Matt Harmon:
Recorded live on September 10th, 2025 from the studios of WMCX 88.9 on the campus of Monmouth University. This is the first episode of the newly branded monthly podcast series. Monmouth Matters with an Inside Perspective from University President Dr. Patrick Lahey. This is faculty member Matt Horman. Thanks as always for your support and for listening. Well, that sounds really official, doesn't it? Yes, indeed. Welcome back. It is September 10th, a rainy Wednesday. Super excited to be here in the studios of WMCX 88.9. You might've heard right from the get go a name change. We have gone through a rebranding in the off season. How about that?

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, that was an official process. We went through and came up with a new name and you'll explain I think a little bit more our new getup here.

Matt Harmon:
When we started, I was in the room next door at COVID and we've made this joke before. I had special permission to be on campus. I was pretty much the only one who was allowed to come up here, and we started what was meant to be kind of a look around the world of COVID and getting news out. We call that mom with weekly at that point because in fact, for a stretch, we were on every week given everybody updates over COVID. We've evolved a little bit and we are now going with Monmouth Matters. We have a full cast of people in the studio today, including a handful of our students, of which during the course of the show we'll get into a little bit that I know right from the start. Makes you a very happy university

Patrick Leahy:
President. Exactly. I'm thrilled to be both taking full advantage of our first rate facility, but more importantly to be in the company of our first rate students. So this will be a lot of fun collaborating with you still and with our students from the communications.

Matt Harmon:
So the name change, I want to talk about that as well because we had, I enjoyed actually the back and forth about what are we going to call the show? We thought maybe Monmouth monthly because we're going to try and do this once a month in the studios of WMCX. I think we threw out what this is Monmouth around Campus matters, Monmouth. Today we went with Monmouth Matters with the perspective from university president Dr. Patrick Leahy. I'm faculty member Matt Harmon. Great to be back with you. We'll go through this up until about 10 o'clock, about an hour long show that we're going to do once a month here at WMCX. And then I started to think, what if we went a whole nother direction? What if, I know we've rebranded and we're going with Monmouth Matters, but we could have probably had some more fun if we wanted to. I was thinking Pat and Matt, we could have went with, we could have went with the press and the prof. That could have been one.

Patrick Leahy:
I don't remember you proffering those ideas.

Matt Harmon:
Maybe scandals around campus. We could have went in a whole nother direction if we wanted to

Patrick Leahy:
Try to turn this into a Netflix show.

Matt Harmon:
Yeah, well, speaking of that's going to be a big part of where the university is heading with Netflix taking over the army base that used to exist over in the Tinton Falls Eatontown area. Let's just jump right into it because we have got a lot to cover today here on Monmouth Matters. Again from WMCX 88.9. I want to start with this and it kind of goes along with the name change, the rebranding and kind of the idea of why we do this. Why we did it back in 2020 was to talk about COVID and to get university updates out there. Then we've over the course of time evolve. We've had guests on the show, we've gotten information out more on a monthly basis. I want to say this to you and ask just honestly why you want to maybe continue it and why it's important that we have the group that we have in front of us here today as part of the show moving

Patrick Leahy:
Forward. Well, first and foremost, it's a ton of fun to be collaborating with you and to get our students involved, but let me just go back as well and recapitulate something you said. We did this on a weekly basis during COVID as a way to get information out to the community. You were here in the studio on campus. I was many times doing it from my car in the driveway of the Dougherty house because my house was so full of people, I couldn't find a quiet spot. So I would literally get into the car and we started doing this on a regular basis to share information and it's like so many other things here. Once you start sharing information and communicating, and then when that slows and you threaten to stop it, you hear people saying, no, no, no, don't stop it. There's a group of us that sees value in this.
Let's just keep doing it. So we've been weekly, then monthly, and then it was every couple months and then we do. So we're just going to try to get into a little bit better established pattern that might allow us not only to continue to share information, but as you referenced, bring on guests that we might have both some fun engaging with, but also individuals that could help us share information around campus. And it was your idea to take it to another level and to formalize it, professionalize it, get our students involved who are budding broadcasters and communication specialists and producers and the like. So why not collaborate with them in this incredible studio that we have? So I'm delighted to be engaged in this,

