PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
The definitive source for all PirateCrew news.
By JP Pelzman
Seton Hall University already was dealing with the ongoing crisis of the continuing coronavirus pandemic when disaster again literally struck just after the beginning of the fall semester on Sept. 1.
Hurricane Ida became a deadly post-tropical rainstorm that night, dumping record levels of rainfall on the East Coast, particularly in central New Jersey and New York City. Hit hard on Seton Hall’s South Orange campus were the varsity athletic facilities.
“We had about 10 buildings affected,” Seton Hall President Dr. Joseph Nyre told PirateCrew. He added that nine of them suffered only minor damage, and were quickly re-opened.
At the time, Nyre was just entering the second month of the third year of his presidency at Seton Hall University after serving for eight years as the president of Iona College, and this was the just the latest of many challenges with which he had dealt.
Nyre, who is Seton Hall’s 21st president in its history, is a U.S. Naval veteran who has a B.A. from Wisconsin-LaCrosse; an M.A. from the University of Missouri; and both an Ed.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. He also has completed post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School and Kansas. He was hired by the university in February 2019 and took the helm on Aug. 1 of that year.
As for the flooding and its effect on Walsh Gym, Nyre said the area underneath it suffered “tremendous damage,” adding, “It's going to take some time to get back into fighting shape, so to speak. We’re grateful to the area schools that have welcomed us in. Our coaches have been very creative and our staff has been very supportive.”
A source told PirateCrew that the cleanup is ahead of schedule and the men’s basketball team could be back in its basement practice gym by the beginning of November, in time for its Nov. 10 season opener against Yale at the Prudential Center.
As construction wraps up at Walsh, the university turns it sight to new projects. The next major project is focused on the renovation and addition of basketball practice facilities. “We want to ensure that our teams have all the necessary tools to sustain and elevate excellence”, said President Nyre.
Also on the table is a mixed-use building at 525 South Orange Ave., across from the main entrance.
“Our aim is to create a more dynamic campus with more services and more space for our students,” Nyre said. “That’s how we’re approaching the campus transformation.”
The plan, the President adds, is to have a ground floor with retail spaces such as coffee shops, restaurants and book stores, “all of which would benefit the entire South Orange community.”
Above that, he said, will be “apartment-style living which will make for a more dynamic student experience and also begin to address some of the concerns that the village has expressed.”
“We remain focused on projects that transform the campus experience, improving the vibrancy of campus life and ensuring the ability of the University to provide an excellent student experience,” he said.
Concurrently, a recently released economic and social impact study conducted by an outside firm indicates that Seton Hall has a $1.6 billion statewide economic impact. Nyre said, “great universities have great impact on their local communities. We’re pleased with Seton Hall’s continued support of South Orange, Newark and Nutley.”
As for fund-raising, Nyre said it doubled during the first year of the COVID pandemic, and “we’re hoping to continue that trajectory.”
He added, “We're in the ‘quiet phase’ of a comprehensive campaign. It's where the majority of funds are raised in a campaign.” Campaign experts share that the quiet phases of fund-raising campaigns tend to last three to five years.
Regarding the size of the campaign, Nyre said. “I have no doubt it will transform the University.”
When asked about the quality of the student experience, he said, “It's very difficult because of COVID but our faculty, priests, administration and staff worked tirelessly to engage students and deliver our mission.”
“The improvements we want to make to the campus are exclusively for the mission of Seton Hall,” Nyre said, “exclusively to have better teaching environments, better research environments, better living environments, better socializing environments.”
Nyre added, “We want to make our campus as competitive as we can to ensure we continue to attract our best and brightest and that’s what happened this year. We brought in our largest, most qualified class ever. We don’t know if we can do that every year, but if we do that most years, it signals that Seton Hall is rising to take its place, to sustain its rightful place as a preeminent Catholic university in our country."
Part 3 to follow
