Matt Harmon (00:00):
The fall semester is in full swing and we've got plenty to talk about on the latest episode of our Monmouth Weekly podcast series. Big News involving the boss, Bruce Springsteen. Plus we're joined by Special Guest University, senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Interim Provost, Dr. Richard Veit with University President Dr. Patrick Lehe. I'm faculty member Matt Harmon. Time for episode number 49 of our Monmouth Weekly podcast series. Thanks as always for listening. Beautiful fall like day here at the Jersey Shore. Excited to be back up and running with our Monmouth Weekly podcast series. It is October. We are post fall break, which means we're a little bit more than halfway through the semester. We have a busy show for you. A lot happening on campus as it always is. University president, Dr. Patrick Lehe, joining myself will be joined by interim Senior Vice President Provost, Dr. Richard Vike. Coming up in just a little bit, we've got some news on Bruce Springsteen as I just talked about in the open, which is always fun, but I'll start as we normally do. President Lehe, I wish you a very good morning. Thanks for coming on and giving us some time post fall break. Who would've thought that mid-October has already come from when we talked just prior to Labor Day, how fast the semester flies by?

Patrick Leahy (01:28):
Hey, good morning, Matt. Always good to be with you. I'm charting the passage of time by the podcasts that we do. So was it really that long ago? Late August, as you mentioned, we're halfway through the fall semester already. I don't know what it is, but time just seems to go more and more quickly. Maybe it's because this year I sense that Monmouth is on a roll in so many ways. We can talk about best class we've ever enrolled at the undergraduate level. As we talked about our retention, graduation rates are going up in the right direction across every ranking platform. We've never been ranked higher, which is nice third party validation of what we're doing. I mean, I think of the rankings as basically the best part about it is others start to see what we know to be the case, which is that we're offering a really first rate experience for our students. That's very satisfying. And then right into, I know we'll talk about later the big announcement last week. So the year is off to a fantastic start.

Matt Harmon (02:48):
Tell me from a standpoint, because we've talked about several times over the course of our couple of years of doing this podcast, the challenges of higher education right now from an academic world. But as you talk about how well Monmouth is doing, how busy the campus is, we're in the post covid world rankings, never better, great academic class. Do you get the sense challenges, not withstanding that we're moving into almost a new era in essence for Monmouth?

Patrick Leahy (03:19):
I mean, I don't want to minimize the challenges. I mean, we are part of an industry, if you will, higher education that's going through a lot of challenges coming out of the pandemic. As we've talked about before, Matt, the pandemic didn't cause the problems in American higher ed. It just sort of showcased them. It highlighted the problems that we face in American higher ed in particular in our part of the country where the number of students who are interested in a college education is going down and that's creating a really competitive environment. It puts terrible downward pressure on revenue and upward pressure on expenses. So I'm not saying that we don't have our challenges. What I'm saying is I feel confident that we are dealing with these challenges at least as well, and probably in most cases a lot better than all those other fine schools out there. And it's just not my opinion. As I mentioned, just look at any objective metric. How good is your class best ever? How good is your fundraising? Historic fundraising by a factor of two or three times? What do your outcomes look like? Well, retention, graduation rates are up, pass rates on various exams are up, accreditations, I mean, and then that's all together sort of swept up into what those rankings think of you. And we've never been ranked higher. So again, I'm not saying we don't have our challenges, we do, but those challenges are not micro challenges at Monmouth. They are macro challenges in the industry.

Matt Harmon (05:13):
You said accreditation, which leads us into welcoming our guest today. He is Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs interim Provost, Dr. Richard Vit who gives us a couple of minutes. We'll get to the accreditation stuff, but a good opportunity, Dr. Vi, to bring you on. I wish you a very good morning. Thank you for giving us a couple of minutes. I know in your new role, not that you weren't busy before as a faculty member part of the Dean's office, I would imagine there's a lot more to this new position that you have as provost.

Richard Veit (05:45):
Matt, thanks so much for having me, president Lehe. Thanks for having me here. Yes, this is certainly a 24 7 job, but I am enjoying the heck out of it. The challenges keep coming, but it's endlessly fascinating and I'm so honored to be in this position to help move the university's mission forward, to support my colleagues and to be part of President Lahey's team.

