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Monmouth University President Patrick Leahy began his tenure on Aug. 1, succeeding Grey Dimenna. A native of Maryland, Leahy was most recently president of Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. having been named to that post in 2012. NJBIZ spoke with Leahy on Aug. 30 about his visions for Monmouth.

NJBIZ: Why were you interested in becoming president of Monmouth University?

Leahy: I was very flattered that a search consultant reached out to me and said ‘You ought to look at this job. I think it would be a great opportunity.’ Quite candidly, I did not know that much about Monmouth University at the time. I started looking at the place. I visited the campus. I started doing my own research. I decided to get into the search process. And every step along the way it became more and more clear to me that there is something really special at Monmouth. Not only a rich history for which people were incredibly proud but maybe more important than that still untapped potential in that place. Every university president wants to go to a place where he or she feels there remains an upside. I certainly felt that way at Monmouth even though I had a very good thing going at Wilkes University. So I say to people it would take something special in order to get me to move and I found it in Monmouth.

NJBIZ: How are you going to measure the value of a Monmouth University education?

Leahy: To me the value of any educational institution is what is the difference between where the students arrived here and how prepared they are for a complex world? When they graduate four years later at the undergraduate level or two or four years later at the graduate level, how much more prepared are they to combat that complex world? What have we done to add value to those individuals’ opportunities in their life? We will measure it mostly around our outcomes. How well do we prepare them not just for graduation?

First and foremost, we want our students to get their degree. I told students our goal is not just to get you to graduate. Our goal is to get you into the job of your choice so that you might live the life of your choice and have the career of your choice. Part of what we want to instill in our students is to not settle for any job but the job that best speaks to them.

NJBIZ: How are you meeting the needs of businesses through the university’s Leon Hess School of Business?

Leahy: It is an integration of two things. Of course we need to make sure we are offering programming that matches needs in the marketplace. Like any business, we need to make sure that we remain relevant to the marketplace. Not only in our school of business, but across all six of our schools we are offering programming that is in demand in the marketplace.

There is another part that I think is overlooked. We have very qualified faculty members who have prepared their whole lives. They insert into that curriculum things that they think our students need to know. For instance, even if you are studying marketing we will make you go through a general education curriculum. We think you have to study English literature and we think you have to take a science course because we believe as educators there are skills you should learn and perspectives that you gain passing through those courses that are important to students.

NJBIZ: What are the most important and in-demand skills that employers of all stripes are looking for in Monmouth University graduates?

Leahy: If you asked most organizations, they would tell you that the most important skills that students need to learn are soft skills. Can they communicate their ideas particularly persuasively? Can they collaborate with others both in their discipline and in other disciplines? Can they lead teams of people toward particular goals? I am assuming they have the technical knowledge so if we claim somebody is a marketing major, they had better understand the fundamental principles of marketing. If we say someone graduates with a biology degree, they understand the particulars of biology. That’s a given. Where we want to add value is what do they learn in addition to that in the softer skills that will make them successful not only in that first job? Remember our goal is to make them successful throughout their careers. As individuals advance in their careers, I believe the softer skills become increasingly important to success. Those technical skills will have to be constantly updated throughout their lives anyway as advances continue.

NJBIZ: What are some of Monmouth’s most popular majors?

Leahy: We graduate the most students in our business school and followed by various programs in humanities and social sciences. … Monmouth, like a lot of other schools, is continuing to make investments in the science/technology/engineering/math fields. Our country is in desperate need of increased number of STEM-trained professionals so we will continue to do our part to serve our national effort.

One of our most recent largest capital projects was a total renovation and expansion of our school of science to add additional labs so that faculty members can continue to do their research and incorporate students into their research in order to develop strong future scientists. … A little less obvious is the way we tend to our computer science degree and software engineering degree, both of which have the highest accreditation in their fields. It is not only the physical manifestation of that but ensuring the programs we offer in the STEM fields are really first class.

