Matt Harmon:
We are back up and going with another edition of our Monmouth Weekly podcast series University President, Dr. Patrick Lahey joins me once again in the studios of WMCX 88.9. We do our mid-semester check-in with tons going on in a variety of areas. This is faculty member Matt Harmon. Thanks for joining us. It's episode number 54 of Monmouth Weekly. Enjoy this week's episode.
It's been since 1996 I think that I sat behind the board and was playing music on WMCX, but fortunate enough to do it here and a perfect lead in with Sting and Bruce Springsteen singing Every Breath you Take together. Getting us off the board a little bit and into our Monmouth Weekly podcast. Excited to be back here with the university President, Dr. Patrick Leahy. I am faculty member Matt Harmon. We are live today on WMCX 88.9 and excited to be doing what we started back in December, which is taking our podcast a little bit more definitively and a little bit more in a live sense and using the amazing facilities that we have here in the Plange Center and on campus at Monmouth University. And I say a very good afternoon, post spring break to President Lehe. Good to be with you. Excited to talk about what's been happening over the course of the last several months here at Monmouth and that was a good way for us to get up and going. I was driving down the road today and made my left and looked to the right and saw the construction that looks incredible right now at the Bruce Springsteen Archive and Center for American Music, so I thought that was a good way to get us into our show here today.

Patrick Leahy:
Well, it's good to see you dj Matt, dj

Matt Harmon:
Matt, may I call you

Patrick Leahy:
That

Matt Harmon:
Dr. Dj

Patrick Leahy:
If you tuned in for some music, just give us a few minutes to give you an update on what's going on around Monmouth and then we'll be right back at it. But it is fitting that Sting and Bruce would lead us into the podcast today because as you know, we are the official home of the Bruce Springsteen archives and Center for American Music. It's been up and operating for years, but it will really take shape, officially take shape when that building is built and as you pointed out, it's coming up out of the ground at the corner of Norwood and Cedar Avenue. We had a special topping off ceremony. That's the important ceremony for the construction crew when you put the last beam in place. We had that topping off ceremony earlier this month to signal that the structure is just about done and then we're going to enclose it and then start building it out inside. So very exciting time. If you like music at all, this is the place to be. Monmouth University,

Matt Harmon:
I got a call today, sting called me on my way up. He said, play a little bit of my stuff. I want to have a spot in the center for American Music. I thought it was the least I could do and tie Bruce into it. One of the cool things I think about that and we'll start our podcast with that today because as the building gets up and going and develops over the course of time, I just typed in what the latest information is of it and there's construction photos and one of the cool things is it's not necessarily just on the Monmouth website, it took me to a page on Yahoo. This isn't just, Hey, Monmouth is doing this neat little thing. This is worldwide, nationwide information and news that people are going to come to campus to see this facility and be involved with the Center for American Music. Yeah,

Patrick Leahy:
It is not an exaggeration at all to say that this will be a global music attraction. People will come from all over the world to see this when it's fully constructed and built out, not just because of Bruce Springsteen's incredible attraction to people from all over the world, but when we start showcasing other artists as part of the Center for American Music, it's going to get a ton of traction and I think sometimes we're so focused on the building, we forget that we have the Center for American Music and it's operating. I mean just this year, if I may take a minute, just this year we're building the building the Topping Off ceremony. Our American Music Honors event is coming up at the end of April and I've been saying Matt, that in one spot and one night here at Monmouth University, Bruce Springsteen, Patty Alfa, Neils Lofgren and Stevie Van Z all in one place and they're just the presenters.
The honorees are going to be John Fogarty Emmi, Lou Harris, smokey Robinson, Tom Morello and Joe Ely, and if you know music you know that is a star studded cast of recipients for the American Music Honors. That's in April. Then in May we have our gospel sing off, which is gospel and praise teams from around the state and increasingly around the country competing to celebrate that version of American music. Then this fall, I don't know if you know this, but the 50th anniversary of the release of Born to Run, and as you know it was written here in Long Branch, so we're going to have a major three day symposium on that and that leads into what we hope will be an incredible grand opening next spring when the building is ready. So this is off the charts, good stuff for American music in general, but for Monmouth University in particular, one thing I failed to mention is this fall we got a call from UCLA and they called us to see if we would collaborate with them on a major symposium out in LA on, I think it's the 60th anniversary of the Doors.
You remember the doors? Sure do. Jim Morrison and it's not every day that UCLA reaches out to Monmouth to collaborate on an academic symposium. So really great stuff.

