Monday, Jun 14, 2021
Dear Colleagues,
Throughout my time as president, I have spoken to you on many occasions about the changing landscape of higher education. Every day, tuition-dependent, private institutions like Rider grapple with issues related to affordability, enrollment, competition, shrinking state and federal funding, revenue vs. expenses, student success and retention, and the looming drop in the number of high school graduates, just to name a few. As if this wasn’t enough, a global pandemic swept in, exacerbating existing challenges, and creating unforeseen new ones too.
Rider’s strategic plan, Our Path Forward, has been guiding our work to tackle these mounting challenges for the past four years. Our emphasis has been making the University more competitive by enhancing the student experience and Rider’s value proposition. We’ve focused on affordability while also fostering a vibrant living and learning environment, one that fully engages students inside and outside of the classroom. We’ve committed to building our university profile and brand, and have re-invested in campus facilities. We’ve introduced new academic programs, and committed to a diverse and inclusive culture. Most recently, we’ve weathered the pandemic and readied ourselves, as best as possible, for the long-term impact of COVID-19.
While we’ve made some great progress, the truth is, there is much more work we need to do to keep up with our economic realities. Enrollment and student retention remain significant hurdles for us, and lingering impacts from the pandemic may not be fully realized for years.
Given all of the complex and multifaceted challenges Rider faces, we have made a decision to engage with Credo, a national higher education consulting firm that specializes in helping independent colleges and universities move forward on the continuum from surviving to thriving. Credo has worked with more than 400 institutions like Rider since its inception in 1995.
Our engagement with Credo will unfold in several phases. Phase 1, which begins now through next summer, will focus on three critical components of our operations:
- Admissions
- Student Success
- Efficiency and Prioritization
In short, Phase 1 will take a deep dive, through quantitative and qualitative data collection, review and analysis, into these critical institutional functions that intersect directly with the student experience and institutional financial health. Credo will then identify areas for greatest impact to improve the student experience at Rider from the top of the recruitment funnel all the way through to graduation, as well as opportunities to increase resource efficiency across the university.
Phase 2 of our engagement with Credo will be centered around building a strategic curricular and co-curricular program pipeline system, working within existing governance processes and labor agreement guidelines, that fuels enrollment health, the development of Rider’s next strategic plan, and an intensive process that fosters a campus culture rooted in student success and retention. Much more information will be shared as we get closer to Phase 2 in the fall of 2022.
As part of this undertaking, many of you will be asked to participate in both virtual and on-campus discussions with the Credo team. I encourage you to participate fully and share information with them so they can advise us on actionable solutions unique to our individual situation.
Later this week the Credo team will be meeting with Rider’s Board of Trustees to discuss their role in this important work. We’ve also provided an update to the AAUP Leadership team in a recent meeting to make them aware of our engagement with Credo and intent for it to be an inclusive process. We will be reporting on the progress of Credo’s work as we move through the phases.
I look forward to working with you and the Credo team and committing to an institutional-wide financial transformation and the development of a student success strategy that will ensure Rider can attract and retain best-fit students for our long-term success.
Sincerely,
Gregory G. Dell’Omo, Ph.D.
Office of the President
Rider University