Matt Harmon: Recorded live on March 25th, 2026 from the studios of WMCX on the campus of Monmouth University. This is episode number five of our monthly podcast series, Monmouth Matters with an inside perspective from university president, Dr. Patrick Lahey. Faculty member Matt Harmon, thanking you for listening and your continued support. Enjoy the latest episode. Fantastic spring light day here in the end part of March. Excited to be on and back with WMCX and our Monmouth Matters podcast with university president, Dr. Patrick Leahy, Matt Harmon. Our entire crew is back today. Nick John Nat and Frank, President Leahy, welcome back. I feel like this is the start of a media tour day for you today, right? You got the podcast today. You have your staff open call today. What else is on the Giving Day day over yesterday and today? Patrick Leahy: We're hyping Giving Day. We'll talk about that. I have a meeting off campus with board members and donors. I have all kinds of cool stuff today. Matt Harmon: We should take a day on a day like today where you're kind of moving around and we should do a day in the life of university president. Patrick Leahy: Just follow me around. Just Matt Harmon: Follow you around. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. Real quick, I have this thing that I do. I haven't done it at Monmouth yet, but I do a day in the life and I join segments of our campus community for a day on the job. So I take a week in the summer and I'll spend a day with facilities and a day with financial aid, a day with the police department, everything else. So we can flip Matt Harmon: It to- But nobody's done a day with you, have they? Patrick Leahy: Maybe I don't want everyone to know what I'm doing on a day-to-day Matt Harmon: Journal.That's true too. That's true too. We are post spring break and as we come back, it's kind of like hitting the stretch run of the semester because the next five, six weeks are going to completely fly by. I had so much fun the last couple of days being on campus yesterday in the classroom. Monday I came up for accepted student day, which is one of a series that we do during the course of the semester. And it was great to see ... I'm able to interact with the students like we have with our podcast, but it was actually great to get kind of a new perspective of students that have been accepted already to Monmouth and are excited about the potential of being here. I think I had a group of like 12 that rolled through the PlanGear Center that are interested in the Department of Communication. About half of them had already said they're definitely coming to Monmouth. I did my best sales pitch job trying to get the other six. Patrick Leahy: Don't lose the six we have though, Matt. Matt Harmon: No, they sounded like they were pretty locked in. But days like that are another opportunity to highlight the good stuff that we do. And it kind of reminded me, and you have college age kids as well. It's a fun time, but it's a lot of pressure. And I could see it on some of the kids' faces, like figuring out where you're going to be for the next four years, four or five years, is a lot for a 16, 17 year old high school student. And I even stopped the tour at one point and told some of them it's okay because it was, "Hey, can we minor in something else? Can we take classes and something else?" And the answer was obviously, of course. And I said, "You're not supposed to know what you want to do for the rest of your life at 17." And I'm sure on a day like Monday, you were able to interact with parents and some of the students and the message is probably pretty similar. Patrick Leahy: I say the exact same thing when I have a chance to visit with them, it's going to be okay and you don't have to have it all figured out. And then regarding where you go to school, I hope it's Monmouth and we sell hard what we feel we offer here. But my last comment to them is, "Look, if it doesn't feel right here, there's a lot of other great schools and I wish you so well." I partly say that because I'm quite confident that when they come and they get exposed to who we are and what we do on this beautiful campus, our conversion rate's usually pretty good. So let me thank you and everyone who turns out for those days. I got to tell you, the faculty support that we have for those days is really amazing, especially worth noting because we have, as you pointed out, five or six of them. So that's five or six times we need the faculty to turn out and help us sell Monmouth and they do that and I'm very grateful. Matt Harmon: Well, we absolutely, when people come into this building, we crush it. We've got Lorna Schmidt who's our director of advising here. She has everything just down to an absolute science. I think she knows what Candy's probably the most popular for kids when they come in. And it was great. I took the students, she took the parents and we tried very, very often. We wouldn't cross very often, but every once in a while and I said, "All right, come on kids. Let's go. We don't want you ... " No mixing with the parents because the more that you're away from your parents, the more you get kind of a sense of what it's like to be here, ask your own questions, get your own answers. That's kind of the start of the