Matt Harmon:
Not to tie a specific date into it, but fast forward a year from now, that building will be almost complete and operational. I know there's no specific date with the opening, but spring of 2026 by the time that the semester winds up next year, that in theory should be open and ready to go.

Patrick Leahy:
That's right in theory and we're hoping that theory will become practice. We lost a couple weeks at tough weather, but we've made it up already, so we're back on schedule to open up next spring. The fundraising is on track. Remember, a really important fact is that this building will be constructed a 100% with third party donations, government grants and private donations to be able to have that on our building and have it paid for by others who are interested in American music. It's a home run.

Matt Harmon:
I think I'm looking at it right now. If I'm reading correctly tomorrow, the tickets go on sale for the third annual American Music Honors. You just ran through some of who will be at the event presenting some of who will be honored, including Smokey Robinson and John Fogerty and Tom Morello, Emmi, Lou Harris, Brian Williams, it looks like we'll host the event

Patrick Leahy:
Again. Brian Williams

Matt Harmon:
Is back this year. I lost the coin flip one more time. I was still waiting for my knock on the door and say like, Hey, are you available? That's all right. I can bring some gear in if that's okay, enough to get me in the door, but certainly just an amazing event. An amazing thing, and this is going to be, and correct me if I'm wrong, it says third annual, so there's been the first, there's been the second. This is going to be a yearly thing that's going to take place here on campus.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah. This is an event that is really designed to establish the American Music Honors as a major sort of recognition in American music all across at least our country, but let's be honest, it's also a fundraiser and it helps us raise operating funds to pay for all those other activities that happen in a given year. So we don't want it to be thought of as a fundraiser. We want it to be thought of and we want to establish ourselves as a real credible way to recognize great American music, but it's awfully nice in the process to raise the kind of money. Our goal is to raise over a million dollars in one night that can help pay for much if not most of the operating funds it takes to operate the center. So great stuff. Is this where

Matt Harmon:
We give a shout out to Bob Santelli, kind of the spearheading all of these efforts?

Patrick Leahy:
I think I always do because as you know, he's a Monmouth alum. He taught here at Monmouth. He worked as a music critic at the Asbury Park Press, then Rolling Stone and then he's one of our most celebrated alums and the fact that he's back and has been for the last five years, six years to help develop this is I think he would tell you a culmination of all of the things that he's done in his career around music he's bringing to bear for this project, which means so much to him at his alma mater,

Matt Harmon:
Which is right here on campus. If you're driving past Monmouth, you'll see the building where it kind of intersects in the main hub, the dorms and the library on one side and everything else on the other. It's almost hard to miss in so many ways. Let's transition into some more Monmouth news, which is obviously the point of what we do here on Monmouth Weekly on our podcast series, Monmouth earlier this month, securing recognition as a research college and university in the 2025 Carnegie classification of institutions in higher education. If you followed higher ed for the longest time, it was always research one, research two, there's a new category which is now more inclusive. I think to so many schools like Monmouth, you have to hit a certain plateau, how much research you're doing, what kind of money you're bringing in, and Monmouth is now included in a list of some pretty amazing schools.

Patrick Leahy:
Exactly right. It's a new category because in the past I used to look at research expenditures and the number of doctoral degrees that an institution confers. They're still going to look at that later in the spring, but they wanted to create a new category so that schools of all kinds that do two and a half million dollars worth of externally funded research in a given year can be recognized, and I'm so proud that we are recognized as a research college and university. It does so much for us. It gives us, I think maybe most importantly, more credibility when we go out looking for grants to support the incredible work that our faculty members do. It gives us more credibility if we are established as a research university, but it also is unique here because here most of the research that's done, our faculty members engage undergraduates.
Those are the kind of opportunities that are often reserved for masters and doctoral students at much bigger places. A lot of that work here is done with undergraduates and I just love the branding of it. Matt, you know how important that is to me. The colleges and universities that have this designation, at least if not R two or R one, are the kind of schools that we want to continually be associated with versus those that just don't put any emphasis on scholarship and research. So this is not abdicating in any way our commitment to teaching. We are a teaching institution, but I think we recognize that research and scholarship enhances teaching. Teaching often provides the motivation for research and scholarship. We're integrating the two here and really unique ways

Matt Harmon:
And if you look at it clearly Monmouth, to be fair, is not going to compete from a research perspective financially with R one and even R two schools, but whether it's Monmouth or some of the other institutions that are now going to be part of this new classification in category. As you look at higher ed as a whole, I think the idea of recognizing what a smaller school like Monmouth does is so important. Instead of just saying, well, you've got the big R one schools and you've got the big R two schools and then there's just everybody else and you guys just figure it out. It kind of makes sense in this world of higher education, which so many people have questions about, make another category and recognize what people are doing at a level of school like a Monmouth so that people know about it.

