrative team, Matt, and a lot of them are new to the positions, but from our community. So I hope that that sends a signal that we're looking first at talent within our community. I think that's good for morale. People can see that others are stepping up into these senior positions, but yet they're all, when I sit down with 'em now, there's a lot of new faces at that table and that's very exciting for me as I begin my fifth year here at Monmouth,

Matt Harmon:
Which probably seems crazy for you to say, right?

Patrick Leahy:
I had to count it up there for a minute, fifth year. Can you imagine some ways, it seems like yesterday, other ways, as you might imagine it seems like a lot longer than four years, so I'm thrilled I said this the other day that I begin the incredible privilege this fall. This is my 12th year as the president of a university, beginning of my 12th year, and I have never in my life, including my first year as a university president, I've never been more enthusiastic about where we are. And I hope we can talk about that in a minute.

Matt Harmon:
Good segue. It seems like we've done this for the last three years. You, ab,

Patrick Leahy:
Ab,

Matt Harmon:
Where we're going to go. You talk about being excited and we can finish with a couple of these things. Number one, I have heard you say over the course since we started this podcast over the pandemic in March of 2020, now running through to 2023, always touting the incoming classes at Monmouth, and I was on the faculty council call with you yesterday and you did the same thing. What has made this class, maybe let's say, unique to what we have seen at Monmouth over the last few to several years?

Patrick Leahy:
Well, the beauty of it is, I believe even through the pandemic, at least the last three years, three years ago I said we had enrolled the finest class ever. Last year I said that we enrolled the finest class ever by a whole collection of variables. We enrolled the finest class ever. Just that last year, our class was a little bit smaller than normal, but it was still, when you pull that class together, it was the finest collection of first year students we've ever enrolled. You look ahead to this year, Matt, not only are all of those variables up in the right way, but it is a decidedly larger class in this fall. So you're going to hear me say again that this fall is the finest class that we've ever enrolled. We've never had a collection of individuals with an average G P A higher than we do this fall, 3.63.
We've never had a better mix of Jersey students and out-of-state students, which is an important strategic imperative because the number of students graduating in New Jersey is going down in the coming years. So we need to recruit more widely. We have, I think the second highest student of color number coming in this fall, which is important to us to make sure that we have a diverse campus community. We have record number of honor students. In fact, I'm going to talk to them in just a minute. Record number of honor of honor students this year, and one of the things that you're going to hear me t is that we're starting to measure quite closely what we call our fly rate. So some schools call it a figley rate, first generation low income figley. I prefer fly. We are the Monmouth Hawks after all. So our first generation low income rate, that is the number of students in our first year class who self-identify as a first in their family to pursue a four-year college degree and qualify for Pell Grants, which is the federal aid program for the highest financial need.
This fall in that class, that is the most prepared class we've ever enrolled. Fully one half of the class are fly students. Every other student that you get in the classroom from this class, Matt, is going to be either first generation or here because of Pell Grants. That, in my opinion, is a commitment to access that few other highly ranked private schools can tout, and that's what we're after in our strategic plan to try to prove that we're integrating excellence and access like few other schools. And all you need to do is look at our first year class as evidence of that.

Matt Harmon:
I'll show you that I'm prepared knowing that you wanted to mention this towards the end of our podcast, the Washington Monthly magazine and their annual college guy just came out as we record here the last day of August. I think it just came out yesterday or the day prior, but this week, and in terms of rankings, which I know sometimes can be misconstrued by a lot of people, but if your arrow is pointing up the direction that Monmouth is in this particular ranking, I know it's something you want to talk about up 26 spots.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah. Can you imagine? So Washington Monthly doesn't have the national appeal that some of the other ones do. We'll talk about those in a minute. I like the Washington Monthly one in particular because they try to measure what we call contributions to our country. How do individual institutions contribute to the common good in our country? Now, who doesn't want to rank highly in that ranking? That ranking looks a lot at what I just said is what kind of social mobility are you creating? Are you an engineer of social mobility? And the fact that just yesterday came out and we jumped in one year, 26 spots is amazing. And I think it's evidence that what we're trying to execute on our strategic plan is getting the recognition of establish third parties. This is only met a week after Princeton Review came out again with its annual.
They don't do a ranking. They just do a list of the 389 finest schools in America. Now, our goal is not to be one of 389. I mean, we want to be one of those schools, but we have ambition to be the top end of that number. But when you think about it with the number of four year schools out in our country, that represents about the top 15% of all four year schools in the country. I'm proud to be in that collection of schools. The big one, of course, is US News. It comes out in a couple of weeks. I will warn you and anyone else who's listening that there's a major methodology change afoot in the US news ranking this year. All kinds of variables are being changed. Usually every year they'll tweak one every couple of years. Now, apparently there's a radical redesign, so I have no idea what that's going to mean for us. I hope it takes in the fuller consideration some of these access measures that we're touting, but I just don't know. So I will warn people. I don't know how that's going to play out, but the ones that have come out so far, we're killing it.