process. Patrick Leahy: In fact, we changed the programming this year a little bit to split off the students from their parents. And we have sessions for the parents because there's certain questions that they have that they rightly should ask and get good answers for. And then to your point, we want the students to be interacting as much as possible with other students and with the faculty members who are going to be their mentors. So that has been programmed into it and I hope that's going to prove fruitful. Matt Harmon: Yeah. And one of the great things just to highlight a little bit, and I'm sure it's the same in most departments. I feel like the communication department is a little bit unique because there's always stuff going on. Took students into the Outlook and there was a couple of students in there working on the student newspaper. I came in here to the radio studio where we are today and there were students doing a show. So it wasn't like, "Hey, here's an empty building. Here's what it looks like. " So that was a ton of fun. Also fun was hearing what students do over the course of spring break. I had some interesting conversations with some students the last couple of days getting back in. And I know for you, it is like everybody else, a chance to step away from campus if you have a couple of days. I do want to start with heartfelt condolences towards you over the course of the last ... I'll put 30 days on there. The last month you lost your father who I know had been battling some health issues over the course of the last couple of years. And you've shared that with me. And I know that probably occupied some of your break and time away from campus. And you know this about me. I lost my dad in 2009 and it's not a club that I like welcoming anybody into because as much as anybody would tell you, you'll figure it out or whatever heartfelt message you get, life is never the same after you lose a parent. Patrick Leahy: Well, first of all, thanks for bringing this up. And in your case, God bless your dad. I think you told me he was 63. Matt Harmon: 63, yep. Patrick Leahy: 63. Yeah. I mean, I'm 57, so 63 is right around the corner. I was very blessed and my family was very blessed. And my father was 95 and a half years old to the day, actually 95 and one half. And he lived an extraordinary life. And I'm not just saying that because he was my father. I mean, you ask any independent third party, "Did John Lahey Senior live an extraordinary life?" And they would say yes. I mean, he grew up in inner city Philadelphia, the oldest of a ... He was a twin actually. He and his twin brother were the oldest of a large family. He and his twin brother first in the history of the Lahey family to earn a college degree. He did at Loyola, Maryland. And then he joined the Marine Corps, became an officer in the Marine Corps, left the Marine Corps, joined this little kind of startup company at the time called Black & Decker. Everybody knows Black and Decker now, but back in the 1950s, not everybody knew Black & Decker. He joined that organization, spent a remarkable 30 year career with them, became a senior executive, left there, started his own business, raised six kids, was married to my mom for 56 years. I said, had a chance to speak at his service. And I said he was a big time person, as everybody at this gathering knows, big time executive, big time member of the community, And big time family man, six kids, 16 grandkids, four, five, and counting great grandkids. But I want to tell a quick story, if I may. At the ceremony, I said, "Here's this big time man. We're going to celebrate him and all of his accomplishments and everything he meant and all that. " I said, "But there's a special image that I carry close to me. " And that is that in his later years, he became a volunteer at the hospice center that he ended up passing away in. And he used to visit the older, mostly men who were there and he would say that they were really lonely. They were outliving their friends, they didn't have much family. He had a particular appreciation for veterans, military veterans and retired priests because he was an art Irish Catholic. And one day he was visiting and one of the residents said, my dad said, "Is there anything I can get for you? " And the resident said, "You know what I'd really like? McDonald's, cheeseburger and french fries." Matt Harmon: Nice. And Patrick Leahy: They're like, "But they won't let me have it in here because it's not prescribed diet." So my dad decided the next time he came up, he brought them a cheeseburger and french fries. Well, word started getting around the floor that there was this volunteer who would bring McDonald's- Smuggle Matt Harmon: Food in. Patrick Leahy: So I just have this image in my head of my dad going through a drive-through. I mean, he never went to McDonald's. Going through the drive-through at a McDonald's, getting these big bags of cheeseburgers in one and french fries in another. And to your point, Matt, kind of smuggling them into the residence and distributing them around to the lonely men to try to bring a little bit of happiness to their day. And I think of my dad and I think of those little anecdotes, not the big time stuff that he did. Matt Harmon: And you have a loss like that and everyone