Westminster Choir College professor and alumnus Thomas
Farracco recently shared his view of recent attempts of Rider President Dell
Omo to market the shuttering of Westminster Choir College Princeton campus to
Westminster faculty. He posted his
review of the Dell Omo presentation in our fighting Facebook group:
With his permission, I took his complete quote and blogged
it:
http://riderstudentsunion.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-faculty-member-speaks-out-on-dell-omo.html
http://riderstudentsunion.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-faculty-member-speaks-out-on-dell-omo.html
This article about Thomas’s posting went near viral – amassing close to 5000 reads over a 3 day period. It provided a boost to morale and stimulated some excitement around this cutting edge issue for music, education and higher education. Most of the responses have been positive toward Thomas and there have been expressions of anger and frustration with the Rider Administration that has been misleading the University community and the music and arts community about the nature of the issues facing Rider Unviversity and Westminster.
On the other hand, there has been some negative feedback –
expressing self defeatism.
No matter what issue is on the floor in what social arena –
the first line of defense of the “powers that be” – in this case Rider
Administration – is to depend upon self defeatism within the minds of the group
being subjected to negative consequences of a power move by the powerful. That is what is called the “oppressor within.” Generic examples are clichés like “you can’t
fight city hall” or “we must accept that which we can not change” or many other
variations.
The second line of defense of “the powers that be” are the
naysayers – another example of the oppressor within. These are the neighbors, the would be
colleagues or comrades, those we thought to be friends and the like who will
spread evil rumor and innuendo about those that are trying to actually do
something – to undermine those that have stepped forward and taken a
stand. I will save the details of how
this has transpired within our own opposition ranks for a future article –
suffice it to say that this HAS occurred and I for one have been the subject of
such trivial attacks.
It is only after you get past these two lines of defense
when you get to confront “the powers that be” head on. Efforts challenging power usually get taken
out by these first two lines and that so far seems to be a factor in play for our efforts
to block the move.
Since Thomas’s comment was posted in our group and blogged
through the blog site there are some who I believe have misinterpreted his
intentions and have responded with defeatism.
One example of this – Thomas had paraphrased Dell Omo as
stating that his proposal is to either sell the Westminster campus and relocate
the program to Lawrenceville or to find another university willing purchase the
college entirely. Some have responded to
that by saying – of the two options - as if they are the only two options – the
preferred would be for another University to purchase Westminster. Another example – several seem to be
responding along the lines – if this is going to happen any way – then at least
Rider should be honest and conduct auditions and campus tours at Lawrenceville
instead of continuing its current bait and switch operation with the Princeton
campus. That is a good point – honesty and
transparency – are not assets that the Rider Administration places any value in
– the assessment unfortunately is accepting the idea of the move as a fait
accompli.
IT IS PREMATURE AND SELF DEFEATING TO TALK ABOUT THE MOVE AS
FAIT ACCOMPLI
While there have been 1000s of folks expressing opposition
to the move – the preponderance of those expressing concern have either
neglected and / or spurned an activist – protest – adversarial – street fight form
of opposition to the devastating plans of the Dell Omo administration.
When about a dozen students dared to dissent from an
obviously administration co-written letter from the SGA that only mentioned the
word Princeton once – not even in relation to the campus location – the administration
coached SGA with the help of the big “Keep Westminster in Princeton” group –
bullied those brave students and created an atmosphere where the idea of
protesting the move was held in contempt.
The SGA’s at both the Rider and WCC campuses have played a similar role
in the two years prior – over the attempt to end the piano program as well as
the attempt to overwhelm the AAUP’s defense of Educational Excellence the year
before. The SGA’s have played a role of
controlling and undermining dissent in these recent years and especially the
opposition to the move. In fact the SGA
has still not even bothered to pass a resolution opposing the move and offering
funds to efforts to block the move!
There has been only minimal support from alumni for the protest option
either. Students need resource – funds –
and stipends – in order to effectively organize campus opposition. If student organized opposition and protest
were not important factors in this fight – then why does administration expend
so much effort to control the campus opposition.
THE ACTIVIST – PROTEST – OPTION HAS NOT EVEN BEEN TRIED AT
ALL – IT IS PREMATURE TO GIVE UP THE FIGHT!
While the student opposition was temporarily undermined . .
. it is not too late to refocus.
The following are some of the steps that I believe can help us
defeat the administration plans to devastate Westminster Choir College:
1.
Alumni and faculty and parents – can provide
resources for stipends, banner and leaflet production and other materials – to fund
campus organizers from the student body to organize the campus opposition.
2.
Students and faculty can unite the issues around
the Princeton campus shuttering and the attack on quality of education by the
administration against the AAUP.
3.
Efforts need to be coordinated for full court
campus press on both campuses – banners, signs, leafleting, flash mobs, campus meetings
in dorms and lecture halls, announcements before classes, chalkboard
announcements, sit-ins, a 3 hour march down Route 206 to the gates of Rider
campus, dissent wherever Dell Omo shows, etc. – old fashioned democratizing
campus protest.
I know that Rider does not have a rich tradition of
campus democracy movements around the many issues facing the youth and students
and working people of the day.
Organizing such an intense form of opposition is an immense task. However, until we have even begun to try to
achieve these tasks, we should not announce our own defeat – even in Facebook
comments!
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