The History and Future of Manhattan College

Founded in 1853, Manhattan College is an independent, Lasallian Catholic, co-educational institution of higher learning. In 2023, Manhattan College markes several milestones: 100 years in the Bronx, 170 years since the college’s founding, and it’s 50th anniversary of admitting female students.
The President of Manhattan College, Brother Daniel Gardner, talks about the school's rich history in New York, being one of the first schools to prioritize first-generation college students, and it’s evolution into one of the region’s top schools. For more, visit manhattan.edu

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina DelRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Good morning, and thanks for listeningto Get Connected. Founded in eighteen fifty
three, Manhattan College is an independentLasalleian Catholic co educational institution of higher learning,

(00:24):
marking several major milestones. One hundredyears in the Bronx, one hundred
seventy years since the college is founding, and it's fiftieth anniversary of admitting female
students. Our guest is Brother DanielGardner, President of Manhattan College, to
talk about the school's rich history inNew York, prioritizing first generation college students,
and the school's evolution. Brother DanielGardner, thank you for being on

(00:46):
the show. Well, thank youvery much for having me. I really
appreciate the time and I'm so proudto discuss the history in the legacy of
Manhattan College. The website is Manhattandot edu and congratulations to you in your
colleagues on this anniversary. One hundredyears in the Bronx. But the college
was founded one hundred and seventy yearsago. Can you talk a little bit

(01:07):
about the founding and the move tothe Bronx in nineteen twenty two. Well,
it was really clear when the collegewas founded that the immigrant populations in
New York, particularly Irish and Italianimmigrants, were really blocked out of receiving
any type of higher education and trainingin that regard. Society at the time

(01:29):
was not open to the success ofimmigrants. And the Delasau Christian Brothers hence
Lassallian here at Manhattan College, theyreally saw this need in society to provide
an education that would allow the advancementof immigrant populations. And so that's how
Manhattan College started and it was animmediate success. We have continued to grow

(01:56):
and grow and grow, and that'sreally what pushed Manhattan to move from its
original locations up to the Bronx.If you talked about the first generation college
students from what you know, howwould that have been a new concept at
the time in the nineteen thirties perse Well, New York City society at
the time was really structured around theimmigrant populations doing the manual labor. No

(02:22):
matter what their talent ability, nomatter their intellectual capacity or whatever. They
were really relegated to a very specificrole within society and the brothers and our
colleagues here at Manhattan College, weweren't going to accept that as being the
reality, and Manhattan College has meBack then, Manhattan College was one hundred

(02:45):
percent first generation college students. Wehave maintained a level between thirty and forty
percent consistently. Next year's freshman classis slated to be about thirty five percent
first generation students. And if youthink about it, for twenty twenty three,
you have thirty five percent of yourincoming class first generation. I mean

(03:09):
it's extraordinary. Really you can thinkabout it historically, but even now,
how does that impact your course offerings? How do you design curriculum for those
students? What is different? Iguess well, I mean we continue to
maintain a very structured curriculum. There'sthe subject areas, and then we have

(03:30):
a strong core curriculum here at ManhattanCollege, the sciences and the liberal arts,
because we're really interested in educating thewhole person on a variety of different
levels to make them contributors to society, not just their particular career. So
that hasn't changed an awful lot.I mean, certainly the subject matter has

(03:52):
in those courses, but the actualgoal of trying to get this well rounded
human education for the students, that'sbeen the same. But we have continued
to develop constantly support systems and networksfor the students to be able to be
successful. And where do you mostof your students come from? How many

(04:15):
come from New York and beyond.Well, the vast majority of students do
come from the Tristate region, soparts of Connecticut, throughout the state of
New Jersey, and of course NewYork and our northern suburbs, and also
a Long Island. But recently,with the demographic trends in College AIGE students,
we've really been expanding our enrollment protocols. We've been doing an awful lot

(04:41):
of outreach to Florida, to theCarolinas, to the Dallas, Houston Austin
area in Texas. These areas arecontinuing to maintain decent numbers of College AIGE
students, and interestingly enough, alot of the people down there, they're
emilies, have migrated from New Yorkto these new places, but the students