Patrick Leahy:
And as you know, we do have doctoral programs here. We have four doctoral programs here, so we're growing and evolving like some of those bigger doctoral universities, but this category is particularly important for the liberal art colleges that don't have any graduate programming and yet their faculty members are engaged in research. So I think it's great that it recognizes schools all across the higher ed spectrum for their commitment to this really important endeavor.

Matt Harmon:
Let's talk a little bit. Coming back from spring break first, I hope you were able to get a couple of days away if that's possible for spring break. I know that's more student centered, faculty centered. The campus doesn't close down over the course of last week, so I'm sure there was a lot taking place and a lot happening, but I was here on Saturday and was broadcasting men's lacrosse on Monmouth Digital network and flow sports and was kind of reminded walking into that game, the winter sports shutting down the spring sports heating up. There's that crossover of February basically where everybody's playing at once, which is similar to November where fall goes into winter and everyone's playing at once, busy time end of the basketball season and the winter sports. I know that you were down in DC supporting the teams down there for the CA tournament. Unfortunately, as people probably watching March Madness this week, Monmouth did not win the CA tournament, but still a good season overall for both a good start. Let's start on the women's side first. For Kate Wetmore in her first year, end of the season was really difficult and had so many injuries at the end, but winning a game and then getting knocked out in the quarterfinals.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah. How about first year head coach? I think the final record was 16 and 15, but remember we lost the first six games, so back those out and we were, what's that, 16 and nine since that first bad streak, so we ended up fifth in the conference, so I think a solid first year for Kate and we're thrilled to have her here. She's going to help that program continue to or its journey toward excellence, no question about it.

Matt Harmon:
Yeah, same thing and I was down doing the men's game, the quarter final game. That was a heck of a game to watch and frustrating in some ways because King Rice and his guys kind of had Charleston on the ropes, unfortunately couldn't make it into the semi-finals and I think man, if they get past Charleston, you could make a case that they're going to make a little bit of a deeper run would've been the first time to get into the semifinals. Clearly the talk around college sports right now, and I know you're okay talking about it, it's a weird world because of the transfer portal and the world of NIL and what direction mid-major schools are going. You see it right now. I mean I'm sure you watch a ton of basketball the last couple of days. Look at the Sweet 16. It's all big schools. There's no Cinderellas this year. It's kind of disappointing and people are saying, is that a blip on the radar screen or is that what it's going to become now? I think you probably have an argument at least thinking about it, is that that's going to be the norm. The days of a 12, 13, 14 seed making a run into the Sweet 16 might be coming to an end because if you're a good mid-major school, you're probably going to lose a good chunk of your guys.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, your best talent's going to have other options, but we'll do our best here to compete. It is a new world order and college athletics, I mean all you have to do is listen to some of the interviews, if you've seen any of the press conferences coming out of the tournament and what the players themselves are saying and what the coaches are saying about NIL and generating additional resources for their program and everything else. It's a new world order to be honest. I'm not sure how it's going to settle over time, but Monmouth aims to compete in that new world order. I mean we can lament whether we think this is positive for the college game, but the reality is it's happening. We are a division one program. We want to remain a division one program and we're going to have to figure out a really savvy way to continue to compete the way we do in this new world order. The one thing that's satisfying to me, we have fantastic coaches and coaching still matters, and number two, I feel like we've always sort of punched above our weight class or whatever that best analogy is. I've always felt that we've done that and this is just going to be another opportunity for us to prove that we can do that.

Matt Harmon:
Share if you can, and you don't have to get too deep into the weeds with it, but share if you can, maybe the strategy and the conversations that take place at the conference level within the CAA in the Coastal Athletic Association, you've seen some teams leave over the course of the last couple of years for what they would in say greener pastures. Delaware is going to do it at the end of this academic year. James Madison, a school that's left Richmond, is taking their football program going to the Patriot League. The league has done, I think a good job of filling in some of the gaps with some of the new schools that have come in, but from a conference perspective, and I know closer to home you want Monmouth to compete, but you also want the league that Monmouth is in to be competitive. What's the conversation from some of the other schools that exist?

