Matt Harmon: On this episode of Monmouth weekly, we dive deep into the school of nursing and health studies with Dr. Anne Marie Morrow. Talking about the comprehensive programs that Monmouth has at the bachelor masters and doctoral level. This is faculty member, Matt Horman alongside university president Patrick Lehe. It's time for the latest episode of Monmouth weekly. Thanks as always for listening. It Is an absolutely glorious morning here at the Jersey shore. As we turn the corner into the final week of the fall semester, a crazy semester. No doubt. Good to be back with you here on our Mon with weekly podcast with university president Patrick Lehe, I'm faculty member, Matt Harmon, and we are good enough today to be joined by, uh, Dr. Anne Marie Morrow, who heads up the, uh, nursing and health studies school at Monmouth university. As the Dean president Lehe, I will say good morning to you first. Good to catch up and, uh, be able to, to, to get back up and going with our Mon with weekly podcast. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. Good morning, Dr. Harmon. It's uh, good to be with you is always, and I'm really pleased to have, uh, my colleague, uh, Ann Marie with us this morning, Matt Harmon: You know, uh, Dr. Morrows, as I say a good morning to you, it, it, it is so interesting. And listen, we'll talk about so many things, um, during our podcast here this morning, but if there was ever a crazy time to be in charge of, of anything in the medical field, you being nursing and health studies, which encompasses so much at Monmouth, this is it. I mean, you you're like the, probably the hottest major, um, that any school could have right now because of the current situation that we're in with the pandemic. Ann Marie Mauro: Well, good morning, Dr. Harmon, and, uh, you are absolutely right. It is, uh, it it's a challenging time, but it's, it's a great time to showcase the importance of nursing and health studies and the major, uh, impact that we have. So I'm just thrilled and honored to be here and to be the new Dean of the Marjorie K Underberg school of nursing and health studies, Matt Harmon: You say new Dean, um, and that's something to, to kind of pick right up on as well. Um, coming to Monmouth officially during the course of the summer months, you know, I, I I've teased president Lehe about who decides to take a new job at a new school on the basis of a pandemic, but he was at least about a year in. You got thrown right into the mix in, in the summertime. Ann Marie Mauro: Yes, I did. I guess that says something about, uh, me being a bit of a risk taker, I suppose, but, um, it, you, you know, uh, that's what we do as nurses. I'm a nurse, uh, I have a PhD in nursing and theory development from NYU and my bachelor's and master's in nursing are from Seaton hall university. And I, you know, that's what we do in, in healthcare. We jump right in. So, um, my background's in cardiovascular nursing, uh, critical care. So, um, you know, a leader steps up to lead when, when the time, you know, is right and, and the need is there. So, Matt Harmon: You know, uh, Dr. Mora, I, I know you took over for, um, Dr. Janet Mahoney who was with the school, obviously as the Dean for, for the better part of a decade, if memory serving me correctly, um, what, what was already in place for you? I mean, clearly when, when anybody comes in, I'm sure you, you've seen things that you want to change. You want to add to, you want to tweak and adjust. Um, but, but being kind of thrown into it during this crazy time in the pandemic, the, it seemed like at least to me, as someone who's been at the university and, and I've heard students talk about our nursing program and, and all that encompasses it with, with health studies, there are a lot of building blocks and pieces already in place Ann Marie Mauro: That that's correct. Um, Matt, so, um, you know, when you, you start a position like this, you don't start on day one. You, you really need to get prepared before you come. So, uh, I reached out to Dean Mahoney, uh, in advance and, and Janet was very gracious as those of you who know Janet, uh, you know, her to be. And so, uh, we connected early on about what was happening at, uh, Monmouth and at the school of nursing and health studies in particular. I also spoke to, uh, interim provost, uh, RA CADA on a regular basis in advance, um, to get up, to get updates and reached out to the leadership in the school. So, uh, I, I came from Rutgers, uh, university at the school of, uh, nursing there, and I was already involved in planning at that level. So, um, you know, it, it was familiar to me what we needed to do, and I was very pleased to see that at Monmouth, we were really well prepared, um, at a university level and at a school level. So, uh, we had, uh, a waiver from the, uh, state of New Jersey to have our students in nursing to continue in clinicals. Um, as well as we had, um, waivers from the state to, um, you know, have our, our PA students or physician assistant students, um, continue in the summer with, with some of their clerkships and pick those up. We also had, uh, plans. I started attending meetings with, um, some of the different groups who were, um, planning for, for instance, uh, supplies for the fall semester. So Maryanne Nagy, I believe headed up the group. And I, I