By Anne Levin

Recently announced staff layoffs, cabinet restructuring, and possible faculty layoffs this fall have led Rider University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to once again urge the board of trustees to replace University President Gregory Dell’Omo.

In a Zoom meeting for faculty and staff on July 27, Dell’Omo discussed his three-year-plan, known as “The Path Forward,” to help return the financially distressed University to stability. Dell’Omo announced that eight staff members had been laid off, and more than 20 positions were being eliminated. Rider’s contribution to the retirements of non-union employees will go from 5 percent to 2.5 percent.

“Our basic position is that the board of trustees needs to make a change at the very top,” said Jeffrey Halpern, a professor of social science and the AAUP chapter’s chief grievance officer and contract administrator. “The president keeps announcing new paths forward. At each iteration, our financial situation becomes worse and worse. He cannot keep denying some responsibility for this. The board needs to take action to rebuild every element of the institution, beginning with staff and faculty morale. His plans effectively are nothing but trying to cut, cut, cut, and we’ve seen the effect of that.”

A recent article about the Zoom meeting in The Rider News quoted Dell’Omo as saying, “Rider’s financial position, which was challenging before the pandemic, has become dangerously uncertain. We must stabilize our finances.” He described the plan as an “aggressive, comprehensive approach to achieving deficit elimination,” with the goal of a positive operating balance by the 2026 fiscal year.

Dell’Omo’s decisions have been controversial since Rider attempted unsuccessfully to sell Westminster Choir College in Princeton, with which it merged in 1991. Westminster — which offered specialized practice rooms, several pipe organs, and numerous pianos — was relocated to Rider’s Lawrence Township campus in 2020, where comparable facilities for the music students do not exist. The future of the 22-acre Westminster campus on Walnut Lane remains

undetermined. Rider is currently involved in two court cases related to the move.

“You would think that his initial plan to sell Westminster and raise $40 million, which was a failure, would be admitted at some point,” said Halpern. “And the movement of Westminster to this campus has been a failure. We’re now down to fewer than 100 [Westminster] students, and the incoming class, last I heard, was 18. And it may be fewer. Effectively, that institution is destroyed.”

According to The Rider News article, two past diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) staff members have resigned, to be replaced by the director of faculty development. Numerous other restructuring of departments and staff was announced.

This past April, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Rider’s bond rating for the third time since 2020, driven by “the University’s multi-year deep deficit of operations and rapidly deteriorating unrestricted liquidity,” the service wrote in an explanation.

Kristine Brown, Rider’s associate vice president for marketing and communications, said the downgrading “reflects the reality that institutions like Rider University have been facing for years, such as challenging demographics and heightened competition.”

At the Zoom meeting, Dell’Omo announced that undergraduate enrollment for the coming school year is looking stronger than the past two years, according to The Rider News article. Returning student numbers are also rising.

“I believe very strongly that there is a path forward for rider if we all work together,” Dell’Omo said at the meeting’s close.

Halpern described current faculty and staff morale as non-existent. “Staff are voting with their feet,” he said. “Even in the middle and upper levels of administration, you saw two resignations. Faculty are leaving whenever they can. Generally, in academia, people don’t resign tenure track positions.”

An email the AAUP sent to its members last week urged them to attend an upcoming chapter meeting.

“We would like to continue updating you on these issues and events, as well as answer your questions at our chapter meeting before convocation,” it reads. “Please make every attempt to attend the chapter meeting on August 31 in the BLC Theater.”