(05:05):
are still really interested in studying inthe big city, and so there's a
great pull to come back to NewYork. City Pavement. Our guest is
brother Daniel Gardner, president of ManhattanCollege, based in Riverdale, celebrating several
milestones this year, including their onehundredth year in the Bronx. Manhattan Colleges
Tradition of Excellence continues, ranking sixteenthamong one hundred and seventy five top colleges

(05:29):
and universities in the North Region byUS News and World of Port. Their
website is Manhattan dot EEDU. You'relistening to get connected on one oh six
point seven light FM. I'm Ninadel Rio Lasalian Catholic College. What is
Lasalian actually? Well, back inthe late sixteen hundreds, there was a
French priest, John Baptist Delasal,and he saw that students of particular social

(05:55):
class were excluded from education, andso a really firm commitment that education was
for everyone, and not just interms of religious education, but also an
education that would provide a career sothat those students would be able to provide
for their families in an upward trajectoryand mobility and that process. I mean,

(06:18):
he was a real innovator in theworld of education. He created what
we now have as classroom education.Prior to him, almost everyone was tutored
in very small groups, but inorder to educate large groups of students in
the lower middle classes, he createdthe classroom situation where the teacher and rows

(06:42):
of desks and all of that.So he's a really pioneer in education patron
of teachers in the Catholic Church.But that same philosophy that he had back
in the sixteen hundreds of making surethat everyone was afforded an education, we
still continue to promote that as reallya core value of Manhattan College. Everyone
who is qualified deserves to have theopportunity to receive a college education and a

(07:09):
high quality one of that. Idid see on your website. I believe
your students receive financial aid. Yes, yes we are, and we're very
fortunate to have extremely successful alums andsupporters in this So the concept that we're
trying to assist students to gain agreater role in society and the skills necessary

(07:35):
to be successful, well, it'sactually worked because many of our alums.
Most of our alums are quite successful. They understand that Manhattan College was an
integral part of that success, andthey're now paying forward to the next generation
of jazz perse that's our unique mascothere, the jazz person. So they're

(07:58):
paying forward to that, and theyhave been extremely generous to help support our
financial aid opportunities. Your notable alumna, you have so many, just a
couple the most interesting to you perhapsJames Patterson, one of the great American
authors, now the most popular Americanauthor, of course in this day.

(08:18):
He's one of our very proud alums. Steve Squeery, who's the CEO of
American Express. Lynn Martin is theCEO of the New York Stock Exchange.
And I could just keep going onand on. I mean, the CEOs
of most of the ranking engineering firmsin the New York and tri state areas

(08:41):
they have been or currently are ManhattanCollege alums. The last two CEOs of
con Edison our Manhattan College engineering alums. Ray Kelly, former police commissioner in
New York City and Manhattan College alum. I think that if you go in

(09:03):
any area public service, banking,industry, engineering firms, the arts teachers
across the city, you're going tofind Manhattan College alums. I want to
go back to the Jaspers for onemoment. The Jaspers have this fun claim
to fame just on a lighter note, can you talk about the baseball Jaspers?

(09:24):
Sure? This is actually that youspoke about different anniversaries at the beginning.
This is actually the dree hundred andfortieth anniversary of a really notable part
of the great American pastime baseball,the seventh inning stretch. Brother Jasper,
who was one of our first athleticdirectors here, he created the seventh inning

(09:48):
stretch. He is recognized in theBaseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. He's
inducted there as the creator of theseventh inning stretch. And that's where our
mascot comes from, Brother Jasper.We are now the Jaspers, which is
probably one of the most unique mascotsin all of the NC DOUBLEA. But
we're really proud about that. Inour tradition of winning, success in baseball

(10:13):
has been a long, long recognizedacross In fact, we Manhattan College was
the home of the first Latin AmericanHispanic baseball player to play professionally. He
was a student here at Manhattan.And so the tradition and the role that