Matt Harmon (06:09):
I'm not sure in all of our couple years, president Lahey of doing the podcast together when we've had guests on, anyone has used the word fascinating when describing the job that they are in. I'm not sure if that was a requirement for Dr. Vi when he said, I'll take over this role and I'm going to say, man, what a fascinating job. But you have always talked about, and I'm going back over a couple of guests that we've had over the years of us doing the podcast, whether it was former Provost, Pamela Scott Johnson, whether it was Ray Kata who was there as the provost for a while. You have always said, and I'll let you probably describe it better than me, how important the role of the provost is not just at Monmouth, but from the role of any institution of higher ed across the United States.

Patrick Leahy (06:59):
Well, let's just check in with Rich in a year and a half or two years and see if fascinating is still the way he categorizes the job. But that is one of the reasons we selected him is his energy and his enthusiasm. I mean, he's been here for 20 some years. He's a full professor. He has standing among the entire campus community. He's one of the finest researchers that we have. He's great in the classroom. He's got a ton of administrative experience. I mean, all of that is what led him to this important position. But the thing that really separated it for me among all of that is that nobody is more enthusiastic about Monmouth University than Rich Vit. And I'll let him explain where that comes from. But to your point, I always say it's the number two job on an org chart. We only have here at Monmouth, one senior vice president. We have a lot of other fine vice presidents, and you all do really important work, but we only have one senior vice president. And that's a move I made when I started four years ago because it's very important to me that the provost is in and is seen as the number two person at an academic institution. I mean, that person needs to have just that little bit more standing because we are after all an educational institution. So Rich is filling up that position beautifully in his early time in the job.

Matt Harmon (08:41):
Dr. Vi, if you could expand on that a little bit more because as President Leahy, I know you were so highly respected. Number one, as a faculty member in the classroom, your relationship with students working through the Dean's office from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, of which I am a part of as a member of the communication department. So I saw your work there. You would almost think, okay, is this a step that I want to take and a job that I want to become fully ensconced in? But there's also the other side, right? I mean, you had such a great relationship with students in the classroom, not saying that you don't now as provost, but it probably wasn't a slam dunk for you to just say, I'm going for this new job and I'm ready for a new challenge because of what you have done for so long, two decades plus already on campus.

Richard Veit (09:31):
Matt, those are great questions. And Pat, thanks so much for the kind words. I'll try to live up to the billing. So Matt, I came to Monmouth in a really roundabout way. I came here through a student, Monmouth University student who was an intern at a company where I was working, and he encouraged me to apply for an adjunct position two decades ago, and I did, and I just fell in love with this place and I always felt like it was going in the right direction. And I've had incredible opportunities here. I think our students are great. They are some of the finest people I've ever met, and I've made lifelong relationships and I'm still in the classroom. I was teaching this morning, and I hope the students though it's midterm this week, I am not sure how happy they are with me right now.

(10:19):
But I hope that generally they are happy with the classroom experience. And as you noted, I've had a variety of different experiences here. I've been a professor for a long time. I was a department chair. I was in the dean's office. I got to work really closely with your program and communication. So when this opportunity came up, I do have to say, I mean, I took pause to say, look, is this something I should go for or am I going too far? And I talked to some good colleagues. I talked to my wife and everyone was very much like, how could you not apply for this? You've got the right set of experiences. You're in love with this place. This is an opportunity for you to help push mom at the university forward and to work with the president that you respect profoundly, who has a great vision. So it just seemed like the right move, and I'm so glad that I threw in and I'm honored that my colleagues thought that I was the right person for this post.

Matt Harmon (11:22):
Is it a job, Dr. Vi? I think President Leahy would echo this as well. And so would that the relationships that you have with people on campus already make the job appealing because now you get to work at it from a little bit more of a not necessarily ground level, a little bit of a higher level that you can look down. And I don't mean look down in a negative way. I look down on everything that's going on and look for ways to improve what's taking place here at Monmouth.

Richard Veit (11:55):
So I think that's a great question. I think that the positions I've had in the past as a chair and a dean's office, those have helped me understand how different parts of the university function, and that's incredibly valuable. And then also being a faculty member and having participated in our faculty council, that's also really helpful. It's like being part of an organization when you know the different pieces. It's like a complicated machine, if you will, and if you push this lever, this is likely to happen. Doesn't always happen. It's like a classic car, but it should happen. So having those relationships I think has been invaluable. And frankly, I think without them I would've been adrift. So I think the relationships I have have been very helpful and the strong support that I've had from Pat and the other vice presidents, that has also been incredibly helpful.

