onmouth’s Urban Coast Institute (UCI) received federal funding for two projects that will bolster resilience to extreme coastal storm and flooding events in Naval Weapons Station (NWS) Earle and its surrounding communities and help economically disadvantaged New Jersey municipalities improve their resilience and readiness for climate threats.

Rep. Frank Pallone secured $450,000 as part of the Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations for the NWS Earle project, which will be led by Thomas Herrington, UCI associate director and New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium Resilient Communities and Economies specialist. The project will build upon a 2019 Raritan/Sandy Hook Bay Coastal Resilience Planning Study conducted by Monmouth County and the DOD that created 11 concept plans for projects that would improve resilience in and around NWS Earle, including steps to address worsening bayfront erosion that could jeopardize the long-term operation and safety of the installation’s pier, facilities, and navigational channels.

The funding will advance one or more of the highest-priority projects through the design and engineering phases needed to make them shovel-ready. The project team is expected to include Monmouth University faculty and students, NWS Earle, and other partners involved in the 2019 study.

The second project, secured by Sen. Cory Booker and supported by Sen. Robert Menendez, will receive $460,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the UCI to partner with local leaders and stakeholders in overburdened communities and planning and resource experts to produce climate adaptation plans that foster equitable community resilience. Herrington will lead a project team that works with selected municipalities from Atlantic, Camden, Cumberland, Essex, Middlesex, and Union counties that express interest in receiving planning assistance.

The project will pilot methods for engaging stakeholders in socially vulnerable communities who are often difficult to reach in planning processes. To overcome these barriers, the team will use collaborative approaches that aid in engaging all community members. The community-centric engagement and planning process will develop resilience and adaptation plans that can serve as a model for disadvantaged and environmental justice communities throughout the state.

The new Doctor of Social Work (DSW) in Human Rights Leadership program welcomed its inaugural cohort of students this fall. The program is unique among DSW programs across the country in that it prepares students to be agents of change at the executive level, teaching them to design, evaluate, and implement effective human rights programs and policies that positively impact individuals and communities. The launch of Monmouth’s fourth doctoral degree–granting program marks a major step in the University’s journey toward achieving national doctoral university status.

The Tom Byer ’67 & Susie Byer Financial Markets Lab was dedicated on Sept. 24, 2021, in recognition of the Byers’ generous six-figure gift in support of the University’s strategic plan initiatives, as well as Mr. Byer’s service as a former member of the Board of Trustees, his active involvement in the Alumni Association, and his decorated career in the financial industry. The lab enables Monmouth University students to get hands-on experience analyzing real-time market and financial data employing the same technology and techniques used by Wall Street professionals.

The Outlook, Monmouth’s student-run newspaper, earned First Place for Best School Newspaper and Outstanding Sports Coverage in the 2022 American Scholastic Press Association (ASPA) national competition. The paper also won Best Weekly University Newspaper and First Place with Special Merit (for the staff’s efforts in publishing during the pandemic) in ASPA’s 2021 competition.

Last December, the International Federation of Social Workers established the IFSW Social Work at the United Nations Initiative in Monmouth University’s School of Social Work. The initiative fulfills a need to combine international social work experience, networks, and key contacts with the global strategies of the U.N., and it will play a key and high-profile role fostering the relationships necessary to achieving the U.N.’s sustainable development goals. “A number of our faculty have been active representatives of the IFSW U.N. Team in New York for over 20 years,” Robin Mama, dean of the School of Social Work at Monmouth University, said. “Our expertise working with the United Nations made the Monmouth University School of Social Work the ideal setting for this innovative center.”

Last September, Monmouth added women’s rowing as the University’s 24th Division I sport. The program, which will begin competing this fall in the Colonial Athletic Association, will be led by Head Coach Scott Belford. “This is a strategic investment both in athletics and academic excellence and will help to serve our growing number of women students enrolled at Monmouth,” President Patrick F. Leahy said. The program’s launch was supported by a significant commitment from John B. Paolella Jr., who serves as vice chair of the Leon Hess Business School’s Business Council.

