By Anne Levin

The struggles continue between the administration of Rider University, which wants to sell Westminster Choir College (WCC) to a Chinese company, and those who oppose the plan because they fear it will mean the end of the renowned music school.

Rider and WCC merged in 1991, and the University announced plans to sell the music school two years ago. Since naming Kaiwen Education, originally a bridge and steel company, as the buyer, Rider has been sued by two entities intent on stopping the sale.

A meeting of the Choir College faculty was called for late Tuesday afternoon, April 2, by Marshall Onofrio, dean of the Westminster College of the Arts (at Rider University), but was cancelled at the last minute because a representative of Rider’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) said he was going to attend. Onofrio wanted the meeting limited to Westminster faculty members.

“Marshall Onofrio sent an email to all of the Westminster faculty about this meeting, and the union asked me to attend as a representative,” said Jeffrey Halpern, an associate professor in Rider’s Department of Sociology. “I sent him an email rather than just showing up, and he responded ‘You’re not invited.’ And I’m not paraphrasing.”

While the subject of the meeting was not revealed, “In light of recent developments it is important that we all gather,” said Halpern. “Onofrio said, ‘This is not a bargaining session. It’s an opportunity for the community directly affected by the situation to gather and talk, and you are not invited.’ I’ll go anyway, and talk to people going in and going out.”

Onofrio’s letter cancelling the meeting said per University policy, he has the right to call a closed meeting “and there is clear guidance under the National Labor Relations Act about the conditions under which union leadership has the right to attend. This meeting does not fall under those conditions. Finally, there are elected AAUP representatives on the WCC faculty who have been invited. Most importantly, to change who is in the room will change the dialogue. I know this because you – the faculty – have said so over the years. This will not be the meeting I intended, at which I hoped that we truly would talk freely with one another.”

The scheduling and cancelation of the meeting comes a week after a letter from the office of the New Jersey Attorney General to the New Jersey Chancery Court criticized Rider for its lack of compliance in record requests related to the University’s plan. Last June, just after the University signed an agreement with Kaiwen Education, the state sent 49 questions to Rider and asked for meeting minutes of the trustees over the past three years.

Dated March 27, the 35-page analysis of the response reads, “Due to Rider’s six month delay in producing documents and eventual production of documents so heavily redacted as to hamper review, the Attorney General’s review of the sale is incomplete of this date and the state is not yet able to make a recommendation.”

Rider had declined to release the contents of the sale agreement with Kaiwen over the past several months, but had assured the Westminster community that Kaiwen would be required to keep the school running for up to 10 years. After an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request was filed by the Westminster Foundation, language was revealed stating that Kaiwen would be permitted to close Westminster any time after it is sold, if it decides that operating the college is “impracticable” or “economicallly unfeasible.”

Responding to the reaction to the document, Rider President Gregory Dell’Omo and Board of Trustees President Robert S. Schimek sent a letter to the Rider and Westminster communities saying that the legal issues that are part of the pending lawsuits are rooted in the 1991 transactions, “the contracts and deeds that effectuated the transactions, and the fact that Westminster is not self-supporting and Rider can no longer afford to dedicate the financial resources needed to maintain it.”

The letter continues, “Rider’s goal to sustain Westminster remains, however, and the proposed transaction is intended to keep Westminster operating in Princeton with a different owner possessing the resources to make the financial investments that Westminster requires.”

A court conference on the issue is scheduled for April 15.