Matt Harmon:
Which I don't know if you're aware, there's actually across the way a brand new audio board that was set up during the course of the summer. So I'll throw a quick shout out to Professor Eric Reser, who's our technical engineer here with WMCX, an Hoc tv. Aaron Ferguson who's the WMCX advisor, also an alum here of the university, Nick Messina who's a big part of the radio station. So we're all really excited to have you back in here. I think this is the third time that we've done it from here, right? We did one in December, we did one in the spring and now back here on a monthly basis. So I'll say on behalf of everyone, thanks for the audio board. The old one is in the lobby if you want to

Patrick Leahy:
Take a look at it, if I had something to do with it, I would accept your thanks, but this was great work by the department.

Matt Harmon:
Second week of the semester, fall is up and going. Campus is buzzing as it usually is in the early part of the semester, especially when the weather's nice. Not so much today with the rain. What does it mean for you? The beginning of the semester, which started last Tuesday right after Labor day, now week two of 14, it's going to fly by. We know that because it always does. But that post summer lead into a new academic year when everybody's back on campus. At the same time.

Patrick Leahy:
We've talked about this before. I love the cycle of the academic year. I mean, the summer is really nice because we get a ton of work done around campus when the campus is densified and everyone gets their vacations. So I always joke, there are times where people say, oh, you work in education. What do you do all summer? And have to remind them that we're still at it all year trying to get a lot done in the summer for the benefit of our students. So it naturally sort of falls into a different rhythm, but once the fall comes and the students start returning mass, the energy of the whole place goes to another level. And we've talked about at campus, at campuses, college campuses were built for energy and vitality and excitement. This is my 14th year as a university president. Can you imagine? 14 years? And I've never been more enthusiastic about starting the fall semester than I am this year because of the class that we brought in, which I'll talk to you about the returning students, what we've been able to do with the campus, the plans that we have. Never been more excited in 14 years to be the president of university.

Matt Harmon:
It is funny because I hate to try and always go back to it as a jumping off point, but now that we are, I don't know, a full five years past when COVID started, not saying the end of COVID, but when COVID started, do you feel like now it's more of it's a post COVID world and we can kind of move forward? You look and you say what's going on on campus and what we're building on campus and different things that even two, three years ago, you probably had to say, wait, we're going to hit the pause button on some of this because we're not sure what direction higher education is going and what the world's going to look like and everything. That probably goes through the mind of a university president at that point. But now here in 2025, it's more of a normal world and it's more of let's move the needle forward a little bit. So

Patrick Leahy:
We're back to our normal challenges as an institution of higher education. Maybe we'll talk about those too, but just when you think COVID is clearly in the rear view mirror. A family member of mine gets positively tested just a few weeks ago, so it's not entirely behind us. But you're absolutely right, Matt, that this feels, shall we say normal, and we are not now worried about COVID pauses and halting projects because of COVID concerns. I hope we are formally past that and we can just continue to advance the university.

Matt Harmon:
Talk a little bit about what does go on specifically this summer 2025 in between commencement in May. I know there is a busy time with a lot going on, but projects that maybe you want to highlight and talk about that took place the last couple months.

Patrick Leahy:
So in a typical year, and this summer I think was typical, we have our commencement celebrations in, let's call it mid May, and then there's a few key development events that we have at the end of May and into early June, our Ack real Estate dinner, which is a major event for us, our golf outing, which supports athletics here. It's a major event for us. And then we have our board meeting in mid June, our summer board meeting for the administration in particular the president. That's the significant event in the year, but what we really try to do in the summer is take full advantage, as I said, of being a little bit densified, I guess is the term that came up in COVID to work on the campus. And the major project this year was finally after years and years and years of hoping we put new HVAC systems in our two freshmen residence halls, Elmwood and Pinewood, the only two that did not have air conditioning when I started six years ago, Matt, it was contemplated that we would take those buildings down because they were old, they didn't have air conditioning.
We knew that the students didn't appreciate not having the air conditioning, especially in the fall. And we just said, wait a second. We went and we inspected those buildings and we said, okay, they're old, but they don't build buildings like that anymore. And they could last us a long if we chose to put money back into them, which we hadn't done for years. So we started years ago replacing floors and outfitting the lounges and putting a game room in all kinds of stuff like that, culminating in this summer, putting air conditioning into those two halls. So it gives us not only a chance to serve all of our first year students equally, everybody now has access to climate controlled residence halls, but also it gives us opportunities in the summer. We rent those out in the summer and try to serve other constituents in the summertime.
So it is a big, it might not seem like it, but for us it's a big, big deal to finally have that project completed. And then there were a ton of other smaller things at the dining hall over in athletics and across academic spaces. The biggest though, I think, and maybe our students can confirm this, they came to me in the spring and they said, we're going to put offshore coffee in at the Parson Cafe. Now forgive me students, but I didn't know what offshore coffee was until I started getting feedback. You guys are putting offshore in the Parson Cafe. Apparently it's a very popular spot in particular, I guess down on Brighton Avenue and other places, Asbury Park. And so we contracted with them to bring offshore coffee to Parson Cafe and so far it is opening to rave reviews. So I just feel like if that's what the students wanted, I'm so pleased that we were able to deliver that. We need a sound effect