Last November, the Board of Trustees approved the renaming of the University’s basketball arena in honor of former Vice President and Director of Athletics Marilyn McNeil, who during her 28 years of service had a profound impact on the University and countless student-athletes. The renaming was supported by a six-figure commitment from Bob and Myrna Raskin ’87M, ’95M that will ensure significant enhancements to the arena. McNeil, who was the first woman to serve as a college athletic director in New Jersey, elevated Monmouth’s Division I athletics program into one of the premier mid-major programs in the country while championing gender equity during her tenure.

The University hosted 15 students from academic institutions around the country in June as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Inclusive Fisheries Internship Program (IN FISH). Now in its second year, IN FISH provides paid internships to undergraduates from underrepresented populations with the long-term vision of building skills for success within marine resource fields and diversifying the NOAA fisheries workforce.

In May, the outdoor track at Monmouth University was dedicated in honor of longtime Director and Head Coach of Cross Country and Track and Field Joe Compagni. The men’s and women’s cross country and track and field teams won a total of 58 conference titles under Compagni’s watch, as he helped build and grow the programs into what they have become today.

The Monmouth University Community Care Telehealth Clinic (MUCCTC) was honored with a Bronze Award in the Outreach to Vulnerable and Disenfranchised Communities category at the 2022 Companies That Care Awards. The awards are hosted by the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey and Commerce Magazine. The MUCCTC is a free, online clinic that offers accessible telehealth counseling services to New Jersey residents, 18 years or older, who are not members of the Monmouth University community. The clinic is also a field internship opportunity for clinical social work graduate students.

In June, Navesink River Productions shot parts of an upcoming feature film on Monmouth’s campus. The film, Miranda’s Victim, stars Abigail Breslin, Andy Garcia, Ryan Phillippe, Sebastian Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Emily VanCamp, and Luke Wilson and was co-written and co-produced by University Trustee George Kolber. It chronicles the 1963 arrest and conviction of Ernesto Miranda for the kidnapping and rape of an 18-year-old woman, Trish Weir, in Phoenix, Arizona. Weir’s life is destroyed by her quest to put Miranda in prison, while it subsequently leads to the establishment of the Miranda rule, which the Supreme Court recognized as a constitutional right in its 1966 decision Miranda v. Arizona, requiring that suspects be informed of their Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights prior to interrogation if their statements are to be used against them in court. Navesink River Productions also hired 10 Monmouth student interns, providing an opportunity for both practical professional experience and academic credit.

This spring marked the formal return of Commencement to campus as well as the start of a new University tradition, the all-undergraduate class gathering.

From 2004 through 2019, Monmouth had held Commencement at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey. But when COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the 2020 ceremony at PNC, President Patrick F. Leahy mobilized administrators and faculty to ensure that year’s graduates were celebrated with an in-person Commencement. What followed was a series of 17 smaller, in-person, on-campus, socially distanced ceremonies over the next 18 months honoring the Classes of 2020 and 2021.

With COVID-19 restrictions eased this past academic year, Leahy decided to make the temporary solution permanent, returning to a storied University tradition of on-campus Commencement celebrations. Three school-specific ceremonies for undergraduates, and another for graduate and doctoral students, were held in May in Kessler Stadium. In total, the University conferred 1,001 bachelor’s, 556 master’s, and 18 doctoral degrees to members of the Class of 2022.

“From the first moment I set foot on our magnificent grounds, I knew that our team had to find a way to return to on-campus ceremonies,” Leahy said. “The student experience is anchored to our campus community, and our students deserve a capstone event that celebrates this connection.”

Monmouth’s entering first-year class for Academic Year 2021–2022 set new University benchmarks for enrollment, boasting the highest academic quality as measured by GPA. The class also had the highest percentage of students from out of state (and second-highest percentage of ethnically and racially diverse students), the highest number of Honors students, and the highest number of students enrolling in five-year dual-degree programs.