Letter to Full Membership
10/31/17
10/31/17
Dear Colleagues,
During his short three-year term at Rider, President Greg Dell’Omo has taken numerous steps in an effort to erase fifty years of progress for Rider University. Across a range of criteria used to judge the effectiveness of college presidents, he has failed.
President Dell’Omo now continues this path of destruction at Rider by announcing the layoff of the entire faculty of Westminster Choir College effective August 31 as part of his ill-conceived attempt to sell a world-renowned institution of higher education to a for-profit Asian company with no experience in higher education.
While the notice of layoff claims that the potential buyer intends to hire the Westminster faculty and staff there is no legal guarantee of that and when we asked if the intention of the buyer was to continue employment with the same terms and conditions we were told no such intention had been indicated.
In an obvious attempt to frighten faculty into supporting this deal the layoff letters threaten to close Westminster if this deal falls through. The justification for closing Westminster is even weaker than the justification for selling it. We will challenge these layoffs under either scenario.
President Dell'Omo and his cabinet have justified these actions as being absolutely necessary in order to save the University as a whole from massive financial deficits. We have all heard again and again that the University faced deficits of $10 to $15 million dollars a year as justification for these actions.
These claims of pending financial failure have never been supported by the actual financial data. Based on the financial data provided at the University’s ‘open financial forum’ this year, Westminster Choir generated a surplus in the two years prior to President Dell’Omo announcing he would be closing the institution. It is no surprise then that the claim that there would be a massive deficits in 2017 also turns out to be untrue.
The 2017 audited financial statement provided to the AAUP indicates that instead of a deficit of $10 to $14 million, the University had an increase in net assets of $5.5 million for fiscal year 2017. Further by the administration’s own figures the changes in the Agreement negotiated this summer will save the institution $6.5 million a year and that is in addition to the savings to be realized by the 27 full-time faculty who have already agreed to retire by June 30, 2019.
Additionally, we have been told that our financial situation was so dire that we could not even get a small line of credit from any bank, but the administration is about to float a $42 million bond issue. No doubt President Dell'Omo and CFO Karns will try to convince us that the surplus is really a deficit and that if they don't continue to take drastic actions next year will be a disaster.
How many times can they go back to that same argument before people see it for what it is? We believe that the faculty is tired of being misled and tired of seeing years of hard work building quality programs undermined. We believe that the faculty is fed up seeing support for instruction cut while the money spent on upper administration grows.
The AAUP will resist these layoffs as violations of our contract and will challenge the administration’s claims that these layoffs and the decision to sell or close Westminster Choir College are necessary in order to protect the University as a whole.
What happens to any of us happens to all of us. It is imperative for all of us who care about our University, who care about higher education as a common good, to resist these rash and unjustified actions. We will be filing a grievance under our contract over these layoffs. Additionally, we will be organizing a variety of actions and we ask that all faculty to support each other in these acts of resistance.
AAUP Executive Committee,
Elizabeth Scheiber, President
Mike Brogan, VP
Jeff Halpern, CGO
Joel Phillips, AGO
Kathy Price, Treasurer
Kathleen Pierce, Recording Secretary
Tracey Garrett, At-Large
Matthew Goldie, At-Large
Art Taylor, Immediate Past President
During his short three-year term at Rider, President Greg Dell’Omo has taken numerous steps in an effort to erase fifty years of progress for Rider University. Across a range of criteria used to judge the effectiveness of college presidents, he has failed.
President Dell’Omo now continues this path of destruction at Rider by announcing the layoff of the entire faculty of Westminster Choir College effective August 31 as part of his ill-conceived attempt to sell a world-renowned institution of higher education to a for-profit Asian company with no experience in higher education.
While the notice of layoff claims that the potential buyer intends to hire the Westminster faculty and staff there is no legal guarantee of that and when we asked if the intention of the buyer was to continue employment with the same terms and conditions we were told no such intention had been indicated.
In an obvious attempt to frighten faculty into supporting this deal the layoff letters threaten to close Westminster if this deal falls through. The justification for closing Westminster is even weaker than the justification for selling it. We will challenge these layoffs under either scenario.
President Dell'Omo and his cabinet have justified these actions as being absolutely necessary in order to save the University as a whole from massive financial deficits. We have all heard again and again that the University faced deficits of $10 to $15 million dollars a year as justification for these actions.
These claims of pending financial failure have never been supported by the actual financial data. Based on the financial data provided at the University’s ‘open financial forum’ this year, Westminster Choir generated a surplus in the two years prior to President Dell’Omo announcing he would be closing the institution. It is no surprise then that the claim that there would be a massive deficits in 2017 also turns out to be untrue.
The 2017 audited financial statement provided to the AAUP indicates that instead of a deficit of $10 to $14 million, the University had an increase in net assets of $5.5 million for fiscal year 2017. Further by the administration’s own figures the changes in the Agreement negotiated this summer will save the institution $6.5 million a year and that is in addition to the savings to be realized by the 27 full-time faculty who have already agreed to retire by June 30, 2019.
Additionally, we have been told that our financial situation was so dire that we could not even get a small line of credit from any bank, but the administration is about to float a $42 million bond issue. No doubt President Dell'Omo and CFO Karns will try to convince us that the surplus is really a deficit and that if they don't continue to take drastic actions next year will be a disaster.
How many times can they go back to that same argument before people see it for what it is? We believe that the faculty is tired of being misled and tired of seeing years of hard work building quality programs undermined. We believe that the faculty is fed up seeing support for instruction cut while the money spent on upper administration grows.
The AAUP will resist these layoffs as violations of our contract and will challenge the administration’s claims that these layoffs and the decision to sell or close Westminster Choir College are necessary in order to protect the University as a whole.
What happens to any of us happens to all of us. It is imperative for all of us who care about our University, who care about higher education as a common good, to resist these rash and unjustified actions. We will be filing a grievance under our contract over these layoffs. Additionally, we will be organizing a variety of actions and we ask that all faculty to support each other in these acts of resistance.
AAUP Executive Committee,
Elizabeth Scheiber, President
Mike Brogan, VP
Jeff Halpern, CGO
Joel Phillips, AGO
Kathy Price, Treasurer
Kathleen Pierce, Recording Secretary
Tracey Garrett, At-Large
Matthew Goldie, At-Large
Art Taylor, Immediate Past President