Patrick Leahy:
I think the most important thing is the schools in the CAA. All of the members, both the longstanding ones and the new ones are all ambitious. We're all ambitious. We all want to compete and we want to increasingly compete at a higher level, so I think the conference has done a great job assembling really fine schools from New England to South Carolina that share that hunger and that ambition. I don't know if we've all figured it out yet. As I said, I think we're all trying to figure it out over the next few years, but really pleased with the way the CAA has positioned itself. We want to make sure that we can compete for really good seeds in the NCAA tournament. It might be a while before we get a second team in the tournament, and this is really inside basketball talk, but you know what I mean.
It might be a while before we get a second team in the NCAA tournament, but we want to be a strong enough basketball conference that we go in as a 14 like we were this year or a 13 seed or a 12 seed. The chances of winning games in the tournament go way up if you get those better seeds, so I love the ambition of the CAA. The other thing I love about the CAA, I've said it a million times and I'll keep saying it. This year throughout all of our sports fall, winter and spring, we will be on television 59 times, 50 times on regional broadcasts, up and down those key recruiting markets and nine times on national television. Now, some of those are the Big 10 network, the SEC network, but those are national broadcasts, still

Matt Harmon:
National networks,

Patrick Leahy:
Those are national networks, so we are on television 59 times. As I recall our previous conference the last year in our previous conference, we were on television two times, Matt, so the exposure that we're getting in key recruiting markets, not markets to recruit athletes, of course that'll happen. I'm talking about key recruiting markets for students with a changing demographic. That's why in part the move to the CAA makes a lot of sense.

Matt Harmon:
You'd have to think too, and last thing on this, whether it's a league like say the CAA or even maybe factor in some of the other mid major markets, the Mid-American, the Mac with one A or even the Mac where Monmouth used to be, the idea that you're either going to do one of two things. I think you're either going to wave the white flag and you're going to say, we can't compete, or you're going to be a school like Monmouth in a league like the CAA. To your point, that's going to say we're going to try and compete with the big boys. I think this is far from being over. There's been talk about those Power four conferences kind of breaking away and doing their own thing, which would then open up a whole new world for the ncaa. The one thing that we are sure about is that the world is ever changing and schools continually have to adjust and adapt.

Patrick Leahy:
You have to, I mean, you just have to go in with the mindset that we have no choice but to adapt, figure out how to use the transfer portal to our advantage, figure out how to come up with NIL support. My commitment is the following. I want to keep competing against other brand name institutions like Drexel, Stony Brook, Northeastern William and Mary, college of Charleston, Elon and others, and then non-conference. We just went down to Washington DC and our baseball team swept a three game series against Georgetown, which of course was very important to me as George that heard your heart a little bit but also make you smile. I loved it, I loved it. We have a chance to compete against some of the finest schools in the country at the division one level that is worth fighting for because there is going to be an association with those really fine schools that is going to lift Monmouth University's academic reputation. Forget our athletic reputation. I'm talking about lifting our academic reputation. That's possible at Division one. It's not as possible if you have to drop to other divisions, let's just be honest, so it is worth fighting for now. Who knows what's going to happen as you point out a decade down the road, but for now it's worth fighting for.

Matt Harmon:
University president, Dr. Patrick Leahy, faculty member Matt Harmon, we are talking all things Monmouth on our Monmouth Weekly podcast series. This is the second time we've been live inside the WMCX studios in the Player and Geo Center on 88.9. I think live is better. I think we've cracked the code after years starting in Covid, and I think I told you when we did this in December when we recorded in Covid, you gave me permission to be on campus when I was pretty much the only one here. I was in the room right next door. That's where Monmouth Weekly started and I'm so happy that you're still engaged with it and we still get to do this and now on a live level that you can always go back and listen on the archive side of it as well. Let's change gears a little bit. I know during the course of going into spring break, you had sent a campus wide email and I know you wanted to cover this so I'll let you grab a comment on it. The university has several centers and institutes, one of which has been the polling institute at the end of this academic year, the polling institute will close and cease to exist. I know that was probably a hard decision for you. I'll let you two things. Number one, talk about that decision and then number two, talk about what that means for the other institutes and centers on campus.