Matt Harmon:
We'll finish with this one. President Lehe would be a follow up on the Washington Monthly one. I know you mentioned maybe not the most notable or the one that people would kind of jump to when you think of it. Princeton Review, Forbes, all the other ones that come out. But the thing that kind of struck me in that moving up 26 spots in the Northeast on that list and where there's about 400 schools, give or take, a few that get measured. I liked it because from a parent who has had one student graduate, one who's going to start in the fall of 2024, and then another one a few years after that, and you being a parent as well, the thing that kind of grabbed me on the list is it's best bang for your buck. Because I mean, listen, everybody knows higher education prices are a huge problem for the general middle class family here in the United States. So when you see best bang for your buck, that's something that's a little bit different than maybe some of the other rankings that come out.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because I always say to parents during our recruitment cycle that we're not going to be the low cost alternative. You can always find, even with all the aid that we try to put into the system to drive our list price down as far as possible, in many cases, in half, doing everything we can to keep that price, you have to pay as reasonable as possible. We're not going to be the low cost alternative, but that's not our goal. Our goal is to be the high value option in our marketplace. And this, Matt, that value is a function of two things, what you pay, of course, but what you get for what you pay, that constitutes value. And we're trying really hard to keep our prices reasonable as possible, recognizing that, I know it's still a stretch for families, but to make sure that we're pouring as much into that experience as possible for students so that when all is said and done, they look at it and go, you know what?
I had to make an investment. I get it, but my outcomes are so good. My career prospects are so good. The life transforming nature of my experience was so good that I saw that as worth it. I can say that until I'm blue in the face. We need people or organizations like Washington Monthly through their methodology to endorse that this is a place where there's good bang for your buck and for them to say that is very, very comforting to me. And I hope for all of our families who I know are struggling to make a first class private education accessible for their kids.

Matt Harmon:
Appreciate you coming on and giving us some time to kick off this semester. I know we'll do this once a month, but the fact that we're ahead of the curve already at the beginning of the semester. We're getting our first podcast out before the first day of class. I feel like this is a big accomplishment.

Patrick Leahy:
We're way ahead, aren't we? Yeah,

Matt Harmon:
Way ahead. That's what I'll tell students the first day. Make sure that first week really important. And oh, by the way, president and I, we already did our first podcast. We

Patrick Leahy:
Already covered this, and I know you're fitting it in between a busy schedule and you're heading down to cover our opening football game. So I'll be listening to your call on Saturday, and I wish you safe travels, and I wish our football team all the best. This is a F B S opponent. So for those that don't know, this is playing up. This is playing above us to see how competitive we can be. A very exciting time for us.

Matt Harmon:
Yep. Monmouth football opens up Florida Atlantic on Saturday night For anything athletic related, mama talks.com for anything school related, monmouth.edu. President Leahy, enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks for giving us your time this morning and into the afternoon, and look forward to seeing you in person back on campus next week.

Patrick Leahy:
Me too, Matt. Thanks.

Matt Harmon:
This has been Monmouth Weekly. Our thanks as always for Dr. President Patrick Lehe. I'm Matt Harmon. We'll see you in our next episode. Episode 47 comes to a close. Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day weekend and a great start to the fall semester coming in 2023.