BREAKING: Rider lays off 30 full-time faculty

By Grace Bertrand

The administration laid off 30 full-time faculty members on Dec. 29 as part of Rider President John Loyack’s March to Sustainability Plan. The move comes after the administration went to arbitration with Rider’s faculty union over how to layoff faculty.  

The 30 full-time faculty members received direct email notices from Provost Kelly Bidle, where they were asked to set up Zoom meetings for Dec. 30. These meetings “will provide an opportunity to share next steps and to answer any questions you may have,” she wrote.  

Bidle was originally said to decide the layoffs through a review over the past summer of annual full-time faculty performance reports, according to the Plan.

However, after going to arbitration with Rider’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the anonymous arbitrator agreed that Rider could not use the rubric outlined in the Plan to determine layoffs, according to a Dec. 29 facultywide email from the AAUP.

Instead, layoffs were determined by seniority within disciplines chosen by the administration, as the faculty’s contract requires. The contract states that adjuncts and then lecturers from disciplines must be laid off before any tenured faculty, in order of seniority. The AAUP agreed that adjuncts would not be affected by the layoffs. 

The faculty union is still reviewing the award they received from the arbitrator, the email said. 

The Plan was originally said to lay off 40 to 45 full-time faculty members to save an estimated $4.8 million, but was cut down due to impending retirements, according to Director of Communications Rachel Stengel.

The administration did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

The Rider News plans on following up with another article in the coming days.