Matt Harmon:
Guys, when we move forward, when we get big news like that, some sort of explosion, red alert, that would be the news of the day. The coffee is a hit. Am I right though?

Patrick Leahy:
Is the offshore? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm getting some

Matt Harmon:
Nods. Good. You've got four nods across the board. We have a small sample size, but positive confirmation with all those. Let's go back a little bit how we closed the spring semester last year. So much of the talk, and just to recap on it a little bit. In some ways the academic year, and I know it's a longer process than that, but certainly the focus of the academic year last year was the accreditation process and getting middle states done and all that goes along with that. And I know you spoke to that last spring, but probably makes even though the next accreditation process probably has already started in some regards, a wipe of the brow and a breath of just, wow, we're good now for the next five years, eight years, eight years,

Patrick Leahy:
Eight years. And you see how quickly I jumped on eight years. This is an arduous process. It took us over two years to prepare for this. And I know I mentioned it in our last broadcast. I don't think we were really that worried that we wouldn't be. I mean, if we have worries about re-accreditation, we have major problems. I don't think we were worried about that. I was so proud of is how cleanly we were accredited. No requirements, no recommendations even, and 12 different points around various points of the university. We were commended for our efforts and that is as clean a re-accreditation as you could get. And that was way beyond even our highest expectations. And then it was confirmed at the end of June when the commission actually met, they heard the report of the visiting team and they reaccredited us. So just to close the loop on that, it wasn't that we were re-accredited and I'm thrilled that we are, of course it was the way in which we were re-accredited, which I think allows third parties, independent, third parties from other fine schools to come take a look at what we do here at Monmouth and to say this is a first rate institution.
It's nice to have that third party validation. In that accreditation.

Matt Harmon:
What number was the podcast review? Nine or 10. That was

Patrick Leahy:
One of the 12 commendations. One of the 12. Great job on the communications with the university. I think they first referred to it as the president. The president, the prof maybe. And I stolen that from the

Matt Harmon:
Accreditation guys. We're going to take a quick break. University president, Dr. Patrick Lehe, myself, Matt Harmon will be back talking. Monmouth matters with an inside perspective from university president. We're back right after this quick break. WMCX 88.9 back here in the nine 10 o'clock hour university president, Dr. Patrick Lehe, faculty member Matt Harmon, WMCX 88.9. Thrilled to be back with you here. Monmouth matters. Next topic, president Lehe. Let's talk you broached on it a little bit on our first segment. Let's get into it a little bit more detail with now week two of the semester. I know the incoming class. You said great energy in this class, great academic reputation in this class. Something that to be fair, you have said I feel like every year, which means the bar keeps going up for students that are admitted and part of the Monmouth community. Yeah, I think for three

