By Anne Levin

A group of Rider University faculty members and students are planning to gather today, March 2, between 12 and 2 p.m., to express their dissatisfaction over the board of trustees’ continuing support of President Gregory Dell’Omo and his policies. The protest is to take place outside the University’s Bart Luedeke Center, where the board is supposed to be attending a luncheon as part of a two-day meeting.

The faculty are members of Rider’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which sent a resolution February 8 asking for the removal of Dell’Omo, citing a $20 million deficit and a 19 percent decline in enrollment under his watch. A response from Board Chair John Guarino expressed full confidence in Dell’Omo.

“We have heard only from Guarino, not from any other members of the board,” said Barbara Franz, a professor of political science and the AAUP chapter president. “The letter expressed extreme satisfaction with Dell’Omo’s fundraising, integrity, fairness, and especially, his equanimity. He is clearly more impressed with his ‘coolness’ than with the fact that he has led the school to a financial precipice.”

The students include graduate students from Rider-affiliated Westminster Choir College, which was moved from Westminster’s longtime Princeton campus to Rider’s Lawrenceville location in 2020. They have expressed dissatisfaction with Dell’Omo’s response to a petition they sent in December, complaining of inadequate practice spaces, acoustics, and declining enrollment, among other concerns related to the move.

Franz said the protest will be respectful. “We will have singing, and a lot of creative and engaging stuff rather than screaming and picketing,” she said. “We just want to keep pressuring the board. We hope that maybe some of them will wake up and look at our side of the story.”

Marion Jacob, who is pursuing a graduate degree in conducting at Westminster, said she and other students have joined the faculty members as a show of support. “We wanted to do something along those lines, because we feel we’re still not being heard,” she said. (Dell’Omo sent a lengthy response to the petition.) “They have done some bare minimum stuff, but the big issues we raised are still there.”

A letter sent to faculty members from the AAUP executive committee urging them to join the protest cited Guarino’s response to the resolution calling for Dell’Omo’s removal as a motivation.

“You have seen Board Chair John Guarino’s response,” it reads. “He ignored the long list of failures we cited, and used platitudes and empty business rhetoric to cite the ‘achievements’ of Greg Dell’Omo. His response ignores the financial success of most of our peer institutions who have prospered in recent years despite dealing with the same ‘circumstances beyond our control’ he cites as the reason for Rider’s difficulties. Guarino insists the full board continues to support Greg Dell’Omo. Merely ignoring the serious concerns of an overwhelming majority of faculty is not responsible stewardship of Rider’s community of students, alumni, staff, and faculty. We must speak loudly and clearly and let the board know we are not backing down, we are not walking away, that all stakeholders should be heard and not patronized and dismissed without any consideration.”  

Franz said Dell’Omo is expected to present a plan to the board on changes he wants to make. In January, he announced a voluntary separation program to the Rider community, with a goal of cutting down payroll and benefit expenses to help offset the $20 million deficit. The program would apply to faculty and staff not represented by the AAUP. Those who sign up would receive a lump sum payment. “The plan he will present is probably based on faculty and staff layoffs,” Franz said.

Westminster and Rider joined forces in 1992. At the end of 2016, Dell’Omo announced Rider would sell the highly regarded Princeton music college. A controversial plan announced three years later, to sell the 22-acre campus to a steel company based in China, was eventually dropped. Since then, there has been interest from some developers and the Princeton Public Schools, in partnership with the municipality.Three lawsuits over the potential sale of the school are pending.

Since the move of Westminster to Rider in the fall of 2020, the Princeton campus has stood mostly empty. The municipality of Princeton is now renting space in the parking lot for permit parking by employees of local businesses.