Matt Harmon (12:54):
President Leahy, I'll ask you this and not to put you on the spot since we have Dr. Vit on, I would imagine within the search for this position, regardless of any other candidate, the one thing that has always struck me about Dr. VI is that I don't think you could find anybody on campus that's going to say anything negative about him because he's a people person, he's a relationship builder, which in this role, to me at least as a faculty member, is so comforting, number one and so important. Number two,

Patrick Leahy (13:28):
No question. I mean, when we did the search for the interim position, we had a lot of great candidates. I mean, I'm really heartened by the amount of talent that we have right here on campus among our faculty members. But Rich separated himself quickly from the pack, and I think as I mentioned, it sort of came down to yes, he has all the experience. Yes, he has all those relationships. Yes, he caress more as much. Let me just say as much as anyone about our students and the student experience here. But I always say, Matt, that the longer I work, the more I value two things in everybody whom I hire energy and enthusiasm. It might seem like really, of all the things that you could say, energy and enthusiasm are the things that I value almost more than anything else when I hire people now, because I just feel like throughout my career, those are the people I want to be around. Those are the people that bring that energy and that creativity to situations. They bring a willingness to put in the time that just speaks to me. And Rich brings that every day in significant ways. So yeah, that was why he finds himself in this position.

Matt Harmon (14:57):
Dr. Vi, among the things that we're going to talk about during the course of our podcast here, I do want to hop in before you probably were ready to comment back on that. And I would say, how does, so I look at it and I'm sure you did for such a long time. I look at it as a faculty member inside the classroom where you can have a huge impact and influence students because you're working so close with them on a weekly, daily basis. How does the provost continue to do that from a higher level of energy, enthusiasm, creativity, to continue to help the student population?

Richard Veit (15:38):
Yeah, Matt, that's a great question. So as one of our finest faculty members that when you go into the classroom, you've got to have some energy about whatever you're talking about and that's what's going to make that class great. Or if you don't, it's going to make that class struggle. So it's what you bring to to the classroom. I would say in this position, it's the same sort of thing, but it it's working with a different group of folks. So bringing that positive, I'd almost say kind of a relentless positive energy. Even if at the end of the day you go home and you're dragging because you've been hit by so many challenges, the next day you have to spring back up and have a smile on your face and go in with the best of intentions. And the thing that I like about being in this position right now is that just as in the classroom, I'm trying to make sure that those students have a great experience, that I'm helping set them up for life after Monmouth in the provost office.

(16:39):
I'm trying to help support all of my colleagues as we move this institution forward. And sometimes that's a little bit of playing the role of a traffic cop saying, yeah, we're going to move with this project now and we're going to hold off on this project. And sometimes it's nudging folks, sometimes it's supporting them in different ways and kind of knowing, again, knowing what different folks need to help them be successful. And that's great about the position in a classroom, the 25 students I have right now, so I can have a great experience with them and hopefully they're having a great experience, but at this level, I'm helping push the whole place forward.

Patrick Leahy (17:16):
Let me just add something real quick to that, Matt, and I want to make sure it's understood by our listeners that Rich just articulated what a 24 7 job it is as an administrator, the second most senior administrator at the university, and yet he's committed to continuing to teach, and I just think that should send a very strong positive signal to our campus community that he's not stepping out of the classroom. He's going to keep his one load, one class a semester while he's taken on all this other administrative work. And I've always encouraged our administrators to stay involved in the classroom. As you know, I myself used to teach. I haven't here yet just because of some of the challenges that we've had to deal with from an administrative standpoint over the last few years. But I just think that says a lot about Rich as an educator.

Matt Harmon (18:20):
Let's transition into this Dr. Vit, and that would be you think of all of the pieces of the job right now, the accreditation part of it, Monmouth is going through their review of middle states, and for a lot of people, they would probably say, what is middle states? Middle states commission on higher education, which is the accreditation body, and please correct me if anything I say is not proper. It's the accreditation body that Monmouth basically gets almost what a stamp of approval, right? To continue operating as is.