Patrick Leahy:
Or four straight years, I've said the very same thing. This is the finest first year class we've ever enrolled at Monmouth. Three or four straight years. I could go back and check that, but every year the quality of the incoming class as a group as a whole is getting better and better. I always say, I mean no disrespect to the 91 classes that we enrolled before, but the reason I say that is because you take 900 students take their reported academic performance from high school, you average it across 900, and then you report out to important third parties. What the average incoming GPA is this year, 3.67, which is the highest GPA in our history. A result of a couple things, if I may, Matt. One is we have a record number of students enrolled in our honors program. So Monmouth is the kind of place that can attract really high achieving students.
The other thing we did in this cycle is we raised the floor. We just raised the minimum acceptable standard because we had enough vibrancy in our applicant pool to be able to do that just so we can bring students here that we know show incredible potential and then put them to work with our faculty to do amazing things. So it is both the finest academically prepared class we've ever had on paper. And then the other thing I'm going to talk about is it's also a very high access class, which is our commitment to making a first rate private education as accessible as possible to deserving students irrespective of their financial means. So this year, in this first year class, the one that I just said was the finest that we've ever enrolled, we also have 56% of them are what we call fly students, which are, they're either the first in their family to pursue a four year college degree or they're low income by the federal definition. And that is a source of incredible satisfaction to me and to I hope all of us here at Monmouth first rate private education as accessible as possible, as in our strategic plan, we have a goal to integrate excellence and access like no other school like us in the country. And once again, all you have to do is look at the first year class to see that we're achieving that.

Matt Harmon:
So two questions. Are you telling me that as a graduate of 1996 that I might not get into the university if I applied here in 2025? Is that

Patrick Leahy:
What's happening? You might not. And we always say we're doing our job. If that's the case, look, I wouldn't have gotten into my undergraduate institution either, so you're not alone, but that's, we're doing our job. It's a little bit like when an alum comes back 10 years later or 20 years later and says, wow, I don't recognize the place. I just feel like that's confirmation that we're doing our job because if you came back and everything were exactly the same, you'd be wondering, what are we doing here to advance the university? So it's a similar kind of analogy around, wow, that's an increasingly qualified class. I'm not sure I would've gotten in. You probably would've but snuck in. But it is, I hope, a source of pride for our alums, not offensive to them, but rather a source of pride for them that the institution keeps advancing in real material ways, hopefully burnishing the reputation, adding value to the degree that you have or the two degrees that you have.

Matt Harmon:
When we open the podcast, the broadcast today, we said we've got student involvement this semester. We've got Nick, John, Chloe, Frank, all part of running the board filming recording, which will be edited later on for use on social media and to promote what's going on on campus. I would say you've mentioned all of these guys indirectly because they've been part of the last three, four classes because they're juniors and seniors, and I give credit to the students if this class right now that just came in starting fall of 25 is the best academically prepared class, which you have said, so are these guys at one point, so the students that are the upperclassmen now have also helped push the university forward?

Patrick Leahy:
Absolutely. That's what I mean. I mean, no disrespect to the classes who are here because they in their day and at their incoming time, were the finest that we've ever enrolled. Look, I was a B student, let's be honest. So to be 3.67, I don't think I ever got to 3.67 in my entire academic career. So I have a great deal of respect for an average incoming GPA at that high.

Matt Harmon:
See, that's where the idea of scandals at Monmouth, we could do some investigative work and maybe find your academic audit and dig into it a little bit. But we decided on Monmouth matter, so don't bother. Don't bother with that. We're going to skip that. We're going to skip that on the list of topics. This one was brand new to me. I didn't even know this existed, and you can explain it. I know it's on the newer side, but I know you wanted to talk about and mention the New Jersey financial monitoring report, which is something that's not brand new or brand new a few years ago,

Patrick Leahy:
Few years. It's just something that the state implemented to check on the financial health of all of the higher ed institutions throughout the state of New Jersey, public and private. And we go through every year answering questions and filling out forms and offering statistics. And I was just really proud that of the five categories we were sort of ranked or categorized as the least risky meaning said another way, relatively speaking, one of the most healthy institutions from a financial standpoint in the state. And that's just a source of pride for me. I know we're navigating some challenging times in higher ed, but to be able to do that, we hope continue to serve students in a really meaningful way, but to do it in a way that preserves the long-term health of the university, I just think is an achievement worth touting.

Matt Harmon:
Even though we said in our first segment, a normal world, things are moving forward. You've mentioned it twice. One in the first segment, one right now, the challenge is that still exist in higher education. We can say things are a normal world and everything is great, great academic class, great last three, four or five academic classes. But that doesn't mean that there's still challenges that exist within the higher education world.

