Matt Harmon:
It's our end of the semester check-in and a top 10 for the calendar year of 2023 with university President Dr. Patrick Lehe. I'm faculty member Matt Harmon. It's our latest episode of the Monmouth Weekly podcast series, episode number 50. Thanks as always for listening. Happy holidays.
Fantastic day. It is the official final day of the semester here in the fall of 2023, and it is our 50th episode of Monmouth Weekly. We've hit the plateau that we've been waiting for for quite some time with university president, Dr. Patrick Lehe. I'm faculty member Matt Harmit. Good to be back with you, and timing is perfect. We hit a milestone. We're wrapping up the semester and we hit our 50th episode, of which I didn't tell you before we hit record. This is big. We've got to 50. We're moving into a whole nother category starting in January next year.

Patrick Leahy:
Is this just how you planned it, Matt? The 50th episode here at the end of 2023?

Matt Harmon:
Well, if you think of it, we started in March of 2020 and Covid and I called it Monmouth Weekly, so we should be up to like 200 and something right now. We're clearly far behind. We've changed it.

Patrick Leahy:
We may need a name change in the new year, Monmouth monthly, maybe

Matt Harmon:
Monmouth, Monmouth monthly, which works too. A lot has happened during the course of this year. We'll have some fun on this episode, just kind of catching up as we usually do in our December episode here of our podcast, but wanted to start obviously with a beginning, which is also an end, the end of the semester and the beginning of what is the holiday season. They run part and parcel to one another in a lot of ways. I know you're on campus today. I was there yesterday. We'll be up today as well. You can tell there's a little bit of a different feel. Campus is kind of emptied out. It is the last official day of finals today with faculty members, staff, and students. Probably looking forward to a little bit of a break. It's a long semester in some ways, but goes really fast in another and I would imagine you kind of feel the same way.

Patrick Leahy:
I feel exactly the same way. It is much more quiet here on campus today. I know our faculty are working feverishly at their respective places to get the grading completed on time, but I'm just grateful that we've gotten to this point in this semester as we will talk about, we've had a great semester, a great year here at Monmouth, but I love the rhythm of an academic a cycle. You get amped up, you have a great high impact, high activity fall semester. Then you get this break in the middle of the year that it ramps up again in the springtime and then when people are just about exhausted, you get the summer break and then you get a chance to either go to summer school and keep banging out credits or go to work or whatever. It's just a great cycle and I feel really privileged that I get to work in this business, if you will, that allows for that.

Matt Harmon:
When you think of it for so many, the end of a calendar year, which will take place in the next whatever it is, 11, 12 days and January 1st we'll start and you mentioned the break from the fall semester into the winter. It's also I would think a time of reflection, but in the academic world you have two ends. You have the end of the semester and then in May we'll talk about the end of academic year or June, the academic year comes to a close and what you just said kind of hit me a little bit when you think of being privileged and I think that's something that's so important to so many. Just yesterday, Sunday into Monday, we had a pretty major storm kind of roll through and I'm sure people are dealing with that depending on where they might live, not just in New Jersey but up and down the East coast as well.
But it is privileged and I say that to a lot of students with end of semester either projects, meetings, talking about how to finish things up, how to stay on top of things, but also how lucky not just you are as president, I am as a faculty member, the students are as well, and you and I have talked about this the last couple of years of the campus coming back to Life post Covid and I feel like we can say that now post Covid world and hopefully things just getting back to normal. I did get a sense the fall semester this year was really different than it has been the last couple of years. I'm not sure if you felt the same.

Patrick Leahy:
I did. I felt the same and I think it helps when we basically were so full here on campus, we didn't have a spare bed, so there were more people living among us this year than in many, many years. There's some new leadership around campus that I think created some energy in different pockets of the community and I just think as you pointed out, I think people are pleased to be back to what seems like a normal college environment and I think it was reflected very well here at Monmouth. I mean a lot of people say to me, Matt, I'm sure you get it as well, that it must be tough to be an educator today, which is with everything going on and the challenges in higher ed in particular, maybe that's true, but you, I've always felt that this is an incredible privilege to serve in the capacity that we serve and I try not to forget that.