met, uh, other deans and, and leaders across the university who were planning some of the strategies for the fall restart. And so, um, I really hit the, was able to hit the ground running because there was a lot of groundwork already in, you know, lane and, um, things were in place to really, to really kick us off, Matt Harmon: You know, president lay, when you think of it, um, among the hires that have taken place under your year plus now, tenure almost going up on a, on a full year and a half, uh, you know, this, this is a big one, a, a big one at a big time in a program that is becoming, I'll say increasingly more important, even though it would've been at the top of the list anyway, because of health studies and nursing and the different programs that we have. Um, but, but making a hire like this during a pandemic, clearly the school has nothing but extreme confidence in Dr. Morrow. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. You know, we, um, just a couple things related to that, Matt, we, I arrived here at Monmouth, uh, with a goal really, to, to make, uh, uh, our university, a healthcare juggernaut in at least this part of the state, if not across the entire state. And, uh, I've worked at universities which, which have deep commitments to the, the health sciences, uh, the last institution of which I served. We really grew our nursing program, pharmacy program, other health related programs, uh, for two reasons. One is a practical reason, Matt, which is we know that there's demand for those, uh, those programs. I mean, we always routinely have many, many more applicants to the number of students that we can accommodate in our, uh, health sciences program. So, uh, the good news is that's an area where we know there's gonna be demand for years and years to come. But the other reason, uh, maybe it's a, a little bit more philosophical is, you know, we've talked at this, on this podcast before, about my interest in ensuring that, uh, Monmouth university, even as a private university is really serving, uh, a public purpose. And I just see that played out. So, uh, nicely in the health sciences, because the more professionals we can create for the health care community, the more I feel we're serving the needs of our community, because we know that there's a terrible shortage of nurses and other healthcare providers. In fact, I, I think it's a great threat to the delivery of healthcare in the years to come is that we don't have enough, highly trained and highly qualified, highly educated professionals for those fields. And I just think the more we can contribute to solving that problem, the more this private institution serves, uh, our community. So, uh, you know, when we went ahead and decided we wanted to, to, uh, go out and do a bonafide national search for a new Dean, I always tell this story. I think I've said it many times in Annemarie's company that we were worried we had just started the search when the pandemic hit. And so we were debating whether we should go ahead with the search or not knowing that the whole search would have to be, uh, conducted virtually. And we had never done that before. Of course. Uh, and then, uh, the chair of the search committee came to me and said, we think we have one superstar in the pool. And we're fearful that if we don't go ahead with this search, that we might lose this person. So we went ahead with the search, uh, as it played out, uh, that superstar did emerge as, uh, the final candidate. And now our Dean in Dr. Marow. So we have incredible confidence in, uh, what she can do to take, uh, the Underberg school to the next level. Matt Harmon: Dr. Marow no pressure, but you've just been referred to as a superstar. So as we move forward, I will refer to you as superstar, Dr. Anne Marie Maro. Uh, listen, we've been, this is our 21st episode. I don't think anyone's ever gotten that including me. So bat Patrick Leahy: The burdon of high expectations. Matt Harmon: I, I understand that, you know, I, I wanna pick up on something that president Lehe just mentioned and, and it's been something that has clearly been, um, talked about for, I, I, I would say years, maybe even a decade now at this point, and that is the, the concerning lack of numbers that people have going into the healthcare. Why is that? Why is there such a shortage of people? Ann Marie Mauro: Well, you know, that's, that's a really great question, Matt, and, and first of all, I, I, I have to laugh with, with the Superstore, um, you know, name, name, I, and yeah, there, there's a little bit of pressure there, but, uh, really anything that we do is, is as a team. So I I'm really honored and privileged to be here. I'll just say that. And, and we do have national shortages in, uh, qualified, um, healthcare professionals. And there are a few, few reasons for that. Um, one, so for instance, in nursing and in, uh, the physician assistance program and in our new occupational therapy, um, doctoral program, there are limited numbers of seats usually in, in schools. And so it's very competitive to get into those seats. And the reason there are limits on, on numbers of seats are, are, are a few, um, reasons. One is that, uh, these are very expensive majors to, um, support because of the labs and the sciences that go along with it and the clinical placements. Um, the