Patrick Leahy:
And the biggest one we've hinted at it over our time together is the changing and declining demographics. The number of students that will be looking to enroll in colleges coming out of high school in the coming years is going down significantly. It's no fault of any institution in particular. It's simply demographics. And if you think back to it, what happened 18 years ago from this fall? Well, the great recession, the financial collapse of 2007 and oh eight, and at that time families just said, I'm not having kids, or I'm only having one, or I'm only having two when they would've had three. And consequently, you put all that together. It shows up in the demographics as fewer and fewer students graduating from high schools interested in matriculating in college. And that puts a ton of pressure on colleges and universities because we have plenty of great options.
There's plenty of supply, if you will, to talk economics for a minute. And there's declining demand and economics that creates a lot of challenges when there's oversupply. So that's the big challenge I think. And there's a lot of other things that we could talk about, but the thing we've always worried about is when the demographics starts shifting, what is that going to mean for Monmouth and for other institutions? I feel like we are so relatively well positioned to deal with that. I can't imagine being in a lot of other schools right now, but I'll just say this last thing I've often said it gave a major address to the campus community in late January of 2020, my first sort of convocation address to the campus community, and I laid out the great challenge facing Monmouth over the long run, and it was all about the changing demographics. Not one time did I utter the word COVID-19. And so when that happened just six weeks later, it really threw off our momentum.

Matt Harmon:
So follow up to that, you say Monmouth, and you have said this ever since we've started doing this through difficult times over the course of the last five, now six years through really good times that Monmouth is positioned to be a major player or a player in the northeast or even nationwide as a mid-major private university. I know that when tours take place on campus or open houses take place on campus or any opportunity that you get, you're talking to prospective students, you're talking to prospective student parents, and you as a parent that has a couple of kids now that are going to Monmouth, what's the message that you're trying to deliver when you talk to those parents and those prospective students?

Patrick Leahy:
The fundamental message is we want to be the high value proposition out there. We're never going to be the low cost alternative. There's always going to be a place where you could get a four year degree less expensively. We're going to do our best to keep the cost, especially after our discounting, which is substantial as reasonable and as manageable as possible. But value, as you know, Matt, is a function of not only what you pay but what you get for what you pay. And that's where we have a real, I think, very strong value proposition. So I always say to parents, it's not one thing in my opinion that is particularly unique about Monmouth. It is the combination of four things. It is the opportunities of a large university in the culture of a small college on a beautiful campus in an incredible location.
It's the combination of those four things that gives us that strong value proposition. And I wouldn't trade what we have for virtually any other private school in the sort of middle market anywhere in the country because of those things, the beauty of our campus in the incredible location. But that's not enough. It's what kind of opportunities do you offer students and then how do you offer them? Because if you went to a much bigger place, you'd have the same opportunities, but there's no way we'd have a 12 to one student faculty ratio. You could go to a small liberal art college and get a 12 to one student faculty ratio, but you're not going to have access to some of the things that we have access to in terms of facilities and division one athletics and the institutes and centers that we offer. See what I mean?
It's the combination of those things that makes it so unique. But then I always say to parents and to students, none of that matters if we don't deliver the fifth most important thing, which is the outcomes that the students deserve. So we have to keep focused on what kind of preparation are we giving our students during their course of study so that we could get them properly positioned to get the job that they want upon graduation, they might pursue the career of their interests so that they might live the life that they want to lead. That is the most important thing. None of the other stuff matters if we don't use that to create a life transforming experience for our students. I just like our chances against a lot of other institutions if we have a chance to explain that. And then what we always do is we just say, talk to our students and try to get a feel from them if they feel that.

