Thursday, Nov 13, 2025
Dear Faculty and Staff,
Thanks to everyone who attended today’s open faculty and staff forum. Board Chair McDougall, Provost Bidle, VP Papa and I greatly appreciate you joining us, and value the large turnout. It was a meaningful opportunity to present the essence of the University’s financial situation that is described in the March to Sustainability Plan, discuss opportunities for a thriving and stable Rider, and answer your important questions.
We continue to invite you to share your questions and comments with us at univcomm@rider.edu, and will do our best to respond to them in the FAQs or directly. As I shared at the forum, I also have cleared my calendar until Thanksgiving for any faculty or staff member who may want to meet with me individually or in small groups and discuss your questions and concerns. You can schedule those meetings by emailing wbleakle@rider.edu. Additionally, we recorded today’s session and aim to share that with all faculty and staff soon so that anyone who could not attend is able to at least watch the presentation and discussion.
As we stressed at the forum, while Rider faces difficult challenges, and is making terribly painful choices we wish we did not have to—choices that, most unfortunately, affect our faculty and staff—there is a bright future ahead for Rider as this community rallies around this vital institution’s future. Our students need us to do so, and I believe we will.
In the online FAQs, you will find several new questions that were helpfully shared at the forum, including what enrollment figure is necessary for the March to Sustainability Plan to work and one I especially want to underscore: How can faculty and staff help with student retention and recruitment? I am grateful for being asked that question today and throughout this week.
A new FAQ speaks to this matter in detail, and I am appending it below for your easy reference. In the name of Rider’s future, I hope you will use this information as you speak with today’s students and our admissions prospects about Rider. We are a community, and we will either fail to rise to the challenges of this time and fail to help our students see Rider’s future with us—or we will succeed and create a Reimagined Rider that does what Rider always has done, and to my mind always must do: Provide a life-changing learning and growth experience for the young people who trust us with their hard work, talents, dreams and ambitions.
Rider’s mission must endure, and I am more confident than ever after today’s forum that together we can and will ensure it does.
Sincerely,
John Loyack, CPA, MBA
President
How can I as a faculty or staff member help with retention or student recruitment?
Rider’s faculty and staff are the reason students benefit so deeply from their Rider experience. As we restructure toward a Reimagined Rider, you can help strengthen Rider’s future by conveying to and reminding students interested in the Rider of today and tomorrow the following:
- Our faculty and staff are dedicated to the learning and success of every student.
- Students of Rider receive a transformative educational experience focused on deep and impactful learning, highly personalized mentoring relationships, and preparedness for career opportunities and success. In fact, because this restructuring will enable the University to make investments in the student experience, the Rider student experience will become even stronger and more beneficial to students.
- Every aspect of the restructuring plan focuses on protecting and strengthening the student experience.
- Our emerging investments in the Rider experience are outlined here, and include:
- Expanding First-Year Experience Programs to help incoming students transition successfully to college life and connect with the Rider community before classes begin.
- Reopening the Student Navigation Office as a central hub to help students navigate academic, financial and personal support resources.
- Creating a comprehensive Wellness Center that integrates support for students’ physical, emotional and mental well-being.
- Strengthening our inclusive environment and our students’ spiritual growth, reflection and dialogue by Creating the Chaplaincy Program and Interfaith Advisory Council.
- Expanding programs for student service and volunteering in our community to help them grow further as leaders and thinkers while making a positive impact beyond our campus.
- Establishing the new Presidential Hope Fund that now offers emergency financial support to students facing unexpected challenges, underscoring our deep commitment to caring for every member of the Rider community.
- Helping our students present their best selves as they pursue future opportunities by providing them with access to professional attire for internships, interviews and career events through a Career Closet.
- Better serving students by consolidating key offices such as Financial Aid, Residence Life, the Registrar and the Cashier in one convenient location at the Bart Luedeke Center.