other is that some of the accrediting bodies in, uh, the physician assistance program and in the occupational therapy doctoral program limit the numbers that we can take in our cohorts. So right now we're limited to 30 students per cohort, and that nowhere meets the need. As you might imagine in nursing, we have a very, um, severe shortage of, uh, qualified doc doctoral, um, nursing faculty, and that's a nationwide, um, shortage, and we have an aging faculty population. And so the shortage will continue to get, uh, more difficult to, um, address, uh, at Monmouth. I'm happy to say that president Lehe is very, very supportive of the disciplines and of growing nursing. This year. We doubled our seats from 30 to 60 seats in our incoming, uh, BSN class, so that that's wonderful support and, uh, will continue to hopefully grow those programs because president Lehe is, is quite, um, supportive as you know, is, uh, uh, interim provost data. So, um, that's very, very helpful. The other, the other, um, issue is, um, you know, uh, trying to get, uh, support and funding for people, for instance, um, for faculty members to go for doctoral degrees and to do that full time, they need, um, financial support as well, uh, and need to go through these rigorous programs. So, um, it's a, it's a multifaceted issue and problem, and, and also a very big problem is that the, um, we are looking to recruit not only, um, students who can, uh, are academically qualified to fill these, uh, positions and health sciences, but those that reflect the populations that we serve, and that ha reflects the diversity of, uh, background and experience of the populations that we serve. And we just are way short of that, mark across all health professions Matt Harmon: Along the way here, episode number 21, it is Monmouth weekly, Matt Horman university, president Patrick Lehe. And we are talking about, uh, the mammoth school of nursing and health studies with the Dean, Dr. Anne Marie Morrow, um, president Lee, when you think about the direction and, and you mentioned it coming from a university that had a big nursing program already, um, do you feel like Monmouth can be exactly what you said, not just that main stay in the state of New Jersey, but, but now even maybe Northeast, maybe east coast, uh, become even bigger because of, in a way so many, so many times we've talked about the potential that the school has and where it lies. I mean, clearly the population has needs, so there, there would seemingly be opportunities for this program to grow even more. Patrick Leahy: Yeah, the best evidence of that, Matt is, uh, uh, is the number of, uh, qualified applicants to the program. I mean, this fall, for example, Ann Marie said that we were able to successfully double our incoming cohort size from 30 to 60. The great constraint to that was we did not have the clinical placements, which are such an important part of the, of the, uh, curricular, uh, progression. Uh, so we went out and got 'em. We just went out and, and fought to get those, uh, placements. And the reason we were able to get them is because we were able to convince the, the healthcare systems that we have here at Monmouth prob, uh, you know, 10, 10 to 15 applicants for every seat that we have in our nursing program. So this fall right now, and we're not even, you know, all the way through our admission cycle, we have 600 nursing applications for those 60 seats, 600 for those 60 seats, half of which we could accept, uh, without diluting our, uh, academic preparedness on the way in. So, uh, there's clearly a demand for nursing seats. Uh, we offer a special brand of nursing because of our relatively small size. Um, and I think we could do more to produce more nurses. Now, as memory said, we have to have more clinical placements in order to do that. We have to have, uh, be successful in, uh, recruiting or developing, I guess, our, uh, qualified nursing faculty members in order to serve, uh, those students. But it's clearly possible because it shows up as clearly, as you can see in the numbers. Mm-hmm, , Matt Harmon: You know, you look at the, the program in and of itself, uh, Dr. Marow and, and nursing, which has probably been the focus of what we've talked about so far, but then health studies and the health studies side of things is interesting as well, because that encompasses, uh, PhysEd, exercise, science, health science, there's a whole other side of it to just the nursing part. Not that the two don't go together, uh, but, but for students who would be interested in something like being a physical education teacher or getting involved with the exercise science part of things, Ann Marie Mauro: Absolutely Matt and, and that's really the richness and the beauty of the, the programs here at, uh, the Youngberg school of nursing and health studies, uh, our health studies and health promotion majors make up the largest undergraduate major here at, uh, Monmouth university. And as you mentioned, we also have, uh, a K to 12 health and PHY ed major, um, which, um, you know, know is, has some really strong faculty in it that I think we can strengthen even, even more in terms of numbers. So, um, a number of our, uh, nursing faculty have in the past supported actually, um, the teaching in some of those courses. And I think the beauty of the school