I am a huge fan of STEAM. [Science/Technology/Engineering/Arts/Mathematics] I still want our students to be exposed to the arts and humanities along the way. Let’s not forget the importance of developing artists as broadly as you define it. That’s where a ton of creativity is going to come from. The real challenge that our nation is going to face is going to come at the intersection of disciplines. I think the arts part is both an appreciation of the arts and what the arts skills can teach you in terms of creativity and imagination.

NJBIZ: How is Monmouth University leveraging technology to further the education of your students?

Leahy: The students who are emerging on our campus today are so comfortable with digital information and gadgets. We need to make sure we are collaborating with them. These students today cannot even imagine the world in which they are going to live in the next 50 years.

NJBIZ: What are the greatest assets of Monmouth University?

Leahy: By far and away the greatest asset that this university has is the quality of people who are engaged in the life of this university. I have this belief that high-quality educational institutions are directly correlated with the quality of the faculty and staff that we have assembled here to work with our students. Great people make great universities. We have a great physical plant, the envy of those across the country. [We have] the quality of our instruction space and our research space and this great location wedged on the shore between New York and Philadelphia.

We are going to streamline our operation here so we can unleash the creative genius of our faculty. At this early stage it’s more important that I create the organizational design that is going to allow for innovation going forward.

NJBIZ: What are your greatest challenges?

Leahy: I think the greatest challenges we are going to deal with are the changes in the marketplace. What is going to happen in the next 10 years is the following: the demographics are moving against us, meaning the number of 18-year-old high school graduates who will be seeking to go on to college in the northeastern United States is going to drop significantly. It is already starting now but it is really going to pick up in about five years, which would make it about 18 years since the Great Recession. … People in the Northeast during the Great Recession started thinking when their retirement portfolios tanked and we had higher unemployment, they started thinking they could not afford to have more than one kid. … It had a direct effect on the birthrates.

You move 18 years ahead. High school graduation classes are going to shrink and the number of students who are seeking to go to college is going to shrink. Now we are in an industry where our core market is shrinking. In that same region, you have the finest colleges in the country, the oldest, the best brand names, the wealthiest are all competing for a smaller supply of students. You do not need an MBA to realize we have too much capacity for a dwindling supply of potential students. That is going to be a major reckoning in higher education and it’s going to happen within the next decade.

NJBIZ: How does Monmouth University position itself to compete against all the other universities within the next 10 years?

Leahy: Relatively speaking, we are in a very strong position. I do not want to suggest we will not have challenges. We have an incredible physical plant. We have a great program mix at the undergraduate and graduate level. We have a phenomenal location. More important, we have a first-class cadre of individuals who are really dedicated to what we do here. We have a very strong balance sheet relative to a lot of other schools. Nonetheless we will have our own challenges ensuring that we recruit enough students to continue our mission. It is going to result in making sure we have programs that match the marketplace and that we are nimble enough to roll out new programs that we think are attractive in the marketplace.

I think it’s interesting that some people think higher education institutions live in an ivory tower and they do not really understand the rough and tumble business world. I would tell you most higher education institutions have at least as many competitors or probably a lot more than a lot of businesses do. We understand fully what it takes to compete in a hyper-competitive market.

NJBIZ: What is one aspect of your job that is important yet most people are not aware of?

Leahy: How much time a successful university president dedicates to listening. I think everyone thinks the head of the organization is the person we go to hear the vision, to hear what we are doing, and to motivate everyone. I think people underestimate how much time a successful president dedicates to listening. There are so many constituencies: the students, the faculty, the staff, the board, the community, and the local press. It is important we tend to those constituencies and the way to do it is by listening more than we speak.

NJBIZ: How are you going to foster positive relationships with the community of West Long Branch?

Leahy: Very deliberately. I do feel that it is a really important obligation of even private universities to be great partners with their community. I feel it’s an important part of our mission. It grows from our mission. What can we do to extend our assets into the community to help the positive development? It is also an obligation because of our nonprofit status. It should motivate us to ensure that we are doing what we can to support our community.