at some point will deal with loss, whether it's at 57, at wherever you are in life, it allows you to have some reflection. It allows you to probably take stock on your own life and now think about your four and the grandchildren that will follow and everything else that kind of comes with that, right? I mean, it puts a pause on everything in life and you think about everything you have. And I mean, I remember it for me. It was like you take stock of everything and then you probably start to do that a little bit more often because you realize that someone who was so important to you isn't there to bounce ideas off anymore. Patrick Leahy: I mean, I become more reflective every year I age. And then of course, when there's a big life event like this, it does make me, and I think many others, quite sentimental, quite reflective. I'm very fortunate because my heart fills with gratitude. I mean, I know not everybody had the relationship with their father that I had with mine. So I am very grateful that I had that. And it just motivates me to be the best father I can be, of course, and best member of the community. All the things that he taught me over all so many years, I'm very grateful, although even at 95 and a half, it's a big loss. Matt Harmon: Well, again, condolences- I Patrick Leahy: Thank you for bringing it up and for your condolences. The outpouring of support from the community has been wonderful. Matt Harmon: Short of that, were you able to enjoy any part of spring break? Patrick Leahy: Yeah, actually, because I think it's okay to mention that when something like that happens, you just start, as part of being reflective, you just start thinking, "You know what? Life is short." So I took my boys deep sea fishing for a week and it was fantastic. We were 25 miles out and we caught a bunch of fish. We spent some really great time together, just the boys and me. I have two girls, as you know, but this was a boy's trip and it was fantastic. I don't usually take spring break because I usually use the opportunity when campus is more quiet to get some work done. But I just figured this is the year I got to take my own spring break because you just don't put off things that you want to do when a life situation like this happens. Matt Harmon: You getting texts now every day from the two girls? Hey, don't forget- We're on a trip now. Patrick Leahy: When are we going somewhere? Matt Harmon: I said, take stock. You and I do it as older parents. The kids do it as well. Patrick Leahy: Kids are keeping receipts too. Wait a Matt Harmon: Second. Patrick Leahy: Okay. They got a trip. Where's ours? Matt Harmon: Good fish. Patrick Leahy: Oh my God. Matt Harmon: What'd you get? What was the best? Patrick Leahy: 15 sailfish. 15. I mean, big enough Matt Harmon: To get- The big ones. Patrick Leahy: You had to be strapped into ... Well, not strapped in, but you had to sit in the fighting chair and get moved around. Took 20 minutes to bring those in. And then the biggest though, and I think my son Jack would support me saying this. He's the fisherman in the family. He's the junior here at Monmouth. And he caught a mahi. Again, I'm getting into detail here, 10 pound or little compared to the sailfish. And it was kind of fun to catch and he threw it. He threw it back. And he said to me, "On my bucket list is to catch a big mahi." And I was like, "Really? Well, what constitutes big?" He's like, "I don't know, 30 pounds or something like that. " I kid you not, one half an hour later, we get a hook, we hook something and it was Brian's turn to reel it in Speaker 3: Because Patrick Leahy: We took turns reeling it in. And as soon as it hooked, it breached the water and it was a mahi and Brian, God bless him, he said, "Jack, Jack." And he took it and he handed it to Jack because he knew Jack was the- He was waiting for it. ... the bigger fishermen. Jack spent a half or 25 minutes reeling in a 60 pound machi. And I mean, it was so exciting to the crew on this boat that they were coming down off the bridge and all excited. They wanted pictures with it. They have tournaments there to Mahi tournaments and they're like, "If you caught this during that tournament, you would've been the runaway tournament winter." So that was the sort of marquee fish of the week. And we ended up eating it like three times. I was Matt Harmon: Going to say, I hope that was a good dinner. It must have been a good dinner. We threw Patrick Leahy: Everything back except for that one. And we kept that one. In fact, I think during the struggle, bringing him up on the boat, we wouldn't have been able to throw him back anyway. So it was very exciting. It Matt Harmon: Just was Patrick Leahy: A special moment. Matt Harmon: Great trip. So Patrick Leahy: Thank you for asking. Matt Harmon: Good memory. I hope you were properly ready for the sun. I learned from John, he was away over spring break. I said, how was your break? I got fried. I got so burned. Dominican, right, John? No. Yep. John Nick: Dominican Matt Harmon: Republic? John Nick: Nice. Matt Harmon: I told you yesterday in class, right? They make something for that. It's called Sundan lotion. John Nick: Listen, I applied. It's just unfortunate that the way my skin operates, it didn't line up. Didn't Matt Harmon: Take? John Nick: Did not take. Matt Harmon: Okay. John Nick: I probably should have gone 50 SPF. I was 30. Oh, it's Matt Harmon: Not enough, John. You need a triple digit John Nick: Number, John. You need a triple digit number. I buddy had 100. I'm like, you might be damaging the sun with a hundred. How about that? Matt Harmon: So a little bit on what's been going on with life. In terms of what's going on on campus, let's talk about yesterday and today, annual Monmouth University Giving Days. You can literally donate to, I think, any program on campus, any academic- Patrick Leahy: Even Matt Harmon: The Patrick Leahy: Monmouth Matters podcast. Matt Harmon: Is there a category for that? Patrick Leahy: No, but you could maybe- Matt Harmon: We could open one up. Let's open one up. Any athletic program, any academic program, any school. I saw yesterday you could donate to one of the gardens on campus to keep that as nice as it is. So there is literally nothing that you cannot support while you are going around the Monmouth University Giving Day website. Talk a little bit about just why that's so important. It's one of a couple of times during the course of the year that Monmouth has an outreach to try and pick up donations, but I feel like this one in the spring always has a little bit more kind of energy and juice to it. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. Really one time. I mean, we do solicit donations throughout the year, and I know our donor pool will remind us of that, but one time a year we try to energize the entire Monmouth University community on and off campus in the community, everywhere around supporting our students. And as you pointed out, what's so unique about this, Matt, is that one can direct their gifts to almost anything they want on the campus, whatever speaks most to them. So I'll give you an example. Every year I try to support scholarships, athletics, and the Springsteen Center. And I do that mostly through the events that we have, the fundraising events. But at Giving Days every year, I try to use it as an opportunity to direct a little bit of resources to different areas on campus that I really appreciate. So many, I hope I'm here a long time so I can hit them all. For example, a few years ago, the library, the year after that, the pep band. Year after that, the dance and cheerleading team that shows up at all of our sporting events. This year, the Debate Hawks and Model UN, because I'm always touting the incredible work that those students do, especially when they go compete on our behalf. So this year, my donation's going to those two areas. It should be, I hope, a fun opportunity for members of our campus community to direct whatever resources they can find at this point to the thing that speaks to them the most. And we're off to a great start. I haven't looked recently, but I think we have a goal that's like half a million dollars and we're way on track to meeting that goal. Matt Harmon: And I always like that it is two days. It's not a month, it's not a week. It's 48 hours of kind of a hard push with tons of social media. Yeah, tons of social. Try and get the word out to as many people as possible, but it's quick. I think at one point it used to be giving day. I was going to say- It used to be one day. We've extended it now to 48 hours, which I think two days makes a whole Patrick Leahy: Lot of sense. We might get to a month at some point. No, no, no. We'll never do that. But I think we decided two days, you're right, is a lot better. It takes a while to capture people's attention. And despite the efforts leading up to it, two days is the day. We want to make it a concentrated effort. We want to energize the entire community at one time, but we don't want it to linger too, too long. So two days seems to be the right duration. Matt Harmon: You can go to givingday.momoth.edu. And again, you can get into any program that you want to, academic, athletic, school related, major related, all the different kind of clubs that are on campus as well. Give to whoever you want as much as you can. As they say, there is no donation that is too small. Patrick Leahy: That's exactly right. Matt Harmon: John, we'll take a quick break. We'll come back and we'll go through a litany of topics, try and catch up a little bit from what's been going on on campus the last couple of weeks. This is Monmouth Matters with university president, Dr. Patrick Lahey. Matt Harmon: Welcome back to Monmouth Matters on WMCX 88.9. March edition of our monthly podcast series. We had some schedule issues. We skipped March. I feel like we haven't done this in quite some time. It hasn't been since December, but really excited to be back on. We'll do April. We'll do a May edition as well. Let's run through in our remaining time kind of a popuri maybe of topics to kind of cover and get back on track. No guest today because we wanted to spend the time making sure that we caught up on everything that was going on on campus. This one, and I know it's a big part of everything that the university has been about over the course of the last couple of years. You've spoken about it openly. The rankings and kind of classifications that Monmouth has been able to move up during the course of the last couple of years, and a big one with US News and World