here, um, is, is its size and, and depth, uh, and richness of the programs. So interprofessional education I see is the future of health education. So, uh, while we always need to maintain the identity of our specialties, we must learn to work together in teams at, uh, team-based care is the only way we will improve health outcomes. So to accomplish that, we can't, we, we need to start having students who are learning about their disciplines at whatever level, being in classrooms and clinical sites together and learning and working at as teams from the beginning. So, uh, my vision is to create some, uh, core curriculum where we have, um, integrated across programs, these interprofessional education competencies, there are national competencies and interprofessional education. And the challenge oftentimes is scheduling, uh, around this, and we have control over that in the school. So we have a real opportunity, as you mentioned to president Lehe to really make our mark, um, in terms of, uh, being at the forefront of doing something, um, that has been a challenge for, for many other schools. And we recently did the ribbon cutting of our, um, opening of our Linda grin healthcare simulation center, which is a wonderful partnership with Monmouth medical center. And simulation is the perfect venue for us to create this core curriculum. And we also now have an opportunity because it's an academic and clinical partnership to move from just an educational setting and translate that into actual practice with clinical partners. So I'm really, really excited about this, um, opportunity and all that we can accomplish together. Matt Harmon: You know, it, it seems to me, um, clearly not knowing everything about it, but knowing a little bit about it. It seems to me it's the perfect, um, program to have the structure that Monmouth does in fact have, when you look at it from an, from an overall perspective, um, I, I, if you are a bachelor's student, you have the opportunity to get a master's degree. If you have your master's degree, you have the opportunity to go forward. I, I think it's one of the, the few schools that we have that you could, you could get bachelor master's and doctoral degree all at the same school and without really having to leave. Ann Marie Mauro: Absolutely. And we're working with, um, the enrollment management team and looking at creative ways to, uh, have, uh, we have our new occupational therapy program for instance, is a three plus three program. Uh, we can offer it as a three plus three program. So, uh, someone coming in as a freshman could, uh, spend three years getting their bachelor's degree and then in health studies and then move on three years and finish their entry level doctoral degree and occupational therapy. Uh, we need to work on that for the, for instance, in nursing, uh, and getting a bachelor's to DMP degree, but we have the plans, uh, ready to do that and just need to, um, finalize how we, how we might, um, actualize that as well as, um, transitioning some of our master's programs to doctoral programs for our nurse practitioners, uh, students, Matt Harmon: President Lehe, a, a follow up to that one. When you, when you think of the short slash long term vision of the school, and it has been something you and I have spoken about on, on some previous episodes moving forward, the, the graduate school becomes all that more important, perhaps offering more programs that have doctoral degrees become all that more important for mama to continue to, to, to stay ahead of the curve in a way Patrick Leahy: We're gonna continue to evolve as an education institution from, uh, you know, the junior college that was started in 1933, we've talked on this podcast, Matt, about, uh, a couple years from now, we will officially become a doctoral university because of the number of doctoral degrees that we will confer. I love that and continued development because first and foremost, it is an extension of our mission. If there are students out there that need to be served in our unique mammoth way, we want to find ways to serve them and, uh, to be able to do it at the undergraduate level, and then the master's level. And now across three now doctoral programs that DMP and the OT D program in, in Annemarie school, and then our E D D program and our school of education is just evidence that we are continuing to develop as a university. And there's a really good practical application to that as well, Matt and that is the more programs that we offer at those dis at those different levels. The more we diversify sort of our, our revenue, uh, base. And, and that's a really positive thing giving, given how, you know, tumultuous things might be in higher ed over the next decade or two. So the more we can diversify, but do so in a high quality manner, the better and, uh, evidence of that is happening in Annemarie's school. Mm-hmm Matt Harmon: Dr. Morrow, let, let me ask you about, um, knowing that you have students probably in the front lines right now, students, um, what, whether they were at prior schools or now at Monmouth. I, I, is it, um, trying to think of the best way to, to phrase this is, is getting involved in the health studies field right now, a tough sell, or are students not really, um, being, being talked out of it because of the current coronavirus pandemic