Matt Harmon:
I understand that over the course of the next few days or week, you have a little bit of a top 10 that you've been going through that I'm sure will be unveiled at some point and I guess I'm lucky to get a little bit of a scoop on it, and I don't think this is in any real particular order that we'll talk about it today, but every calendar year there are things that are highlighted. I won't ask you what's number one because clearly it's doing the podcast once a month. I mean, I already know that's established that I think even the last couple of years that we've done it, that's right at the top of the list.
I'm going to throw you for a little bit of a loop with this one and I'm going to connect family into it. You have always been a huge athletic supporter of all the teams on campus of all the teams on campus, but it does have to feel a little special knowing that your oldest son has been a walk-on on the men's basketball team and just see that that was not on our list of things that we talked about, but family is important and this time of the year highlights that and I know it's got to have a huge sense of pride for you. Number one, to see him give something a go and number two, do it at the place that you also now call home.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, that would be him making that team would be one of my personal top tens for the year. I didn't have it on my Monmouth top 10, but it would certainly be one of my personal top tens. I mean, I think, as you know Matt, I love basketball anyway. I love the game, so I would be naturally inclined to support the basketball team here. Then you add on top of that that I really appreciate our coaching staff on the men's and the women's side. I really like them. They're such great colleagues. I love what they're doing with our programs. I've consequently gotten to know the basketball programs over the years. I've gotten to know those players in a way that maybe I don't get a chance to get to know all the other athletes, so I feel that much invested in the basketball programs as it is. Then you take this to a whole nother level when number 10 runs out onto the court, and that is my older of my two boys. So for all those reasons, I'm just a huge fan of our basketball programs. As you point out. I hope to be a huge fan of all of our athletic programs, but basketball in particular for all those reasons and not surprisingly, the performance of our programs shows up on my top 10 moments of 2023

Matt Harmon:
And rightfully so. I threw that loop in there knowing that you have a couple of sports related items in the top 10, and again, we're not doing these in any particular order, don't want to highlight one more than the other. But from a calendar year and this now being the second year of Monmouth being in what was the Colonial now the Coastal Athletic Association, I would have to think the fact staying on the basketball side of things, the fact that the women's basketball team qualified for the NCAA tournament at the end of last basketball season in March of 23 has to somewhere beyond your top 10.

Patrick Leahy:
It's on the top 10. I mean, as you know, because you call games and you follow the program closely. We won the CA championship down in Towson, Maryland back in March. It was the first time our women had won the championship in 40 years, 40 years. I'm almost at once bursting with pride and a little embarrassed that it's taken us that long. So that is clearly one of the top 10 moments in my opinion. Just the excitement around that championship run for a team that went in as the seventh seed as I recall into that tournament, to be able to win four games basically in four days was really, really special. There are a couple others though, if I may related to basketball. There was a moment, I don't know if we had a chance to talk about this at a previous podcast, but there was a moment all the way fast forward to November where the same Friday night in November this year, at the very same time our men's team beat West Virginia, which that's a major high major win for us on the men's side, and at the same time the women were beating St.
John's, which in basketball is a high major here on campus. So if you want to look at the two best hours in mom of basketball history, that's a pretty good argument right there to win two high major games at the very same time. So I have that also on my top 10 list,

Matt Harmon:
And I think probably one more that we could throw in there from a perspective of a day, and listen, it didn't go the way that everyone would've hoped. mid-November, you had women's soccer, men's soccer, field hockey, all playing the same weekend in CA championships, all resulted in heartache, which I know is the bad part of it, but again, year two in a new league and you've got three teams in the fall all playing in championship games. Again, source of pride and probably a relief in a lot of ways saying, okay, this was definitely the right move for us going into the CAA.

Patrick Leahy:
I mean it was amazing. I was here on campus watching the men's semifinal, so I think as I recall, Monmouth was playing Elon in the semifinal, and that match went into overtime as I recall, and the man ended up winning that game, but at the same time, I'm watching that game in person and I have my phone tuned to the Women's Soccer championship game, and then I have a colleague's phone tuned to the Field hockey championship game all at the same time. So as you pointed out, those were very close games. I mean, we lost both of those, one in double overtime and the other at the last minute. But I always say if you needed any evidence as to whether we belong in the CAA, there it is. So you're right, I think two years into it, we're still getting established, but no questioning that we belong in that league.

Matt Harmon:
Let's go a more recent one every year short of I guess the Covid time, the gala at the Great Hall is something that's a fantastic event just taking place over the course of the last couple of weeks. And even though you've been part of this since you've been president and bringing it back and making it unique under your administration, I will say this year was probably a little bit different because of the way that the event went raising money, but also being able to honor people that are really important to the university.

