(upbeat music) - Hi, everyone.

Steve Adubato.

We are honored to be joined by Dr.

Patrick Leahy, the president of Monmouth University in beautiful Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Good to see you, Pat.

- Nice to see you, Steve.

Thanks for having me on.

Really appreciate it.

- Hey, listen, I was on the campus, I told you a while back, our daughter plays field hockey around Monmouth County campus.

And we're also there for the HMH Gala, which was there as well.

It's beautiful.

Does everyone tell you that it's a beautiful campus?

- They do.

We've often compared to like Pepperdine, if you've ever been on the campus at Pepperdine.

- Out there.

- Southern California.

We're often considered the Pepperdine of the East Coast, which I'm quite proud of.

Working really hard to make it increasingly more beautiful and increasingly more functional for our students.

But it's always great to hear from members of the community that they see what we're trying to do there.

- Pat, do this for us.

We talked to a whole range of higher ed leaders in the public/private sector, independent sector.

How many students?

There's about 5,000?

- 5,000-ish.

Mm-mm.

- (sighs) I hate the question who's a typical student?

What are the demographics of the student body?

- Yeah, the demographics are actually changing.

So, it's a very pertinent question, Steve.

So, you know, 70% or so of our students still come from the great state of New Jersey, increasingly from outta state, but still 70/30.

In the past we would've been a campus for middle upper class students.

And that's changing as we become more accessible as an institution.

In fact, we're really proud of the fact that this past fall in September, we enrolled the best class we've ever enrolled in part because 55% of our first year class were what we call fly students, which is you're either the first in their family to pursue a four-year college degree and/or are low income as evidenced by their eligibility for Federal Pell grants.

So, we're trying to make it an increasingly first rate private education as accessible as possible.

So, it's harder for us now more than ever to sort of describe a typical student because the student body's diversifying in really great ways every year.

- Yeah.

Let me follow up on this.

I was asking one of your colleagues this question the other day about being a college president.

And I don't think most people can appreciate what a college president does.

And obviously it's different at different institutions.

How much of your work as the president at Monmouth University, Pat, is A, fundraising, B, fundraising, C.

(laughs) How much of it is the economics, if you will, of running the place?

- It gives me a chance to tell you one of my favorite definitions of a university president.

- Go ahead.

- Someone who lives in a big house yet begs for a living.

That is how I feel.

So, to answer your question.

I always say this, Steve, that 80% of my job is selling the place.

You know, now some big portion of that is asking for money, but 80% of the job is selling the place and hyping the place and trying to get people increasingly interested in it.

And a big part of that is fundraising.

We're really lucky as a not-for-profit institution that in addition to our business model, we also have fundraising as a revenue source, if you will.

It's a really unique, a great opportunity for us to enhance what we're able to do day in and day out through the generosity of donors.

So, like all university presidents, I spend a lot of my time on it.

I happen to love that part of the job, so it comes naturally to me.

- Pat, hold on one second.

80% of my job is raising money as well to run our not-for-profit, but highly entrepreneurial production company.

But let me ask you this.

I love when the deal gets done, I'll say that.

You love the process?

- Yeah.

I love the process in part because in my opinion, Steve, the best fundraising is the marriage of institutional need and donor passion.

And my view of this is the process is trying to uncover that donor passion and connect it to almost limitless institutional need that we have and pull those together.

And if we do that properly, it's a very, very satisfying thing for donors.

As you know when you connect with people who are generous.

So, I love that process.

It's like, putting little mini deals together.

(laughs) You know?

- Yeah, be a deal maker and partner.

- Yeah.

- Kinda like being a deal maker.

- You partner with a lot of folks too.

- We do.

I mean, you know, one of our biggest partners is Hackensack Meridian Health right now.

We have been able over the last year, year and a half to partner with them in a very comprehensive manner so that we can grow at Monmouth University.

I keep saying a healthcare juggernaut in the center part of the central part of the state.

We know that one of the great threats to the delivery of healthcare in our community going forward is gonna be the shortage of qualified nurses and physical, physician's assistants and occupational therapists and on and on.

We feel like it's incumbent upon us as an educational institution that serves our community to make sure that we're doing our part to produce as many of those healthcare providers as possible.

Our growth was stunted a little bit without a major partnership.

We now have that with Hackensack Meridian Health and they've been able through that partnership to help us grow our programs.

And we hope that that will continue in the future.

So, we're always on the lookout for partnerships.

- How about this one?

I don't know if this is a partnership, but I am excited.

Talk about the Springsteen Initiative on campus.

- That is a partnership.

Thank you for positioning it that way.

- Go ahead.

- It's one of the great things.

I mean, I always say, Steve, to be the president of Monmouth University would be privilege enough for people in my field.

But to be the president at Monmouth University when we are building the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music is like next level altogether.

Years ago before I started at Monmouth, we hatched this partnership with the Bruce Springsteen organization to keep his archives, his legacy, his story here in the state of New Jersey.

And we wanted it hosted on a college campus so that it might be a place where researchers can come and where we could make this programming available to our students.

And so, we started this way back in 2017.

And then I started, I joined in 2019 with the dream of building what is now emerging as a 30,000 square foot center dedicated not only to telling Bruce Springsteen's story, but at his insistence telling the story of American music in all of its forms.

So, when he insisted on that, Steve, this grew from a little idea to preserve his archives and turned it into what we believe will be one of the great cultural assets, not only in New Jersey, but in the entire country.

And that building will have its grand opening in early June of this year.

- It's the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music, that is awesome, at Monmouth University.

- At Monmouth University.

And how privileged are we, as I mentioned, to be able to host that center?

And again, it is not just to tell Bruce's story.

It is to tell the story and to celebrate the story of American music, which we think of as one of our great exports to the world is American music.

- Absolutely.

Pat Leahy.

Dr.

Pat Leahy is the president of Monmouth University.

He loves fundraising and representing the university.

I am pretty good at it when the deal gets done and I'm happy.

But to your point, I have to tell you, Pat, being on your campus and having a feel for it?

Better than Pepperdine.

I just wanna put that out there.

- Oh, well you're nice to say that.

Thank you.

- Looking forward to be down there again and visiting soon.

All the best to you and the team at Monmouth.

- Thank you, Steve.

Really appreciate it.

- You got it.

Atay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Hackensack Meridian Health.

The Adubado Center for Media Leadership.

The Center for Autism New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Fund for New Jersey.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

NJM Insurance Group.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

And by NJ Transit.

Promotional support provided by The Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey.

And by BestofNJ.com.

- Hi, Mary.

So sorry you’re not feeling well today.

Let’s see what we can do.