situation? Ann Marie Mauro: That's, that's a very insightful question. Um, Matt, so it, it, it's a really serious time, as you can imagine. And, and this COVID 19 pandemic is unlike anything we've ever seen, uh, in, in the history of the world. And I I'll say that I'm getting chills right now, thinking about this because as a Dean, as a faculty member, as a nurse, and as a person, I take very seriously the responsibility of our students practicing, uh, during this, this time. And, um, the first nurse that we heard about that was that died in the pandemic was, uh, KIOS Kelly. And he was my student at NYU, and that really hit home. Um, it hit home very hard. And, uh, I remember KIOS and that NYU, we had very large class sizes. My classes were 120 students, but I did try to get to know those students. And I knew KIOS, um, as an excellent nurse and an excellent person. And, uh, so early on, you know, um, it, it really hit home. And as, as we progress and, and not only our students, but our faculty are practicing and our colleagues. So, um, it, it, it goes both ways. So you have family members saying, what, why are you going? Don't go. I mean, I was getting, um, emails from New York and New Jersey to personally go, you know, and, and, and to the hospitals during the, the height of the pandemic in New York and New Jersey, my own family was saying, you can't do that. You can't do that. And, and I thought about it and I didn't do it because I had a higher calling as, as you know, a role at the time at Rutgers as an associate Dean that I, I, I really had to, had to do, but we, we did work with, um, nurses on the front lines in students, and, and we're seeing it here at Monmouth as well. So our students, uh, particularly our master's level students in, in nursing, our nurse prac, uh, you know, our nurse practitioner or our other tracks are frontline nurses, and they are practicing. And the toll, the physical and the emotional toll that it takes on, on us as healthcare providers is something that we need to think about. And we see it. Um, we see a, a lot of people call coming and answering that call. Mm-hmm, not, you know, they step up and say, I want to be a nurse. Mm-hmm , I want to be a physician assistant. I want to be an occupational therapist. I wanna go into health studies and someday go and, you know, to medical school, um, what, whatever the, the discipline is, people are stepping up and it's not unlike what happened after nine 11 mm-hmm . Um, so, um, I, I lost my brother Bernard on nine 11 and, um, and I was always struck by, and I continue to hear about people who had a call to action after nine 11. And it's the same thing here. And people, people are basically good and they basically want to do the right thing and they want to help. And they, and they step up. And this morning, I heard, you know, we were at a da daily, uh, high rate yesterday of over 3000 deaths from COVID 19. And we have about 200,000 new infections every day. We need, we need people in the health professions. And, um, particularly, and I, and, and this is not to say any other profession is not as important, but nurses make up the largest percentage of healthcare workers. And we are on the front lines every day. And at most risk during this pandemic of anyone, uh, because we spend the most time with patients and we need, we are going to see a shortage, uh, of, of nurses and other health professionals. And as this vaccine comes out and gets rolled out, we must get that vaccine out. Otherwise the toll will be, um, you know, just devastating. Patrick Leahy: Matt, can I jump in here too? Sure. Um, I was so touched by what, uh, what ERY just said. And it, you know, in particular, I saw last night, 3000 people passed away yesterday, and they compared that to other momentous days in our history that is more than we lost on nine 11. That is more than we lost, uh, uh, at Pearl Harbor. Um, and yet we've become so accustomed to it given how long this pandemic has dragged on. But, um, one of the things I think Anne Marie points out, which I often say, which is it's so fashionable to underestimate this generation, you know? Um, and it's maybe it's because I'm an educator. And, uh, I feel like I see how resilient this generation is, but as Anne Marie said, I mean, um, when nine 11 happened, you know, you saw the, the next generation running into those buildings, um, when this pandemic hit, you saw the, the next generation, you know, signing up to go where, uh, you know, nurses were needed the most. And, uh, we were, you know, we had students asking to finish early if possible, so that they could get into the field and to start contributing. And I just think it says a lot as Anne Marie suggests about the, the depth of the human spirit and, um, you know, yeah, there was a greatest generation and I don't disrespect the, the incredible sacrifices that, that, that, that greatest generation made. But I always feel like, you know, what, every generation answers the call when it comes. And I think, uh, our, the generation today, you know, the younger generation today is answering the call now that it's coming. And, uh, I'm so, so proud of proud of them, especially the ones that are, uh, Monmouth university, uh, educated or somehow associated. Ann Marie Mauro: And, and pat, if I may, uh, you know, step in there, you