Matt Harmon:
Usually the best way for people to know exactly what's going on is to talk to the students who work presently there. They expect me

Patrick Leahy:
To say it because I'm the president, but usually when they get a chance to talk to our students, they get a good sense that yeah, hopefully they feel this way. I have access to a lot of cool things and I get to know my professors. I get to know the president. It's just a culture without trading off opportunity, and I think that's a unique combination. Very well said, and an

Matt Harmon:
Opportunity for us to take our last time out. When we come back, we'll dive into the world of athletics a little bit more on some Springsteen news. I'm not happy again that he was here and I was not invited. We're going to talk about that when we come back and we'll reflect on a really important day in our nation's history, which comes up tomorrow on September 11th. This is Monmouth Matters, WMCX 88.9 back here on Monmouth Matters Inside Perspective from university President Dr. Patrick Lehey. Psyched to be here with our students today, Nick, John, Chloe and Frank, part of our monthly podcast series. We'll be back in October, 1st of November one to wrap things up in the fall semester in December. We're hoping that this goes well. I think there's a long-term contract for you to sign on your way out today. We're going to try and lock you in for the next three, four years. Once a month, no pressure, but

Patrick Leahy:
Students put it together. I want to see the terms of a contract

Matt Harmon:
Come once a month show up, and we'll continue to promote the message. Last segment here. We'll have some fun with this one. Fall sports as we always like to do, bounce around athletics a little bit off to a great start. Let's go Field hockey first. Highest ranking in program history. Carly Figlio, the longtime coach celebrating 200 wins over the course of the early part of the season, continues to be one of the best mid-major programs year in and year out.

Patrick Leahy:
And the ranking is evidence of that. Four and oh start is evidence of that. Now, I don't think we've played on the road yet, so I'm assuming we'll keep that up. But she has done such a fantastic job at Monmouth. My gosh. I mean 200 wins, and she's a class act all the way, and all you can do is ask her players how they feel about her. Really, really proud of our field hockey program.

Matt Harmon:
19 in the National Field Hockey Coaches Association, you mentioned the four oh mark. They've beaten Cal LIU Temple and Ryder speaking of on the road. They've played four straight. They're now going to go three straight away from West Long Branch at Lehigh on Friday, at Yale on Sunday, and then the following Sunday at Rutgers before they'll be back home for Maine, Harvard, Hofstra, Drexel, and Columbia. This is an odd schedule. I'd have to talk to Carly about this. Four at home, three on the road, five at home, three on the road, one back at home.

Patrick Leahy:
Well, you keep track of the home and away. I delight in the names of those schools that we're playing. I mean, Yale, Harvard, Rutgers, Cal is an A CC school. I think they play. I didn't even mention Field Hockey, A C, Columbia, Princeton coming up, Princeton. I just love it. That is one of the reasons as you know, that we fight to hold on to a competitive division one program across all of our athletic teams because of the ability for us to play really marquee national schools, which I think every time we do it furnishes the reputation of Monmouth just a little bit. And that is the best example of that after you read the schedule.

Matt Harmon:
Men soccer. Also, speaking of coaching, longtime coach Rob McCourt, he has now 200 wins in his career here at Monmouth in which he's 20 plus years in. They're off to a good start in CA play. They've got the reigning player of the week and Jason Pettini a win over the course of the week at Drexel, a drag and Stony Brook, a little bit of a shaky start, but now starting to find their way a little bit. Beat Iona back in September 2nd for McCourt to get his 200th win. Again, a program I think generally thought of synonymous with success

Patrick Leahy:
With excellence. And Rob McCourt, 200 wins. I mean, I think that says a lot about Monmouth and our athletics program that we have coaches that long tenured continuing even many years into it to bring it and so that we might be as competitive as we are.

Matt Harmon:
Women's soccer, always a traditional power here in the Northeast and within the CA, another good start for them as well. Bouncing around with Kylie Flynn, a team that right now is five and two overall. They've got wins over Bucknell, Binghamton Temple, a win over Harvard, a win over St. John's play this weekend up at Columbia before they

Patrick Leahy:
Start their CA schedule. And I think our ad said this is the first time we've beaten an Ivy League school in a decade. So that's just fantastic. Just everywhere you look across our athletics program excellence, and we haven't even talked about football yet. Yeah, we will finish kind of the

Matt Harmon:
Fall. Look at what's going on right now. Football with two big wins with an offense that doesn't look like anybody can slow down right now. Opened up at Colgate, had an unbelievable come from behind win in game number one going into the Labor Day weekend last weekend up at Fordham, that team two and oh 18th in the coaches poll at the FCS level 21st in the FCS kind of media poll of which I am a voting member. So good start for Kevin Callahan. Speaking of coaches that have been here for a long time, I think is this his 33rd? 33rd year only coaching program