Report, a national classification. Patrick Leahy: Yeah, this is a big deal. And I will do my level best to communicate to folks throughout the course of the spring why this is such a big deal. And let me just explain, Matt, if I may. So US News and World Report, as I think most folks know, is like it or not, the standard in our industry for comparing colleges and universities. And we've been in that ranking for many years. In fact, in 2005, we debuted in the ranking itself in what they call the regional universities in the north. There are four categories. We're in the north category as a regional university, which means that we offered a suite of programs at the undergraduate level, select master's programs, and recruited mostly just in the area. And when we debuted in 2005, I think we were 76th in our category. That was only, what, 20 years ago? Matt Harmon: Which, not to break in. The first trick of this is to get in- You need to get Patrick Leahy: Into it. You need to get into it. It Matt Harmon: Doesn't matter where you start. You want to be part of it. You don't want to be one of the schools that's not even ranked at all. So Patrick Leahy: They have ... Yeah. They'll put you in the category. Okay, that's a regional university in the northern part of the country, but yeah, you have to break into the ranking. You're right. I mean, there's a whole bunch of schools that are listed in the category, but they're not eligible, again, by the pundits that measure these things, not eligible for a ranking. So to break into the ranking is itself. Step one. Some recognition. We started at 76. And in 20 years, we have been on a almost perfectly linear upward trajectory. I think when I started, we had gotten all the way up to like 28 or something like that. And then even in the last few years, as we've gone through some tough changes in the industry, we have emerged this year to 13. So we went from 76 to 13 in that regional university category in the north in basically a two decade period. But something very significant is going to happen this year. And that is the industry pundits who look at this have looked at Monmouth University, have looked at our growing program mix, including now four doctoral programs. They've looked at our research college and university category that we obtained last year, and I think we touted on a previous episode to recognize the amount of scholarship and research that our faculty does here and wonderfully does mostly with our students, in particular a lot of our undergraduate students. They've looked at our reach of students and the like, and they have decided that we are going to leave the regional university designation category and jump to the national university category, which means that we will jump from a list of comparative schools in our northern region, jump onto a bonafide national list of the finest universities in our land. Now, I always warn people, Matt, that we're going to be down that list a bit because on that same list are the oldest schools in the country, the wealthiest schools in the country, the most prestigious schools in the country, all the Ivy League schools, all the great state institutions across the country, Stanford and Emory and Vanderbilt. I mean, you know what I mean, as well as other really fine schools that are down the list with us. But it is a seminal moment in the history of our university that an institution that started 90 some years ago as a junior college and then became a four-year college and then became a university and then a master's university in 2026 will finally be recognized by our peers across the industry as a national doctoral research division one institution. And That puts us in a category of schools that are the finest schools in the land. That to me is absolutely worthy of celebration at this university. Does it mean that it's going to change day to day what happens here? No. We're totally committed to student success that will continue. That's what got us here. So it's not going to change that, but it's like getting a Michelin star if you're a restaurant or breaking into the Fortune 500 if you're a company. It is a mark of excellence and the way we have evolved as an institution. And it just places us in the company that I've always dreamed that we might be though of. And this is a big deal. And as you can tell, very excited about it. Matt Harmon: And it's something you're aware of this, and we've talked about it on the podcast before. I'm part of the university strategic plan committee, re-imagining the next five years. We can spend a minute and kind of connect it to that. We have talked so often about the rankings and highlighting what Monmouth has become.This is a great one, but I'm sure in the mindset you'll be, oh, you're 13 here. We might be whatever the number is in the national one. There's going to have to be an educational process for people to understand. We graduated from this list into, you're a really good, no disrespect, but I'm trying to think of the best way to say it. You're a really good player on a JB team and you just got promoted to the varsity. You might not get a whole lot of playing time, but now all of a sudden you're on the Patrick Leahy: Roster.That's not a bad way to think about it. Matt Harmon: That's not to say we're on a JB list right now. I'm just thinking of a way to correlate it a little bit. Patrick Leahy: It will require some education on my part, on our PR team's part, because you're absolutely right. If we end up at 150 or something on our ... Down the list. Matt Harmon: What happened to Mammoth? 