Richard Veit (18:54):
Yeah. So this is super important for us. Middle states accreditation is like the Good housekeeping seal for us. And when you think about it, we have individual programs that are accredited. We have programs in business, we have programs and speech language pathology and occupational therapy and nursing. So many those are all important, but this is an accreditation for the whole institution. So it tells us it's a chance for us to look really closely at ourselves and what we're doing, but at the end of the day, it tells us if we're delivering on our promise to students and we're delivering on our mission, I'm feeling good about it. We have an incredible team, about 60 members of faculty and staff working on this. Tracy Mulvaney, Christine Bennel and I are leading this effort. You couldn't ask for better colleagues to work with. And I think at the end of the day, we'll have a very, very successful outcome. And we've had some really nice sort program level outcomes recently, occupational therapy led by John Patro home run there. That program is moving through its accreditation process really, really smoothly. Speech language pathology as well, computer science as well. So it's like we're firing on all cylinders here as a university. I'm really proud of the work that our faculty is doing and that our students are doing as well.

Matt Harmon (20:23):
President Leahy, I'll get a comment for you on middle states before we move into the big news from last week. And that would be, is this one that keeps you up at night or do you feel like, Hey, I know we're in a good spot as a university with Dr. Vi and so many of the people that he just mentioned and so many other people that we don't even have time to mention, I'm, it worries you, right? But it's not a concern. Is that fair to say?

Patrick Leahy (20:53):
Everything keeps me up at night, Matt, so let's add middle states re-accreditation to that long list, but given the strength of the team that we've assembled, given the work that I know happens around here day in and day out of all those things that keep me awake at night, this one, I feel quite comfortable that we're going to get through. We try to look at accreditation in the most positive way possible. Yes, we need to make sure that we are meeting all of the requirements to get that good housekeeping seal of approval as Rich said. But even broader than that, I welcome third parties coming in from individuals from other fine schools assessing how we're doing and feeding back to us where we're really strong and where we might need to improve. I think if we can embrace accreditation in that positive spirit, we can turn it into yet another way that Monmouth is looking at improving and trying to continue on that positive trajectory.

Matt Harmon (22:04):
Dr. Vi, I'll close with this one for you with the accreditation, and I'll say process because I know it is a process for those listening to us or in the university community that might not be well versed in it. I won't even say when did it start? I know it's a continuing process, but when does it end? When does that stamp of approval come through for middle states?

Richard Veit (22:25):
So we've got about another full year's worth of work, and then we will generate a pretty massive report on all of these different standards that we're trying to address, and that will be sent off of a site visit from the middle states commission, and then they'll read out to us how we're doing. So it's about a two year process all told, and we're about just under halfway through it.

Matt Harmon (22:50):
We're going to transition here on our Monmouth Weekly podcast. So we're saving I think the best for last, which was some really exciting news on campus just about a week ago, little less than a week ago on campus, the Bruce Springsteen Archives Center for American Music at Monmouth, a brand new building and project that was announced President Leahy. It was a bit of a star-studded cast on campus within the Great Hall at the press conference. Bruce Springsteen there as well, made comments towards the end part of it. I know this has been something that has been really, I'll say near and dear to your heart, all of the centers that we have on campus, the different ones, but this one has been one that I feel like has grown exponentially even over the course of your four years as president.

Patrick Leahy (23:44):
Well, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, as you know, I arrived at Monmouth in the summer of 2019, and we already had the commitment from Bruce Springsteen at that point to bring his archives here. He basically did it on one condition, which is that his story would be told in a much broader, still evolving and developing story of American music, and that's where the idea for the Center for American Music came from. So I really handed to Bruce Springsteen. That was his idea, frankly, and I think is a measure of his genuine sort of humility. When I arrived, the goal was we're going to get up, we're going to get running, we're going to start programming, we're going to become active. But that our dream was always to have a suitable building in which we could house the archives, showcase the archives, bring in the stories of other American artists, have performances, lectures, classes, et cetera.