Patrick Leahy:
History and I think is either winningest coach, active coach,

Matt Harmon:
Winning activist coach at FCS,

Patrick Leahy:
Incredible. So to go on the road against Colgate and to come from behind and win that game, greatest comeback in our 33 year history, I'm told. And then to go on the road to Fordham, again, two great schools. The kind of schools that we want Monmouth to be thought of like Colgate and Fordham. Those are really great academic institutions as well as great athletic institutions to go on the road and win two of those games. And then this week we go down to Charlotte, which is an FBS school. So they play at that higher level and we think we have a fighting chance, even though we'll be playing up a level this Saturday.

Matt Harmon:
How did FBS win last year against FIU women's golf up and going women's tennis up and going cross country up and going, so busy, busy times to go back to kind of what's been a theme for us. I feel like ever since we started this in 2020, the athletic academic world, when they blend together, you've got success on the field. It just gives a different feel and a vibe when you're walking around campus.

Patrick Leahy:
It's just exciting. It's exciting to know that our teams are as competitive as they are. I think this is our fourth year in the CAA, is that right? So I don't think anybody questions whether we can compete in the CA given how well we're doing across all of our teams. Love having student athletes here because they work so hard and they do really well in the classroom. And I just hope that the campus community will turn out. It just adds an element of excitement around campus. Again, it's related to that, the opportunities of a bigger place. Well, yeah, we don't have home football games like Penn State has home football games, but we can adjust that for our size and still have a ton of fun Saturdays in the fall for football or going to see a first rate team and field hockey or our soccer teams. It's easier to follow teams when we're competitive and we're certainly very competitive this fall.

Matt Harmon:
Certainly a big weekend non athletically. This past weekend at Monmouth, it's part of the 50th anniversary of the unbelievable album and the continuing budding relationship with Bruce Springsteen, born to run, celebrating 50 years. The Born to Run 50th anniversary symposium was here. Full day event that took place this past Saturday, September 6th. I know so many. I had a friend of mine who sent me a couple pictures. He was at it. He said it was an unbelievable event, day long event with so much activity, part of what is taking place across the street as I'm looking in that direction, the Bruce Springsteen archives, the Center for American Music, that building continuing and events like this day long symposium just, it all works, right? It all pieces itself together.

Patrick Leahy:
Well, you're referring to the day long symposium at which Bruce and all of the members of the E Street band participated in, which they participated, but that was only one of six events that we had the whole week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of what many people in the business argue could be one of the most iconic albums in the history of at least rock and roll if not music. So to celebrate that here and to do it across six different events, including Matt Sunday, an academic conference that we hosted here on campus for academics who are studying the impact of that album on society and the like. We were hoping for 30 or 40 submissions, paper submissions. I think we got 140 from all over the world. So I think that suggests how important that album is to our American culture. But to have Bruce Springsteen here talking as candidly as he did about that experience, and then closing the symposium in Pollock Theater with all of the members of the E Street band playing Thunder Road first, and then the title Track Born to Run afterwards is just like I sat there and I said, is Bruce Springsteen in the E Street band really playing Pollock theater?
And it did, and it's an exciting thing. And the fact that we can bring that to this campus, and as I've said many times because of the generosity of so many donors do that without tapping the resources of the university in the process is a home run for Monmouth University.

Matt Harmon:
We can get generational here for a second. We've got four students who are much younger than you. And I will say, if you looked at the Born to Run album and thought side, one Thunder Road, 10th Avenue, freeze Out Night and Back Streets, that's an album in and of itself. And then, oh, by the way, you used to have to flip it to side two, whether you had the old school vinyl or the cassette when that came out to go Born to Run. She's the one meeting across the river and then finished with Jungleland. See, these guys don't know what an album, like you used to play an album because there was a story that went along with it. Now it's just go from one song to the

