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| courtesy ECW |
To all the students that provided the core of the opposition
to the cuts to majors, minors, graduate degrees and faculty positions and to
the AAUP that steadfastly united and lent its website as a forum for the
unified opposition, hats off and congratulations in saving the majors – and
indeed perhaps saving Westminster Choir College as a genuine music school as
well as a genuine choir college. It is
clear that the work done by all created the space and the ground work and
applied enough pressure on the University to push back on this devastating and
destructive action by Dell’Omo and the entire Rider administration. As a parent of the piano major who started
the second piano petition (after the first one became corrupted) I thoroughly
enjoyed the comradery of working with the students and interacting with
primarily the piano department as well as an officer of the faculty
representative organization.
With that said – I have to now rain on the parade. First as far as Dell’Omo goes – he is a
wrecking ball for Rider University. Too
bad the Broncs are not a nationally renowned football team capable of sending him packing Missouri style. He is here
just a few months and he gets out the hatchet and recklessly hacks away at
vital majors. It is clear now that from
the get go – his goal was to force concessions from faculty that the university
was unable to get at the bargaining table last year because of the tremendous
solidarity of students and family when the prior president Rozanski tried to
force a strike.
This was a coldly calculated move to create tension – uncertainty
– to prey on emotions of students, parents and faculty members, to create a
pressure cooker situation for the students and faculty.
They wasted resources – sending a letter to every student and parent
coldly announcing the cuts as if they were a fait accompli. They dedicated dozens, maybe hundreds, of
hours of administration effort to market the cuts to the students, to attempt
to manipulate the debate on the issue. What were the administrative costs wasted on this maneuver?
These are the machinations of an administration that is
willing to get dirty to pursue its ends.
The threatened cuts were all a strategic ploy with the end
game being destructive concessions that devaluates the quality of education
that you no doubt will be paying more for next year when Rider announces its
next round of tuition hikes.
As a result now Rider has moved greatly in the direction of
an adjunct system which degrades the quality of education. The removal of the increments is a hardship
for the faculty – especially the more junior faculty that are lower on the pay
scale. That sends a message to prospective
faculty that Rider is a less attractive place to teach at and will result in
more esteemed faculty steering clear.
Even though the cuts were stopped – the writing is on the
wall and the severe damage has been done.
Ironically – one of the reasons given for the need to make the cuts is
declining enrollment at Rider. What
better way to assure that enrollment will continue to decline than to introduce
instability and the idea that you could invest over a hundred thousand at Rider
only to have your major cut half way through your college career. Many students and parents research their
choices thoroughly – and this can be a deciding factor for many – to go
elsewhere. Maybe that is what Dell’Omo
wants so that he can continue to use steadily declining enrollment for
justification for more cuts in the future.
WCC Nuclear Option
Particularly outrageous of Dell’Omo and the Rider
Administration was the threat to the piano major and piano graduate
degrees. This was a broadside attack on
the music college. The Piano Department
is one of the crown jewels of WCC.
Westminster Choir College is world renowned for its successful piano program as evidenced by the lengthy list of successful professionals that have received their piano degrees and graduate degrees from the WCC piano department.
Westminster Choir College is world renowned for its successful piano program as evidenced by the lengthy list of successful professionals that have received their piano degrees and graduate degrees from the WCC piano department.
The study of piano and the study of chorus are closely
linked disciplines. Piano is central to
the rehearsal room and often on stage for choral performances. It is a critical central instrument of
musicianship. Was Dell’Omo really
contemplating elimination of the piano major?
Did he really think that was a wise move for the Rider School of Music? Or was he going nuclear just to bust open
last year’s 3 year agreement . My son and the other pianists were threatened with
outright purging from the university as there is no major transfer option for
them. When he hears piano music,
Dell’Omo reaches for his gun.
Lasting Damage to WCC / Piano Department
The attack on the piano department by the Dell’Omo led
administration will have devastating affect for years to come. What do the piano faculty say to the
prospects that ask the question “I heard the program was almost eliminated last
year – I would like to go to a college where I can possibly continue into
graduate studies – how do I know this won’t happen in the middle of my piano
studies there?” There is no good answer
to the question. So again – this could
cause drop off in pianists selecting WCC and thus the decline in such
selections could lead to further attempts to remove the major.
What Are the Lessons?
Even though the majors were saved, the university was
severely damaged by the concessions that faculty was forced to accept in order
to save the university. It is clear that
Dell’Omo has destructive designs to cheapen the quality of education while continuing
to hike the cost through annual tuition hikes and fee hikes. He is a new president and probably plans on
sticking around for a bit. He wants to
run Rider as a business – not a university and has disdain for the role of
faculty and students in decision making.
