Dear Leaders and Members of Westminster Choir College Alumni Council,
Apparently there is some confusion among your members and
followers. I hope this letter will
provide clarification.
I wish you every success with your pending events around
Westminster Choir College Alumni reunion.
I have come to the attention of some Facebook comments suggesting that I had intentions to attend and possibly even disrupt these events. I did not see any corrective comments from your leadership in response though such correction could have been made after the information I have been provided was collected. I assume that the leadership of your council did not initiate these innuendo and falsehoods about me.
Do you know where this idea began, that I was intending to
attend and / or disrupt? I have not been personally invited to your festivities. I was vaguely
aware of the event but it was not really on my radar at all. Saving Westminster is only one of many issues
that I am involved in. Others include stopping Rider's attempt to destroy the AAUP, Rider’s anti-immigrant policies, I just
coordinated a NJ statewide response to the US bombing of Syria, I am one of the
statewide coordinators of Decarcerate the Garden State and am supporting the
organization efforts of COSECHA around A Day Without Immigrants for May 1
2017. Point being – I am very busy so I
was not even thinking about your important event and I apologize for that.
Can you please dispel any rumors among your membership that
I had any intention to disrupt your event?
I am not sure where they got that idea into their head but there was an
awful excessive amount of discourse – one even suggesting the need to call
security to invite my exit to stop my non-disruption during my non-attendance
of the event.
A couple of other things.
One of the alumnus suggested she wanted to “steal” my banner (I have two
actually). If you want to borrow one or
both for your events – all good. It does
not imply that you agree with my approach to fighting to save Westminster – it implies
that you agree to the slogan on the banner: Save Westminster Choir College –
Support Beloved Faculty.
Also if you want a stack of historical O Westminster papers
to share with your members – even if you do not absolutely agree with the
perspective – it is mostly about how the plight of Westminster Choir College is
tied to the plight of Westminster (and Rider) faculty and the AAUP – I can
share them.
If you want neither of these things that’s fine too – no worries.
While I am not intending to organize any kind of
demonstration around your events – it would not be a bad idea for YOU to
organize maybe a 1 hour evening twilight candle light vigil that you can all
sing some hopeful songs of struggle to Save Westminster Choir College.
I have no idea how this ugly innuendo and rumor and
demonization of my character occurred, to have several people worrying
about me disrupting an event I had not even been invited to nor had any intention of attending let alone
disrupting. It would not have been horrible to have actually been invited to
the events – to have a table there with my information – or whatever – or even
to break bread with your members. After
all we have been fighting for the same thing even if some of your members
disagree with my perspective on how to struggle in a place like Rider
University. But given the attitudes of
some of your members and their wild and vivid imaginations – I am not expecting
such an invite right away and at this point to be honest it is I who would be a little nervous being around them!
Any way – you want to borrow the banners and / or you want
some papers to share with the membership, contact me.
But most importantly please ask your members to stop
creating stories and feeding innuendo and rumor about my intentions toward your
events.
Of course I wish you every success with it.
Sincerely,
Bob Witanek
Call or Text 908-881-5275
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