Patrick Leahy:
So we do this event, as you say, we've been going through a couple iterations. It's always held the first Saturday in December so that we can showcase the Great Hall around the holidays, and it's a good fundraiser. I mean, I think we're going to clear three or $400,000 for the access fund, which allows us to provide additional resources as last dollar scholarships to deserving students who might not otherwise make it here in Monmouth. So I mean, nobody can question or I hope the value of that as a fundraising event. I always say though, Matt, so we raised $300,000 net at that event that's at an institution which aims to raise $30 million this year. I mean it bakes right into my annual goals, raised $30 million to support all these capital projects and everything else that we have going. So it's the way in which we use that money that's so impactful, not necessarily the total, but as you point out, it is a unique opportunity for me as well to recognize individuals for their lifetime commitment to the place.
And this year we recognized Al Ti. I think you knew Al, he was a huge supporter of athletics and I had the great fortune of inviting him to receive the President's medal, which is our highest honor here at Monmouth. And he graciously accepted, even though he was battling an illness, he graciously accepted and it was giving him hope that he could fight this battle and then be here in December. And unfortunately, Al lost that battle to his illness in the intervening time, but we went ahead anyway and offered it to his family in Memorial and it was just a really, really special night for Amis. So for a variety of reasons that would make my top 10.

Matt Harmon:
So let me ask you this as a follow-up to that, and you mentioned someone like Al who's so important to the university on so many levels and that connection that he had. Have you been surprised in your time as president of the university? How many people like Al there are out there that have these long standing relationships to Monmouth?

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, I mean, it's in fact one of the reasons why I petitioned the board upon my arrival to create the President's medal. We had a lot of different ways in which we recognized people including the honorary degree at an academic institution. The honorary degree is one of our highest honors, but I just felt like there was a recognition missing and that was lifetime commitment to Monmouth. And the board gave me the permission to create this presence medal in part because as I got to know the community, Matt, I started realizing how many people we have who without their collective support over the years, we would not be the institution that we are today. That is just a fact. And why not use an opportunity once a year to recognize those individuals and to thank them properly for that? So there are no shortage of individuals, including individuals like Al. Actually two of our first three president's medal recipients were not alums of the university. So I think that says a lot about who we are, that individuals in the community just appreciate what we're doing here, whether they were beneficiaries of our education or not, but they're so committed to what we're doing here that they become lifelong supporters of Monmouth.

Matt Harmon:
We're running through our top 10 list of the calendar year of 2023, faculty member Matt Harmon, university president, Dr. Patrick Lehe. I'll put these two together and give you the platform for this. I'll say rankings and ratings together as one, even though they are separate, meaning the ranking of where Monmouth sits in some of the national kind of institutional rankings that exist around the country and the rating, meaning how good the academic classes have been of students coming in.

Patrick Leahy:
So I would make my top 10. I mean, we have achieved by virtually across virtually every platform, the highest ranking so far to date. I say that with some trepidation as I do every year because I have my problems with all of these rankings and the different methodologies they use, and somehow I believe they oversimplify the complexity of educating students today, but I don't make the rankings. We just feel obligated to participate in them. And third parties have never recognized Monmouth as a better institution than they did this year. So I mean that has to make the top 10. And if that's not enough, I think what you're referring to as well is that this fall we brought in the best class we've ever enrolled. We're 90 years old this year, and this is by virtually every measure, and certainly if you combine measures the finest class we've ever enrolled.
Now, sometimes when alums hear me say that, they always say, Hey, what about my class? I get it. We've had great classes. I'm just saying that on paper, this is the best class that we've ever enrolled. Both the most academically prepared class 3.64, average incoming GPA, which is competitive with some of our aspirant schools, but also 50% of the incoming class are what we call fly students. That is, they're either first generation students or low income students or both. And that is a tremendous commitment to access. So our strategic plan is all about integrating excellence and access, and you need to look no further than our first year class this fall as evidence of that. So that would make it as a separate top 10, the best incoming class ever.

Matt Harmon:
Take me back to the rankings of Monmouth, and you said highest that the school has ever had. And I know in our podcast a theme for you has always been Monmouth is this hidden gem on the Jersey shore. What makes some of the ratings ranking systems all of a sudden recognize Monmouth were maybe in the past they hadn't?