13th. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. We have to make very clear, to your point. No, no, no. It's a totally different way to look at our ranking. And when you look at the quality of the schools on that list, it's going to be extremely tough to jump up those rankings. So the other thing I want to make sure people know is, do not go on that list expecting a linear trajectory the way we've been able to do in the regional category. We're not giving up on that ambition, of course, but I mean, you can't ... It's going to be so much harder to compete with institutions with multiple billion dollar endowments there. I always say this, some of those schools on that list have a hundred year head start on us. We were founded in 1933 and they were founded in 1833 or whatever. Imagine what we could be as an institution in a hundred years if we keep at it the way we are. So it's going to be tougher. The important move here is that we got recognized by third parties. I've always wanted this for our institution, but I can't really control it. It is third parties looking at what we do here and deciding, you know what? They meet the criteria of a national university. Now you go on a list of the finest schools, all the other national universities, and they're the finest schools in our land. And many of those, I still believe many of those institutions, not all of them, but many of them that will be ranked ahead of us are the finest college universities in the world. So be tough to compete against them, but I'm up for the challenge. Matt Harmon: Connect this to strategic plan with the three keywords that we focused on that committee, excellence, access, and ambition, how they all work together with a new ranking and new recognition. Patrick Leahy: So when the rankings come out in the fall, we'll get our first read on where we are on that list. And again, that will require some education. But we'll go immediately, Matt, to looking at ... Now that we're on that list, how are we doing compared to those institutions on the integration of excellence and access? Right? Because I have this belief that there are not going to be many institutions ranked above us on that list, especially private ones that have our commitment to access. And that's going to be a source of pride for us. It would be so much easier if we did not want to integrate both excellence and access. For example- Matt Harmon: Pick one or the other, you mean? Patrick Leahy: Pick one or the other. There's some great schools out there that do God's work and they're all about access, but their ranking shows that they can't compete. There are a lot of institutions that of course are deemed to be excellent educational institutions and they are, but they can't touch our commitment to access. You look at what we're trying to do, both increasing our ranking and maintaining our commitment to access, as we've talked about this first year class, 55% of the first year class are fly students. I'm going to argue when we land on that national ranking and I start looking at the private institutions ahead of us, in particular the private schools, they're not going to be able to touch that. And that's going to be a source of tremendous pride for us too. So the strategic planning that you talk about, as you know, you're one of the fixtures on the committee is to look at another five years. Let's keep excellence and access. We're making so much great progress there. Let's keep that as an overall theme and really drill down into what are the things we need to try to get done in the next five years to continue to advance that. Matt Harmon: Well, that's the ambition. Patrick Leahy: And that's the ambition. I always say this, maybe I've said it on this broadcast before. It would be so much easier if we chose one or the other and not decided not to try to do both, but it is such a satisfying thing. I hope it is for all of us educators to be able to try to do both. And it's hard. I often say to our team, the trick here is how do we continue to try to meet our ambition as a university in a resource constrained environment? That would be easier too if you think about it. If we had a lot of ambition as an institution and we had limitless resources, well, that'd be one challenge. If we had a really tight resource constraints, but we didn't care about our ambition, that would be another challenge. We have not given up on our ambition as an institution to keep getting that now classification and continuing to move up that ranking, but we have to try to figure out how can we get that done in a resource constrained environment because it is a tough environment in higher ed. I'm hopeful that the strategic planning process helps us wrestle with that as a community and say, "You know what? This is what we can do to really advance what we're doing, but still preserve the overall financial health of the university." It's tough work, but it's, I hope, extremely satisfying work. Matt Harmon: Good news also