Patrick Leahy:
I appreciate that question, Matt. We spent a whole year looking at centers and institutes, just making sure that they're on strategy and on mission and we just came to the conclusion that the polling institute, however fine a polling institute, it is, I mean this is not in any way should not in any way suggest that it's not a first rate polling institute and that Patrick Murray is not one of the leading pollsters in the country. He is. It's just that we looked at it. We spend a lot of money on it. It doesn't by virtue of the way it's established, it does not engage students in the student experience here and the exposure we get for it is just not the exposure that we necessarily want for Monmouth University today. Not saying it wasn't a great idea when it was founded 20 years ago and that it hasn't done great work. We just decided that those resources could be better spent improving the student experience here at Monmouth, so it was a tough call. I take responsibility for it. It was my recommendation and consultation with the board of trustees. So yeah, it will cease to exist starting in July at the end of this fiscal year

Matt Harmon:
And what does that mean for the other centers and institutes?

Patrick Leahy:
Well, we looked at the others. Of course, we looked at all of 'em. This wasn't considered an isolation. We looked at 'em all and all of them are given a task to continue to engage the student experience and find a way to become more, if not entirely self-sustaining. All of the other ones are on pathways to doing that. The way sort of that the Bruce Springsteen archives and Center for American Music already is I told you that the building is going to be paid for a hundred percent by donors. I should also share with our audience that that operation, because of the fundraising, because of the exhibits that are out, et cetera, that is a self-sustaining operation, so we're not underwriting that with student tuition dollars. That is a self-sustaining operation. We want all of our centers and institutes to get increasingly so we get everything that those centers bring to Monmouth, the exposure, the chance to engage students, the chance to deliver on legitimate research. We want all of that and to get it as cost-free as possible. So I think this was a very healthy review of our centers and institutes and this is where we landed

Matt Harmon:
When we transition. Now we've got about 10 minutes left on our Monmouth Weekly podcast series with university president, Dr. Patrick Lehe. Let's get into it as you come back. Today's March 24th, tomorrow and Wednesday, Monmouth University's annual giving days. I just did a promo for the Monmouth Digital Network the other day after the lacrosse game. These are big days. These are very important days for the university. Go to the Monmouth website. Anywhere you want to check, you can find it all over the place without sounding like I'm making a plea. Give what you can. That's really important. These two days of giving have always been successful days for mom of two, increase their brand, connect with alums, connect with donors, take it and run and take that in any direction you want.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, I mean we started a few years ago and then it grew the following year and it grew more the following year and we want it to continue to grow. Of course, we try to limit Matt to as few times as possible. How many times we ask everyone in the Monmouth University community to consider a gift giving days is that one time a year? We ask everybody to consider a gift. We're talking about parents, we're talking about of course, existing donors, friends of the university, faculty, staff. The president will be involved. DJ Matt I hope will be involved. It's the one time a year we invite everybody into donating to the university to enhance the student experience, and one of the beauties of this is that you can donate to whatever your heart desires, you want to support the baseball team. Feel free to do so.
You want to support musical theater. Go ahead and do so. I've been saying that I'm going to split my gifts this year to the pep band and the dance teams because I go to all those athletic events and I see the energy that the Pep band and our dance and cheer teams bring, and I think like this is the full college experience. They don't get to the support that our athletic teams do, so I'm going to be directing my gift this year to those activities because I love the spirit that they generate for our university. Gifts of every kind are relevant here. $5 to $50,000 is all of those gifts are welcome.

Matt Harmon:
Giving day.monmouth.edu is the site. I'm looking at it right now and to that point, not only can you go specific to what area you want to do, we're here in the WMCX studios, you could designate to WMCX if you wanted to, the Department of Communication, any major, any student scholarship, any athletic team, any student run club or organization, which is great. Plus on top of it, and I'm looking at it right now, as you go to that website, make sure before you just say, oh, I'm going to do this, whatever this is, click on a couple of the things where gifts could be matched. You can also get involved with some of the challenges that maybe exists. For example, I'm not looking at it specifically, but there might be A-W-M-C-X one on there or an athletic related one or a scholarship related one if you donate and then that gift gets matched. That's kind of the idea. Plus, I can speak to this because I've got several of them sitting in my dresser drawer. Anything over $33, you get the custom socks, which are huge, which are huge

Patrick Leahy:
I guess for some people that motivates giving. So $33 is a small price. You

Matt Harmon:
Should have the

Patrick Leahy:
On

Matt Harmon:
Right now, by the way. I

Patrick Leahy:
Know you don't, but you should not have. I do now, but I should. That $33 is not a significant price to pay or the year of our founding to get a pair of mama socks

Matt Harmon:
That again starts tomorrow, will run Tuesday and Wednesday, giving day. Please consider giving anything that you can. How about middle states? That's something that's a hot topic around campus all the time, whether it's from you or it's from Rich White who's our provost on campus. You'll usually see that term middle states clearly as a faculty member. I know what that means, but I don't think the common everyday person would, and I'm not sure that the students really know a ton of what it is, but it's an accreditation that Monmouth needs to maintain for that higher education level. That's extremely important and it's a pretty intense process.