know, I also wanna shout out our, our faculty and our staff, um, because this is taking a toll on all of them as well. I mean, they're trying to balance and, and, and, and prepare, you know, and this is across the university. We have colleagues in social work counseling, psych in the sciences, in every discipline that are trying to help support students. Um, and, and our staff also who come in every day and help support and let make this university run, um, so that we can prepare our students and our students, as well as our, our, our employees, our administrators, our leaders, our, our faculty staff are trying to balance so many competing demands right now. And this has gone on way longer than, than we estimated in the beginning. So we have, um, Y you know, our own health concerns. We have, uh, children at home mm-hmm while we are teaching, while we're learning, we have financial impact. Um, any one person you might talk to personally has multiple things going on. This is just unprecedented and mental health, physical wellbeing, or, or paramount right now. And we have to take, we have to take the time to take care of ourselves and each other, um, because it's, and, and to celebrate what, what we're doing, what we're doing here is phenomenal. I have to, I have to say the response of the university I is, is just remarkable. Um, I, I, I have the honor of, of serving with colleagues on the, um, crisis management team. And I'm just in awe of what we are doing here under the leadership of, um, Maryanne, Nagy and Kathy Maloney and, and, and, and, and pat, and so many others. I mean, if I start naming names, I'm leaving people out because, uh, Reka data. I mean, all of the deans, uh, it, it's just remarkable to me and the staff members, athletics, um, you know, Marilyn, it's just, it's a team effort and it's constantly changing to keep up with the science and the information the science is unfolding before us, we're learning as we're going along. Um, it's, it's the worst of times and the best of times in many ways, because it really shows the power of what we can do as a collective together, um, to, to defeat this. Matt Harmon: Uh, before we, before we wrap up president Lehe, I'll, I'll give you the last word to do some updates in terms of university news and happenings, but Dr. Mara, I, I wanna finish with this one for you. And that is as, as, um, difficult on so many levels as this pandemic has been. And you mentioned it before, you know, the, the next step of this, not that this is going away probably anytime soon, but the, the implementation of the vaccine, um, not only dealing with the pandemic, which we've been doing over the course of the last eight, nine months now at this point here in the United States, but the implementation of the vaccine, which is clearly gonna be important in, in trying to eradicate this, but that's gonna offer a whole nother, um, probably section of challenges that we haven't even touched on yet. Ann Marie Mauro: That that's true. Um, Matt, so, um, today I believe the committee for the FDA is, is meeting on the Pfizer vaccine. And, um, so hopefully we get approvals and start rolling this out. So the, you know, there's a massive plan in terms of, you know, I was watching how, um, they have, uh, FedEx, you know, delivery. So FedEx is taking half the country. Ups is taking the other half, uh, the security around it, that it doesn't get stolen, um, that the it's stored at, at, you know, sub you know, significant subzero temperatures that it's, um, uh, handled and administered properly. It's not simply, you know, while giving a shot is a simple part of it is one step of it. It's the education. It's getting people out there to take it. It's the assessment to make sure that it's continues to be safe and symptoms, uh, checking symptoms. I believe that this, uh, we should all be getting this vaccine. I am, I, I will be right there to, to help assist giving the vaccine, taking the vaccine when it's available to me and encouraging my family, others to do that. Um, we recently heard some, and that's gonna be a big, um, challenge. You know, in recent years, we've heard people, um, spreading in misinformation about vaccines. We've seen division over wearing masks in this country. So we need at least a minimum 70 to 80% of people to get this vaccine to, to make, uh, it an impact. And that won't happen overnight. We have to continue to wear max masks and distance for a period of time after the vaccine is rolled out. So it's not a quick fix. It's, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And, um, we'll have other vaccines and supply and demand will be another issue. So, um, we, we really have to be strategic and we have to be, um, very clear about educating the public about this. And we need people to step up and, and help to, uh, volunteer, to administer the vaccine, our students and our faculty in our school will be, uh, doing that. We've already spoken about that and, and have plans in place with Kathy Maloney at a, at a local and state level. And we need to encourage our others to do that and to follow the correct information about vaccines in order to do that Matt Harmon: Amazing stuff. I feel like we could have this go on forever and, and go into all little pieces of, of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the vaccine, uh, what