Since I first joined Monmouth, I have been impressed, time and again, by the drive and determination of our community. The very history of our University has been shaped by students, alumni, and faculty who have persevered in the face of uncertainty. From our earliest Depression-era days, we have served and supported students who have been committed to succeeding at Monmouth and beyond.

So while the past two years have tested our individual and collective resolve in ways unimaginable, it is hardly surprising that—together—we have faced these unexpected challenges with great patience, flexibility, and fortitude. Indeed, the strength of Monmouth’s spirit has been on shining display over the past 22 months.

In so many ways, Monmouth experienced an exceptional fall semester as we returned to a fully in-person campus experience. Thanks to the good work and thoughtful planning of our Crisis Management Team, we put in place heightened health and safety protocols that protected our community and provided the foundation for a successful semester.

We enrolled the most academically prepared and second-most-diverse first-year class in Monmouth’s history and welcomed more out-of-state students than ever before. And, we continued to make the Monmouth experience as widely accessible as possible to a growing number of first-generation and Pell Grant–eligible students.

Thanks to the generosity of dear friends and donors, we unveiled new spaces across campus that enhance both our physical plant and our student experience, including the new OTD program labs, the renamed Tom Byer ’67 and Susie Byer Financial Markets Lab, the new Parton Broadcasting Center in the OceanFirst Bank Center, and the interior redesign of the Great Hall for student use and activity.

We welcomed distinguished guests to campus—among them, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and U.S. Senator Cory Booker—to engage in critical discussions with our campus community. We enjoyed championship seasons across so many of our fall sports and academic competition teams, and our winter sports have likewise seen a strong start, notching early-season wins against well-known schools, breaking program records, and setting national ones.

All of this and more resulted in our highest-ever rankings in various third-party reports, polls, and publications, including No. 18 in the most recent U.S. News & World Report Best Regional Universities—North category. And, thanks to our increasing number of doctoral program offerings, Monmouth will soon achieve national doctoral university status, placing us alongside some of the finest institutions in the nation.

As evidenced by these examples and those on the pages that follow, we have responded to this challenging period with great purpose and perseverance, which makes me so proud to be a part of this community. While Monmouth continues to navigate through these challenges—at once pushing new frontiers and marking new milestones in the year ahead—I thank you for your continued support of our exceptional University.