Patrick Leahy:
Next. And the history of Rock and Roll is in the liner notes right on the album covers and inside. It's amazing. But the greatest thing I will repeat is that when we approached Bruce Springsteen and suggested that we could be the steward of his archival legacy here in New Jersey, it was he who said, I will do this on basically one condition. And that is, if you use this as an opportunity to tell the story of American music in all of its forms of which Bruce Springsteen is one extremely important chapter, but only one chapter in an ever unfolding story that never ends. That never ends, exactly. I mean, we'll continue odd infinitum. And for us to be entrusted with the ability to tell the history of American music, its influence on our society and to celebrate it is an awesome responsibility. And it's something that when it's up and fully operational, even if our students don't know yet and appreciate Bruce Springsteen, they're going to know and appreciate some of the other artists that we are bringing to campus as part of the celebration of American music. And so that is my commitment to our students. One, I want you to understand Bruce Springsteen and what he offers, but there will be all kinds of artists, older ones, and more contemporary ones that you will know. There'll be no better campus in the country for students who are interested in American music

Matt Harmon:
And what's great about it, as we talk about music, which is something you love, which is something I love, and the connection that it brings here to Monmouth, we're talking about it in a college radio station. As we kind of sum up this episode, we've got one more thing that I definitely want to get to and bring up a college radio station. Back in the seventies when Born to Run was starting or the sixties, that was part of the fabric of American music, how so many bands started. That's how Bruce got his role going a little bit in so many other bands after that. So as we sit here with a new audio board and a great facility, WMCX in the Plange Center with our department of communication, this is kind of one of the heartbeats of campus, and it

Patrick Leahy:
Is the way in which so many American artists were college campuses playing college campuses and trying to get their music played on college radio stations. So let's keep that tradition going.

Matt Harmon:
Now. Can we talk about how you get into some of these events when we get into that?

Patrick Leahy:
Well, once our building is open and then the, it'll be easier, but they sell out in a minute and a half. I mean, it's literally 700 seats gone in like three minutes. So

Matt Harmon:
You might need to know someone. It's such a great way for people to get to know the university without question. Let's close on this. We're recording here today, September 10th, which means tomorrow Marks another anniversary of September 11th. Prior to you being university president, I have always thought the school has done a great job of recognizing the different events that took place on that day at different times with the clock tower going off. And you'll hear the bells ring on campus because September 11th, especially here as a university, that was a stone's throw away. You could go a mile up to the Atlantic and you could look to your left and you would've been able to see smoke from your north in Manhattan. It might be that much removed from 2001. But still, again, generational for you, for me, I could close my eyes and I could tell you exactly what I did on that day.

Patrick Leahy:
Yeah, me too. I mean, I was not living here at the time. So upstate New York where I was at the time, we didn't feel it quite the way. I'm sure Monmouth University did, given that so many folks live around here and commuted into New York. We try to remember it every year. We will, as you mentioned, the bells will toll four times to commemorate the four incidents. On that morning, we will light up the Great Hall and the Guggenheim Library. That was a call that went out from the nine 11 Museum in Memorial in New York that just said, join us across the country in commemorating this day by lighting up your key buildings. So we're going to do that tomorrow. We always have our ceremony around the nine 11 memorial that we have right across from the student center. I just think it's important to try to remember this because we said on that day, and we reiterate every year since our promise that we would never forget. And I understand a lot of our students, all of our students now, most of our students now weren't born then. So it is a historical remembrance for them, for you and me and so many of us who live through it. It is a much more personal remembrance. So I am glad that we have a chance to record right around nine 11 so that we can remember that fateful day.

Matt Harmon:
Well, I am among those university wide that appreciate you as the university president, continuing to make sure that day is thought of and remembered. This was a ton of fun wrapping up episode one. We're going to do it in October, November, end, December. Appreciate you as always coming by and giving us your time on Monmouth matters.

Patrick Leahy:
Monmouth matters. I mean, we chose that name because I feel there's a double entendre there. Monmouth matters. So all the Monmouth issues going on around Monmouth from the president's perspective and one of our most popular professors perspective, but also because Monmouth matters, this place is important. And imagine what we would do if Monmouth didn't exist. So let's use this as a chance to celebrate how important this institution is, and that's what we'll do when we're together.

Matt Harmon:
We will continue promoting all of our episodes. Look forward to our students, breaking the episodes down, getting some clips up and out on social media. Again, we are back in October. Frank, Chloe, John Nick for University President, Dr. Patrick Lehey. I'm Matt Harmon. This is Monmouth Matters. You are listening live WMCX 88.9.