might come, how prepared are we for something, uh, that will, you know, inevitably take place in the future, which, which means Dr. Marow that at some point you have now tricked yourself into coming back as a return guest on our mom Ann Marie Mauro: well, that would be an honor and a privilege privileged mat. You you're phenomenal. You, you are excellent at this. So I, I, I, I would welcome that opportunity. Thank you. And I, I very much appreciate the invitation by president Lehe to join you today. Matt Harmon: Pre I appreciate the, uh, the, the kind words as well, Dr. Morrow, and I can't wait to meet you, uh, in person and face to face president Lehe. Let, let's wrap it up with, um, a, any happenings updates going into the week of finals, the end part of the fall semester. And obviously looking ahead to the spring. Patrick Leahy: Well, just say that, uh, having now heard from, uh, Ann Marie, you now know why we thought we had a superstar in that pool of applicants. So, uh, so pleased to have you, uh, here, uh, as a colleague Ann Marie, um, thank you for everything that you're, you're doing at, at this important time. Um, Matt, you know, we're in the last week of, of classes as you well know, and, uh, we're a hundred percent remote to get us, uh, through the end of the semester. I think we feel as though, um, we'll get, uh, the fall semester in the books in one piece, and I'm very grateful for that, but I wanna reiterate something that, uh, Anne Marie just said, which is, you know, while this vaccine provides, uh, incredible amount of hope, uh, to all of us, uh, it is a long time before that hope will get to each and every member of this campus community. It's gonna take a while for that vaccine to get, uh, distributed. And, uh, in the meantime, uh, this pandemic, uh, continues to challenge our way of life. So we have to keep focused. I know people are getting tired. I know people desperately wanna see past this pandemic. Uh, we, we are working on developing our plan for the university post pandemic, and I'm really proud of the work that's happening there. But in the meantime, I feel like we have to keep people focused on, um, navigating this current, uh, crisis because it is not behind us yet. And, uh, as Emery suggested, we have to stay masked up. We have to stay, uh, socially distanced. We're doing most of our work, uh, remotely still to keep the campus as settled as possible and to keep families, you know, intact, to do everything we can from the moment this pandemic started to save lives and to save livelihoods. And I'm really proud of, uh, the record here at the university at the end of our fall semester on both of those fronts. So, um, uh, I'm just grateful to you for your continued interest in hosting these so that, uh, we might have a chance to talk about what's happening at the university. Matt Harmon: And, and I appreciate that president Lehe as well. And just to clarify, uh, the, the best spot for just continued information has been that, that dashboard link on the Monmouth website, correct. That that gets updated almost daily with things Patrick Leahy: Well, the dashboard gets updated daily EV every business day anyway, when test results come back. Um, but everything that we comment on publicly gets re posted to that, to that website. So any messages that go out from me, uh, our podcasts are posted there. Um, other information related to navigating the pandemic is all posted to, um, the COVID 19, uh, website. So I would encourage folks to continue to check that regularly, uh, for information Matt Harmon: Again, Dr. Morrow, thank you so much for coming on it. It was really insightful to, to listen to you talk about, um, the nursing health studies department that we have at Monmouth, which is, which is booming right now, and I'm sure we'll continue to do so under your tutelage. Um, your, your time this morning was, was fantastic. And, uh, I wish you a fantastic holiday season and a, and a much needed break in between semesters. Ann Marie Mauro: Well, thank you so much, Matt and president Lehe for inviting me to join you both today. Um, it it's been a pleasure and, uh, it's an honor and a privilege to be here at mom with university. And, um, I, I hope we all stay safe and, and, and are well through the holiday season, Matt Harmon: President Lehe. I think we will try and squeeze one more episode in before the, uh, end of this 2020 campaign. So I will hold off my holiday greetings for you, but I will, um, as always as always thank you for coming on, um, and, and continuing to get great guests for, for our show and our series that we do. And I will talk to you very soon, Patrick Leahy: And I have ideas for our next, uh, podcast. So Matt Harmon: I know you do. I know you, Patrick Leahy: I hope, uh, we will get that in before we break for the winter holiday. Matt Harmon: Okay. Uh, for university president Patrick Lehe, Dr. Anne Marie Morrow, the school of nursing and health studies, faculty member, Matt Harmon, wishing you all a fantastic rest of your week. Our students good luck with their finals faculty, good luck with the finals and the rest of the staff. Uh, hopefully 2020 will go quietly into this good night, and we will look forward to a fantastic 2021. Our Monmouth weekly podcast series will continue very soon. Episode 21 comes to a close.