(24:51):
That was the dream, and that's what I sort of inherited, and I appreciate you saying, helped to move this along. We had some starts and stops through the Covid pandemic. We just didn't think going out and raising money for a project like this during that time was good form. So we basically waited a couple of years. Then we started hitting the fundraising hard, and I'm so proud to share that this building is going to become a reality. I mean, we've gotten approval from our board of trustees to build a 45 million building, which will do everything I just talked about. It will be paid for 100% by third party resources. So this will not be a drag on our university financial situation at all. So to have this asset and to have it paid for, but the generosity of others is a fantastic thing for our university.

Matt Harmon (25:53):
As we keep looking at what is potentially coming down the road, if I'm remembering from being at the press conference and watching it, you're thinking, what 2026? Is that accurate that this building would open up?

Patrick Leahy (26:10):
The hope is that we will break ground in the spring of 2024, and then it's probably going to take 18 to 24 months to build and then to properly outfit. Because when we grand open, if you will, this building in 2026, we want to have it outfitted with the Bruce Springsteen permanent exhibit, the E Street band's permanent exhibit. We want to have our temporary shows embedded so that first time visitors to the new building can have the full experience. So that's going to take a little bit of extra time, but it coincides really well because it will be, we hope, the beginning of the 250th anniversary of our country and the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music is going to play a really important role in the celebration of American music for our 250th anniversary.

Matt Harmon (27:16):
I said star studded. There was a lot of people at this press conference. There was a lot of people on campus, and I know for you running the day of operation, it was probably difficult to get to everybody. But so important to probably point out the efforts of Bob Santelli, who we've had on the podcast before, how important he is to this overall process. So if you want to take a moment and just, I'll say Credit Bob, because I know probably without him, none of this really happens.

Patrick Leahy (27:54):
You just said it, Matt. I mean, the most important person in this whole effort is not Bruce Springsteen. It is not John Landau, his longtime producer, the vice chair of the Springsteen board, and our key collaborator in this, it is not Pat Lahey, even though I'm the president of the university and the chair of the Bruce Springsteen archives and Center for American Music Board. It is not those individuals. It is Bob Santelli because nobody has the contacts that he has. Nobody has the experience developing sort of music museums and music initiatives like he does. Nobody has the passion for the project like he does. I mean, what are the chances that you would have a mammoth student? He's a Monmouth alumnus who taught here for a while, is from this part of the Jersey shore who has that extensive experience throughout his career. To have him be able to come back to his roots and to do this is really very special.

Matt Harmon (28:59):
Dr. Vi, when you hear the news of the Springsteen archives and the Center for American Music continuing to develop here on campus, there clearly is an academic component to it as well. Tell me how it fits into that part of the university. From an academic side of things, what becomes the benefit for the student population potential programs?

Richard Veit (29:22):
Matt, there are a lot of different benefits that come to mind here. So first of all, this is a world class facility we're creating with an archive that will be of great interest to researchers across the nation, probably around the world, not just for the Springsteen fans who are Legion, but also for other folks interested in American music. We have Melissa Zibo as part of the team there. We have Bob Santelli, who is once a faculty member here at Monmouth University. So we have strong academics embedded in that archive. So I see this supporting students across campus and really across the region. The other thing that I love is it raises our profile as an institution and makes people take note of what we are doing here at Monmouth University, and a very positive way. So I see this as a huge win for academics at Monmouth University.

Matt Harmon (30:21):
For more information on this new move on campus, springsteen archives.org is your spot to get all of the details and the information on the new building and the Center for American Music. Dr. Vi, thanks so much for coming on, giving us some time, really excited for your leadership, your continued leadership in your new role, and wish you nothing but the best.

Richard Veit (30:44):
Thanks so much, Matt and President Lehey. Pleasure to be here with you today,

Matt Harmon (30:47):
President Lehey. Look forward to doing this again in the next month. We'll be up against, I guess, Thanksgiving, right around that time period when our November episode comes out. I appreciate you always being part of what we're trying to do here, deliver the message to the Monmouth community.

Patrick Leahy (31:04):
Well, it's a pleasure for me, Matt, and spend time with you is equally fun for me. So I wish you well as you continue the courses that you're teaching, as well as those broadcasts for our football games coming up. So I think we have a good record when you make the call, so we need to get you in the booth.

Matt Harmon (31:28):
It's usually the case. Appreciate everyone listening to our Monmouth Weekly podcast for Dr. Richard White University President, Dr. Patrick Leahy. I'm Matt Harmon. We say so long for this latest episode. See you again in about a month.