Seton Hall Interim President Shares Higher Education Trends

As part of the Future of Higher Education series, Steve Adubato and Dr. Mary Meehan, Interim President of Seton Hall University, discuss current trends in higher education, affordability, what students are looking to study and how the job of a university president has changed over the years.

6/16/18 #3115

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We're pleased to be joined by Dr. Mary J. Meehan, who is Interim President, I'll get that out, Seton Hall University Good to see you doctor. Nice to see you doctor. We should say that we sit next to each other at a whole range of basketball games, rooting for the Pirates! Yes we do. Yeah. Get that out of the way real quick. The role of basketball... we were talking about Seton Hall basketball. Basketball. A great high profile program in the Big East. The season has ended. Well, and all about... you know that part... And high-level academics. A balancing act? Well you know one of the things I'm most proud of, I mean, certainly when the team wins, we're all excited. But to me, you know, our student athletes, particularly in the men's basketball program, they're among the top in the country on their academic performance. Last year we were in the Elite Eight, which is the highest performing division one schools academically, and at the end of the day, that's really what we're there for. So how they play on the court is important, but how they're doing in the classroom they're students... they're not there for... they're student athletes, with the emphasis on student, so we're very very proud of them... of the students we have right now that are playing for us, have been terrific. And sadly we're losing a number of them, but we have new ones coming in, but it's very... the roll of basketball is critically important in a university. It raises profile? It raises the profile when this... when the team does well, we... all boats rise you know, and so we... the application pool normally goes up, even the academic preparedness of the students coming in improves, so... How is...? Woah, help me... Mary, help me understand that. I will call you Mary because we've known each other a long time. What is the correlation between student preparedness and a successful athletic program? It raises the profile, I mean for a school like Seton Hall that... really when the Big East really moved in and started taking colleges and universities from the Midwest, it really meant Seton Hall had more visibility in the Midwest, similarly the Midwest schools, all of a sudden... I don't think 15 years ago people were talking about some of the schools in the Midwest like Marquette, Creighton, Butler, now their names are here, I'm sure it's improved their recruitment from the East Coast, and similarly for us having that kind of high profile visibility, especially our contract, our television contract with the Big East..."