(10:33):
baseball has played here on campus,and the role our campus has played in
the development of baseball is really reallyessential. So your college president, Manhattan
College President. As we introduced you, it's an interesting time. I supposed
to be president for so many reasons. But what does your role in Taylor?
I guess what have you learned sincelast July? Well, you know,

(10:56):
this is a very interesting point inin higher education in our nation.
I mean, we are we're underbombardment and pressure from a lot of different
areas. I mean, there's ademographic enrollment cliff which is right upon us
right now. The number of collegestudents across the country is down. Certainly,

(11:18):
when you have times of financial stressin a country like inflation, some
discretionary spending is not always available toput towards a higher education. You know,
which which private higher education? Especiallyyou know, students are consistently choosing

(11:41):
professional areas of education rather than necessarilythe more traditional academic areas. We're fortunate
enough to offer you accounting in business, and a really powerful engineering school and
education and the life. But we'reopening a brand new school of health professions,

(12:03):
which we'll open in September. Butbut you know, there's a lot
of stress that has taken place acrossthe country. We're noticing private institutions of
higher education are closing across the country. We see these articles in the newspaper
all the time. So I guessfor me, just balancing keeping the tradition

(12:24):
and the history of Manhattan alive withthe basic fiscal responsibility, it's a challenge
something that we have to work outevery day in New York. I'm sure
you're aware in this local area ofthe North tri State, we are not
at a loss for really world classuniversities. What do you think Manhattan College
does best? Well, I thinkManhattan College takes students where they're at and

(12:50):
brings them to where they need tobe. Now, we do have selective
enrollment, but we are not onlytaking the hundred percent GPA students, the
four point ers. We're taking studentsfrom across across the spectrum of different interest
levels and success rates, and wework tremendously down in the trenches with them

(13:18):
to reach a level of success thatmeets their gifts and talents. Looking forward,
as you steer the ship, timeschange, the job market changes,
research changes. What do you thinkabout the next big thing to offer students
Where you see the most growth oropportunity or advancement. Well, I think
one of the areas that we haveto be really really observant about is this

(13:41):
whole move into AI, artificial intelligence, and how that's really not only just
changing the educational landscape, because ofcourse that the AI, what the needs
in the productional level of students inan actual classroom is very different than it
was even three to five years ago. But how does the modern day college

(14:05):
student enter a world in which AIis part of the job market. This
is this is a question which I'mnot sure that everybody has the answer to
yet. It's it's really a developingphenomena, but it's something that we definitely
have included. So for example,next semester we have marks in our course

(14:26):
selection guides of which classes are goingto incorporate AI education into the curriculum.
We also have AI proof classes sothat students can't just rely on AI to
succeed in the classes. And it'sreally turning into a really exciting time in

(14:50):
some ways because we need to findout and figure out new dynamic for success
there. Just to wrap up,I wonder what you know, these anniversaries
is larger sense sort of signify toyou what does it mean to be president?
Now? You know, I goaround the country quite often speaking to
Manhattan College alumni groups and to donors, and I do speak about our anniversaries

(15:13):
quite often, but I talk aboutthose anniversaries as really being the foundation of
what we've grown into. So we'renot relying just on those laurels. They
are great, and they're wonderful,and they're exciting, and something like the
seventh Inning stretch is really fun totalk about. And certainly a hundred years
here in the Bronx, the contributionsfor the Bronxes made to us and what

(15:37):
we've done for the Bronxes has beena great collaboration. But I think that
these are these anniversaries are what weneed to use as the foundation under our
to continue to grow and to meetthe needs of modern society, so that
we continue to push our students toconstant success. Our guest is Brother Daniel

(16:00):
Gardner, President of Manhattan College.The website is Manhattan dot edu. Thank
you for being on get Connected.Thank you very much. I really appreciate
the time this has been Get Connectedwith Nina del Rio on one oh six
point seven LIGHTFM. The views andopinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect
the views of the station. Ifyou missed any part of our show or

(16:21):
want to share it. Visit ourwebsite for downloads and podcasts at one oh
six seven lightfm dot com. Thanksfor listening.