Patrick Leahy:
We are allowed to confer degrees in large part because we are fully accredited by the middle states Commission on higher education is the group that accredits us. I mean, there's groups all over the country, but ours is the middle states group and every eight years there's a major visit to campus to have others in the industry peer to peer review process, have others in the industry come and sort of hold up a mirror to us. Here's what you're doing really well, here's where you need to improve. We try to embrace this in this true spirit of continuous self-improvement. We've been planning for this visit, which is coming up in April for two years now, and it culminates with the site visit in April, and there's five or six members of the site team. They come, they're going to check out everything there is to know about Monmouth University and

Matt Harmon:
Hopefully not to cut you off. When you say everything, you mean everything.

Patrick Leahy:
I mean, I think everything mean, of course, the most important thing they're looking at is academic excellence and the way that that shows up in student outcomes, and so we'll hopefully have a really good story for them there. We believe we do, but they also look at our financial situation and our branding and the like, so it really is a comprehensive review of how we're doing as a university. We feel really positive about it, but we've got a lot of planning to do still to be ready for the visit in April, and then we'll be able to report back maybe at our may visit how things went, but we'll need everybody in the Monmouth community to be ready for that visit.

Matt Harmon:
Yeah, really big middle states coming up in April. Also in April, and we can kind of close with this student scholarship week will take place April 18th to the 27th. It's the 10th annual scholarship week celebrating research, creative service accomplishments of MAMA students. It's something I've been involved with because I've overseen some honors thesis in my time here at Monmouth. I know the students put so much work into it, and as a university president you get to see as many of these presentations and part of it as much as you can. It's kind of the idea of this is

Patrick Leahy:
What we do, this is what we do. It's like Monmouth University on display in some respects. Our scholarship week, and again, it's another thing I think grows a little bit every year as more faculty members get involved in supporting the students and the student work. It's fascinating. I mean, I try to get around to as many, and as you say, some of it's creative, the fine arts, creativity, others of it is like what's going on in research labs, in the sciences, what's happening in the social sciences. It's a great way to celebrate really the heart of the matter, which is what happens in the classroom between faculty members and students, and we do it once a year at the end of the academic year. It's coming up in April,

Matt Harmon:
And we try to do it obviously student centered, something that Monmouth has always been and will continue to be when you come back from break. Last thing before we wrap up, you come back from spring break and I said this actually to, you've met him several times and I have a son who goes to Springfield College up in Massachusetts. He had the same break as we did last week. My wife took him back to school. I sent him a quick message this morning like, Hey, make sure you lock in because these six weeks they go really fast and you're going to blink and it's going to be final exam week.

Patrick Leahy:
Oh my gosh. I mean, tell me how quickly spring break got here and then when you come back from spring break and it's like, as you say, six weeks, sprint to the finish, and even if the weather improves and people get distracted by other things got to focus. What'd you say? Lock in. You've got to get locked in and sprint to the finish. There'll be time for a break after exams. Don't find that. Break before exams, and so I said to my own kids,

Matt Harmon:
You're in the same boat too. You're in the same boat too. I hope you were able to send some messages after the weekend. You mentioned baseball beating Georgetown. There's got to be some good text messages that you can send after that, right?

Patrick Leahy:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of good stuff. A lot of good stuff going on.

Matt Harmon:
Little chatter, a little banter back and forth. As always, I will say, I appreciate you coming over and doing this. I love that this now the second time that we've done the live aspect of it as well. I'll invite you back in May do a semester wrap

Patrick Leahy:
Up. I think we have it on the calendar already. We sure

Matt Harmon:
Do. We're ahead of

Patrick Leahy:
The game,

Matt Harmon:
As they say, and I love that university president, Dr. Patrick Lehe. Thanks for coming over, giving us some time.

Patrick Leahy:
My pleasure, Matt.

Matt Harmon:
This is our Monmouth Weekly podcast. We're broadcasting live today, WMCX 88.9. We'll turn things back over to the music. Thanks as always for our technical assistance and our engineering director, Eric Reiser came up, made sure I was good to go. On this side of the board today. We'll throw you back into the music and we'll see you in May talking more on Monmouth Weekly.