to follow. And I often say I drive this way up to campus almost every day. The Bruce Springsteen American Center for Music is getting close to being done. During the course of the last couple of weeks, there was an announcement with an actual date. We've been hesitant to put a date on it, but now there is a date in terms of opening. No pressure. Patrick Leahy: Can't avoid it now. June 6th is the grand opening. The building will open for visitors on June 7th. This couldn't come at a better semester than what I just talked about. We're a national university now that's now going to get national, if not international exposure to our university through the Center for American Music. And it is coming along. It is on time and it's on budget. And I think as I have said repeatedly before, I'd like to repeat, we were able to secure an $8 million gift since we were together last, which puts us well over the top in terms of the money necessary to build that building. It is 100% paid for by third party donations, most of whom do not have a connection to Monmouth. So it's not like we're taking Monmouth donations from the university and putting it into ... I mean, there's a couple board members who wanted to show some leadership by saying, "Hey, look, I want my philanthropy to go to the Center for American Music. I don't want this thing to happen on our campus." It is a project of Monmouth University. It's not like we're just leasing this space to them or the land to them, Matt. This is 100% owned by Monmouth University. This is our project in partnership with the Springsteen Organization, 100% paid for by third party donors. Amanda Claus, whom you know our vice president of advancement has been killing it in terms of helping to raise the money. Bob Santelli is a genius. In fact, we might try to have him on one of our next episodes In advance. And the ways in which we're going to be able to open this up to the campus community and make this ... I have this hope, not a hope. It's not a hope. It's more than a hope. It's a goal. It's a commitment that we're going to have such robust programming that will be increasingly open to our students, maybe exclusively to our students so that we can say to our current students and prospective students, these kind of music opportunities, access to artists, these kind of music performances are only available to you if you are a student at Monmouth University. You talk about a competitive advantage as we go out in a really competitive landscape to recruit students. That will happen much more regularly once the building is open and that programming starts to expand than we've been able to do to this point. To this point, a lot of our events admittedly have been fundraisers because we wanted to make sure that the operation of the center was not costing the university resources. So we had to preserve those kind of events for big ticket donors to in order to serve that objective. When the building opens, we'll roll out more events. Our students will be able to come to those events free of charge, and it's only at Monmouth University because we are the sponsor of this Center for American Music that they'd have access to these events. Matt Harmon: One of those events coming up in what, three weeks from now, which is the annual now American Music Center kind of induction, basically. Patrick Leahy: American Music Honors, we call it. And that's a perfect example. It's in Pollock Theater, as our listeners know, there's only 740 seats in Pollock Theater. I'd love to make that event available to everybody here on the campus community. I just can't because that has to be a fundraiser that we use to pay for the activities of the center so that we're not a drag on university resources. But this year's honorees, just quickly, if you haven't seen Patty Smith, Dion Warwick, Dr. Dre, The Doors, and the E Street Band. It's going to be fantastic. All on our campus, in the Pollock Theater, celebrating together one night. Fantastic. Matt Harmon: With a tribute to the band, right? With a Patrick Leahy: Tribute to the band. Yeah. And if you know Matt Harmon: The band- Not the E Street band. The band. It's called The Band. Patrick Leahy: The band and some of their most popular songs, which even if you don't know the band, you'd know their songs will be performed. It's going to be great. Matt Harmon: Nat, did I get a chuckle out of you for that? Yeah. See? There's some humor that goes ... I think she liked how I said the band, the band. The band, not the ... Got to keep the students laughing. It's the only way to do it. It's the only way to do it. Let's finish with the close of one athletic season and open into another. You have always been such a big supporter of what goes on with our student athletes. Basketball season came to a close in DC for both the men's and the women's team. The women's team actually played a couple of extra games. Part of the WNIT unfortunately lost the other night out in Cleveland, did get a home win against Lehigh. Both really good seasons and the men's team came up just short in the final against Hofstra. Heartbreaker. Patrick Leahy: Heartbreaker. I really, really thought we might win that game. Let's be honest, Hofster's a really, really good team. They were seated ahead of us. So there's no shame