Rider Sends Layoff Notices To Westminster Faculty, Spurring Union to Take Action - Anne Levin, Town Topics

With the potential sale of Westminster Choir College (WCC) still pending, Rider University sent layoff notices last week to Westminster’s teaching staff informing them that the music school could close if the transaction does not go through. Despite a letter to the University community from Rider president Gregory Dell’Omo stating that the notice was provided only “as part of a larger process intended to secure the future of WCC,” the Rider chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) isn’t buying it. The chapter responded this week with an open letter to Dell’Omo asking that the University “change direction” from a plan to sell Westminster, with which it merged in 1992, to an unnamed, for-profit company that operates K-12 schools in Asia. (See this week’s Mailbox for the full text of the letter.) At a press conference held on the Westminster campus last Thursday, Rider sociology professor and AAUP chief negotiator Jeffrey Halpern said the chapter intends to file a grievance within the next few weeks. http://www.towntopics.com/wordpress/2017/11/08/rider-sends-layoff-notices-to-westminster-faculty-spurring-union-to-take-action/