Patrick Leahy:
Well, I think one shift that we're seeing across all of the rankings is institution's commitment to social mobility. So that is sort of a term that encompasses, are you making your educational proposition accessible to students? What is your commitment to need-based aid, which we're committed to? How diverse are your classes and the like, how accessible are you making your institution, number one, and then what are the outcomes with those students? And they measure retention and graduation rates by Pell Grant students, for example. And our efforts in this area are quite strong. I mean, we have work yet to do, of course, but we are quite strong in those areas, Matt. So I hope it's the combination of the things that we're doing to try to be recognized increasingly as an excellent school, but you start weaving in our commitment to access and rankings, start building that into their methodology that should stand us in good stead for years to come.

Matt Harmon:
Commencement would also be one, I would think that always makes the top 10. I think that's one. We can put that in pen, right? The different commencements that take place. And Monmouth does have a couple of them during the course of a calendar year.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, I mean always whenever I do these top 10 retrospectives, I always reserve a spot for commencement because after all, that's ultimately what we're all about. We can talk about all the other cool stuff that happens, but in the end, we want those students that are doing amazing things to ultimately march across that stage and pick up their diploma as evidence of a great outcome for them. So I always hold commencement as one of our top 10 slots, as you pointed out, we do commencement four times a year here. We do two in the spring. So we do an undergraduate only ceremony, in fact a number of them, and then we do a graduate ceremony. Then we do a summer ceremony, as you know, for all of our graduates at the end of August. And then we do a winter ceremony coming up here in January. And we commit to that because we have students that are finishing at different times during the year from bachelor's to master's and doctoral students, and we want to make sure that they have an opportunity to celebrate that achievement as close to the time they finish as possible. So even though doing four a year is an administrative challenge, sometimes we believe it's evidence of a student-centered university.

Matt Harmon:
I think this is the time within the top 10. I have a list. I'm trying to check 'em off. I'm sure there's something that we can add at the end, but this is the time of the podcast. I think you bring Springsteen in to talk to us a little bit so that we can recognize what took place a couple months ago. I

Patrick Leahy:
Always do. I

Matt Harmon:
I'm still waiting, still waiting for him to appear on the podcast. I thought, well,

Patrick Leahy:
How about that? That would be good for our following, wouldn't it? Yeah,

Matt Harmon:
50th episode, end of the calendar year. I thought you were going to pull a surprise out, but clearly the Center for American Music and the Springsteen archives, that was a highlight in this semester. But overall in the academic year, the calendar year I should say, of 2023,

Patrick Leahy:
I mean, if I have room on my top 10, I've lost track of how many spots we've used up, but if I had room, I would put two Springsteen top tens. The first was way, way back in April when we inaugurated our American Music Honors event. It's our annual fundraiser for the Springsteen Center. But instead of doing yet another gala, if you will, we decided to do basically a music awards show with Bruce Springsteen's endorsement. He thought it was a great idea that he would be able to identify individuals who were either quite influential to him or underappreciated or already appreciated, but just you can't celebrate him enough. And we inaugurated that event in April, and by all accounts, it was a home run. It raised a ton of money. It brought people to campus who had never been exposed to Monmouth University, and they were blown away by it. It was a great event, which is going to become an annual event, and I'm not at liberty to share with you yet, but I promise you in January, we will share with you the honorees for this April's event. Let me just say this. You will recognize the artists. How about that?
And then the other is the biggest announcement of the entire year, which happened in October when we announced publicly that we would in fact be building a permanent home for the Bruce Springsteen archives and Center for American Music right here on the edge of campus in long branch of 45 million investment in the arts and arts education, which will be 100% funded by through the generosity of donors, most of whom, in fact, almost all of whom Matt are new donors to Monmouth. So this is such a huge asset that comes to Monmouth and allows us to enhance everything that we do around the arts here and to shine a spotlight on who we are and to do it with the support of third parties. So it's not an investment that Monmouth University needs to make, is just a home run of, I hope, ultimately epic proportions.

Matt Harmon:
You often mention the strategic plan and the future for Monmouth, and I would have to think that something like this amongst many is a way for Monmouth to become a little bit larger of a name from an academic profile. You could say in New Jersey, expand that to the northeast, expand that to the East coast, and then expand that west as far as you can take it, right? I mean, that's kind of the idea of some of these projects.