in losing to a team that's seated above us by just a few points. But remember, the men's team were picked eighth, I think, Matt. You might remember. I think they were picked eighth out of 13 teams at the beginning of the season. We played two thirds of the year without one of our best players, Kavian McLean. And we ended up with the fourth seat, which gives us a double by in the tournament. You know all these terms. And then we won two games, went to the final game, lost by just a few points. That was an excellent 19 win season by the men in a really, really tough environment. And then the women won 21 games themselves. And as you said, they got a postseason birth. So really, really good action from our basketball team. And I will say quick shout out to the campus community, because as those games got late into the season and we were playing in February, the Ocean First Bank Center filled up a lot more than earlier in the season. And I think that was a testament to the campus community and turning out. And that just creates such excitement here on campus. Frankly, down in DC, we had buses come down with some of our most rowdy fans, one of whom is sitting here producing this- Matt Harmon: Right. Still working off of Sunburn if you listen to the earlier part of the show. Patrick Leahy: But it was fantastic. I was so proud of them. I don't know, a hundred or so, John, a couple hundred. John Nick: Between the student bus and then the bus that we had with fans, it was over a hundred Patrick Leahy: People. Yeah. But a hundred bringing the energy of 3000. There was one thing real quick. I was so proud. During the course of the game, the CAA does this really classy thing where they recognize members of our armed forces And just celebrates them. And it results typically in a standing ovation, which totally appropriate. But then our students started the USA Chance and the two or three times that they did that recognition, our students sort of led the energy at USA, USA. I was so proud of them for that and the way in which they handled. They brought all the energy. They did it all in a classy way, no stupid stuff that at least I know of. So I was very grateful for that. Coach Rice and the staff was very grateful for that. That's the kind of energy we need next year to get across that finish line. Matt Harmon: I want to say that I feel like the energy in the building changed on a random night that you decided to give out pizza. That was a turning point for the students to say, wait a minute, I can get free pizza and the president of the university gives us Patrick Leahy: Some pizza. Sometimes you just need to buy some energy when you need to, Matt. And that was a small price to pay to bring the energy. And I have a commitment to our students. If you turn out, I'll find something, the pizzas or I'll throw out soft pretzels or something, but just a small way for me to show my appreciation to the students for turning out and supporting their classmates. Matt Harmon: Baseball off to a great start so far this year. Men's lacrosse, a huge win last weekend against Hofstra. Patrick Leahy: That's a little payback, I guess, to Hofstra. Matt Harmon: Yeah. Yeah. A small payback. A small payback. Let's finish with this. We'll give one more plug to what's going on for the remaining part of the day today. I'm looking at it right now, which is givingday.monmouth.edu. We're close to $300,000 raised coming up on 1,800 overall gifts and that number will continue to change during the course of the day. Still plenty of time. And as we said earlier, you can pick any area, program, department, team, doesn't matter. Find a way to get involved with Monmouth and give anything you can. Patrick Leahy: Here's my simple idea. If Monmouth University means anything to you, any one of those areas means anything to you, help us continue to provide those services for our students and do whatever you can to support those areas. It goes a long way when you can direct your gift to the area that you're most interested in. A $50 gift, a hundred, 500 goes a much further way when you say, "I want it to go to this department or this team or that activity," versus if we just took it into our general fund. But this is your chance, so I hope you will turn out and force and get us to those audacious numbers that we set for this year. Matt Harmon: Givingday.momoth.edu. The spot, make a gift if you can, by the end of the day today. Two days of giving days yesterday and today it goes, as President Lahey said, a long way, helping students like those that are involved with our Monmouth Matters podcast, Frank, Nat, John, Nick, our crew today for university president Dr. Patrick Leahy. I'm faculty member Matt Horman. We'll see you next month in April for another episode of Monmouth Matters. John Nick: All episodes of Monmouth Matters, the president's perspective are available for download and listening pleasure on Apple Podcasts and university website, mammoth.edu. Technical assistance is provided by engineer Eric Reischer and Dr. Aaron Ferguson. The show is produced by Nick Giantonia, John Grano, Chloe Gosk, and Frank Horley. The executive producers and hosts of Monmou Matters are university president, Dr. Patrick Lahey, and faculty member, Dr. Matt Hart. Thanks as always for listening.