To the Editor:

We who teach at Westminster Conservatory noted with approval the Town Topics article of March 2, “Rider Faculty and Students to Protest Outside Board Meeting,” which brought to light some of the challenges faced by our Westminster collegiate counterparts who now teach in Lawrenceville on the Rider campus.

In the final paragraph, however, the author in using the language “since the fall of 2020 … the Princeton campus has stood mostly empty,” betrays her ignorance of the continuing use of the Princeton campus by Westminster Conservatory, the community music school founded in 1970 as a division of Westminster Choir College (WCC). In-person Conservatory activity, involving over one hundred faculty members and nearly one thousand  students, resumed on the WCC campus in the fall of 2021. This activity includes weekly private music lessons, classes, ensemble rehearsals, and performances. Although some Conservatory programs remain virtual and we have not quite returned to pre-COVID levels, to say that the WCC campus is empty is a gross misrepresentation, and devalues the substantial contribution that Westminster Conservatory makes to the quality of life in the greater Princeton area.

Melissa bohl
Head, Wind Department, Westminster Conservatory
Hartley Avenue

Note: Town Topics thanks Melissa Bohl for pointing this out; we regret the misstatement.