The situation demands student and faculty to take an introspective
review of the current dilemma.
Students
The Save My Major Coalition was the back bone of student
resistance to Dell’Omo’s wrecking ball approach to university
administration. The unified efforts
spearheaded by a small group but engaging thousands of students provides the
blueprint for the student body.
Unfortunately the GA’s are largely trained by the administration to remain "neutral" around administration issues.
Therefore they fall down on the job of advocating for the interests of
the student body. In 99 out of 100, the
student interests are congruent with faculty and when faculty is getting abused
by the administration – the quality of education for the students is
degraded. That is what happened today.
Save My Major has an opportunity now to transform itself
into a student union. A student union
can continue to work to educate the student body through panel discussions and
other educational means around such topics as:
Achieving democracy at the University – increasing the
student and faculty voice in administration decisions. How best to organize and act for more
effective student role in blocking cutbacks, diminished quality of education,
tuition hikes and gaining input to other unilateral administration decisions.
Expanding space for student voices on campus including for
posting fliers, access to rooms for events, respect for petitions and other
vehicles of student organizing, access to resources for students to dissent
from administration’s unilateral decision making.
Gaining a better understanding as to how the students and
faculty interests are aligned and how a solid alliance with AAUP strengthens
the hand and the voice of the students.
Studying the history of student struggle with lessons from
those struggles that can apply to Rider.
Increasing involvement in other university matters and
linking up with student unions and other student pro-education fights around
the state of NJ and nation.
Building solidarity with student movements in Puerto Rico,
Chile, Newark, Camden and Philadelphia.
The building of a new student structure on campus right now
as a result of Dell’Omo’s wrecking ball administration would be the best way to
send a message that he (Dell’Omo) perhaps made a mistake.
Faculty
The faculty could consider an innovative approach to forging
closer ties to the student body. As it
so happens, it seems at times of crisis, an unofficial alliance builds between
the forward moving students and faculty but the rest of the year there is not
too much effort by the faculty to organize together with students. That should probably change. Per this model things are too ad hoc around
crisis time.
The suggestion is for the faculty through its representative
organization AAUP to consider hiring one or more parttime student organizer(s) to
work year round and at times of crises to beef up the paid student
staffing. The student organizers can
canvass the student living quarters, staff information tables, organize
discussions where students and faculty speak together on the same panel on
university democracy issues and how issues that some consider “union issues”
are actually university issues and how they affect the students, produce
materials for posting in student windows and develop a plan of collaboration so
that when things get hot – the plan gets executed in a professional and fully
orchestrated way – the campus becomes alive with resistance to the administration
maneuvers.
Student Faculty Family Response to the Dell’Omo Wrecking
Ball
At this point – regardless of whether we build permanent
structures to carry forward, it would behoove us to organize a student –
faculty – family response to what has just transpired. The maneuvers by this out of control
administration deserves a public answer – in a university wide forum involving
AAUP officials, teachers from the threatened departments, faculty members most
severely hurt by the economic concessions, as well as students from Save My
Major Coalition, the piano department and other departments that were
affected. No administration should be on
this panel – they had their say at the GA organized forum. Now it is time to clear the air of what
really went down and to delineate the harm that Dell’Omo has already done to
the university in the few short months he has been here. This forum should delineate the issues but
also announce how faculty and students are going to change this equation for
the going forward.
Support Our Beloved Faculty
Last year when I organized families and my son organized
students to support the faculty when the administration was trying to force a
strike, complete with a plan to hire rent-a-profs to conduct “class” (worthless
as that would have been), at meetings with students and on our placards and
fliers we adopted the slogan “support our beloved faculty.” Unfortunately the American population has for
decades been indoctrinated with anti-union propaganda. However students love the faculty and we need
to redefine the AAUP so that students see it as the representative organization
of the beloved faculty instead of thinking of it as “the union” with all the
negative baggage that unfortunately carries.
Wrecking Ball Dell’Omo obviously is bent on diminishing the
power of the faculty. He brought Rider
University to the brink of destruction just to force concessions of terms the
administration could not legitimately achieve at the bargaining table last
year. He is probably quite proud of
himself but he has hemorrhaged the reputation of the university in the eyes of
prospective students and parents. Rider
is now known as the university that will cut your major right out from under
you and will cut the piano major – the heart – out of its music college.
There is a way forward but it takes work. I am offering these suggestions in the
spirit of solidarity.
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