Patrick Leahy:
Well, this project in particular, remember when Bruce Springsteen committed Monmouth as the steward of his archives? He said he would basically do it on one condition, and that is that we tell a much broader, bigger story of American music in which he considers himself an important chapter, but only a chapter in a much bigger story. So that's where this took on much bigger aspirations, and I credit Bruce Springsteen for leading us in that direction. When this is built, Matt, this will take its rightful place among some of the top cultural music oriented assets in the country. I mean, right below the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I'm not going to argue we're going to compete with that, but right below the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and people will come from all over to check out the Center for American Music, and when they do, they will get introduced to Monmouth. You can't help but be impressed by what you see at Monmouth and the northern part of the Jersey Shore here. It's going to do wonders, in my opinion, for raising our profile as a university. And that's one of the reasons I'm so gung-ho about it. I mean, I really like Bruce Springsteen. I mean, I love Bruce Springsteen, but I'm an advocate for this project because of what it can do for Monmouth University. I mean, that's why I'm as gung ho about it. What can this do to elevate Monmouth University? That's what I'm after.

Matt Harmon:
I don't know if we hit 10, but we're pretty close. Did I miss anything that you really wanted to make sure we covered?

Patrick Leahy:
Just the one, this happened earlier in the year, so maybe people were starting to forget about it already. But I was really proud that early, the early quarter or so of the year, I was able to announce that we had secured the largest gift in the history of the university by a factor of four. By most estimates, the largest single gift we'd ever gotten prior to this year was $5 million, which is real money in and of itself. But when I was able to announce a 21 million commitment, cash commitment paid over just the next couple years, I mean, this isn't a structured a state provision. This is a cash commitment paid over the next couple years, $21 million, four times our largest single gift ever dedicated to our strategic plan to integrate excellence and access by creating scholarships so that high achieving students 3.75 or above who have high financial need can come to Monmouth instead of going to, I don't know, Princeton or something.
You know what I mean? Honest to God, those are the kind of students that we feel that we can now bring to Monmouth. Now they come here virtually free of charge versus paying full price at Princeton. So I'm going to be fair there. But that's the idea, is to bring these kind of high achieving students who might not otherwise have an opportunity to come to Monmouth, bring 'em here, to Monmouth, all of that, and from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, it's the greatest show of philanthropy I've ever seen in my career and was really proud to be the president at the time that I could announce that. So that would be the other top 10 for 2023

Matt Harmon:
Seems to be a pretty perfect way to lead into the last part of the podcast, the anonymous donor. It ties right in with holiday time and giving and being thankful and appreciative and grateful in every word that you can kind of throw in there. So I harken back to the other December episodes we've done, and I'll always close this with, I hope all four kids will be under the roof at least at one point, whether it's your roof on campus and everyone's coming back to Jersey or everyone's hopping in a plane, I know you got kids scattered now at this point,

Patrick Leahy:
They're all coming here, so we're all going to be together, thank God, and we'll be here on campus keeping an eye on things from our house here on campus. It's the greatest thing about the holidays, especially as my kids get older and as you point out, they start getting dispersed around the country as they chase their individual dreams. It makes it all the more special for Amy and me to have them home again, even though it creates some confusion. It's great to have them home again. So that's our plan. We don't have a lot of fancy plans. We're going to watch basketball both here at Monmouth. We're going to watch our youngest son play. He plays on his high school team, and we're just going to enjoy being together. And I hope you're going to say the same about the Harmon family as well.

Matt Harmon:
Yeah, everybody under one roof, and we'll probably be taking it easy as well. It's a great time to just kind of reconnect and I'll say see you next year, but I'll probably see you on Thursday at the basketball game.

Patrick Leahy:
You will.

Matt Harmon:
Well, appreciate you coming on and running through some of the highlights of the calendar year here at Monmouth. And as always, as we close the 50th episode, I wholeheartedly enjoy these conversations. We do now once a month and just keeping everybody up to date with what's going on, on campus and away to kind of reach the Monmouth community for you and your family. I wish you a happy holiday and as we roll into the new year, the start of a great 2024.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, same to you and your family. Matt and I look forward to our Monmouth monthly episodes maybe in January of 2024.

Matt Harmon:
Sounds good. We can always negotiate the name change. We can always negotiate the name change for university president, Dr. Patrick Leahy, faculty member Matt Harmon. Wishing all of our listeners and the Monmouth community a happy holiday season and a great end to 2023 and a start to 2024. We'll see you on the flip side as we say. Goodbye for episode number 50 of Monmouth Weekly.