Rider University students rally to bring back 13 cut majors

Ryan Lasker | college.usatoday.com

Nearly 300 students will need to change their career paths at Rider University after officials moved to eliminate 13 majors and one minor.

Freshmen and sophomores who declared majors in areas like French and philosophy will no longer be allowed to earn those degrees at Rider. Students first heard about the change in an email last week from university president Gregory Dell’Omo. As the New Jersey school tries to decrease its $7.6 million deficit by cutting 13 majors and programs, students are tasked with deciding whether to pursue a new major or transfer to another school.

In addition to the 14 programming cuts university-wide, three majors — business economics, entrepreneurial studies and sociology — will only be offered as minors, according to the email sent to students obtained by USA TODAY College. Rider will discontinue majors including advertising, American studies, business education and piano. Officials also announced that there would no longer be an Italian minor, according to the president’s email.

All the changes will take effect in the fall of 2016, and are expected to save the university about $2 million, according to a university release. That money will come from expenses like the salaries of 14, full-time faculty positions and two clerical posts, a university release says.

“I understand that this is difficult news to hear,” Dell’Omo, the school's president, said in the email. “The decision to move forward with these changes was not made lightly. I recognize the impact they will have on our community, and we stand ready to assist all of the students who are affected by them.”

Dell’Omo added that officials had made nearly $16 million worth of cuts “primarily in non-instructional areas” over the past six years in order for the university to stay afloat. But those cuts aren't enough, he says.



The University’s president has historically made about makes about $610,000 each year, according to the most recent data from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Tuition at Rider is about $38,000 annually, according to the school's website.

But students have rallied administrators to meet with them and offer a further explanation.

Kenny Dillon, a sophomore at Rider, spearheaded a petition both on paper and online to bring back the 14 programs. More than a quarter of the school's 4,100 undergraduate student population signed the print and online petitions, which have received more than 250 and 1,560 signatures, respectively. Another petition calling for just the piano’s major’s return has seen nearly 1,200 signatures, according to the petition’s website.

Dillon, who’s majoring in political science and arts administration, neither of which will be cut, says the discontinuations concerns students about the respect administrators have for their degrees.

“First of all, it demoralizes you,” Dillon tells USA TODAY College. “You feel like the university doesn’t think you’re important, doesn't feel like your program’s important.”

Dillon says degree programs like web design and entrepreneurial studies are hard to find at other universities, which could have drawn students to Rider in the first place.

“I think that’s exactly why, that’s a reason why we shouldn’t cut them,” he says. “Those people chose these things for a reason, and now that reason is being devalued.”

He adds that now, he’s waiting to make sure that his majors will follow him to graduation.

“So to me, I empathize with the 272 kids that this affects, and I couldn’t imagine being their position,” Dillon says. “And because this was put out just in an email by surprise, I can’t help thinking what if one of my — I have two majors — what if mine is next?”

The University of North Carolina system similarly discontinued 46 programs in May, The Daily Tar Heelreported.

Rider officials cite in a release sent out last week a decline in enrollment at the school and across the nation. Undergraduate college enrollment has declined by about 1.3% for the past three years in New Jersey, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

“Rider, and higher education as a whole, needs to adapt to the changing climate particularly with a declining pool of college-age students,” the release reads. “Changes like these are one way of adapting as they allow institutions to focus resources on programs that have high student interest and demand and invest in new academic programs, more flexible delivery methods and campus facility improvements."



Ryan Lasker is a student at George Washington University and a fall 2015 Collegiate Correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.