Reimagining the Rider brand

Dear Rider Community

I hope you had a restful and restorative holiday. The start of 2026 marks a time of transition as well as a time of great opportunity for Rider, and I write to share some of the important steps ahead to capitalize on these opportunities, which will be essential to Rider’s transformation. We must work together to ensure that the sacrifices required by the March to Sustainability Plan build a stronger Rider that serves our students and community far into the future.

This mission depends in a fundamental way on the strength of Rider’s reputation and the success of our recruitment and retention efforts, not only for this fall but also for the years ahead. With a focus on this reality, I am immediately initiating with this new year a set of steps designed to transform how Rider is perceived in the New Jersey higher education marketplace and across our region and nation. Our intent through this work is to establish a new Rider brand that honestly and confidently conveys the life-changing value of a Rider education. We must begin rolling out this new brand well in advance of the next admissions cycle that begins early this fall.

To achieve this goal, we must accomplish several priorities simultaneously, including:

• Establishing clarity about the greatest benefits of a Rider education

• Expressing those commitments in the admissions market in ways that inspire interest, engagement, enrollment and retention

• Ensuring we can stand fully behind those promises in supporting students through graduation

We have much to build on toward these objectives. Since being founded more than 160 years ago with a focus on business education, Rider has evolved to combine liberal arts learning with hands-on preparation. Our roots are in a pragmatic approach to education designed to help students prepare for and secure jobs that set them up for career success, a mission students and parents today have made clear they want prioritized. We can deliver on this promise. Rider University has a legacy of emphasizing experiential, hands-on learning and, we are continuing to build upon that foundation with more embedded opportunities in the curriculum for students. Meanwhile, 40% of our students are first-generation college attendees and more than 90% of Rider graduates are employed, in graduate school, volunteering or in the military within one year of graduation.

There is no reason that Rider cannot become the experiential learning hub for first-generation college students in New Jersey. With steps like expanding our co-op programs and establishing additional internships and community non-profit partnerships, we can give Rider students even more hands-on learning opportunities. We can also better align our strengths in business and education, and we can find new areas for expanding our impact in health sciences and technology. We can reinvigorate Westminster Choir College to build on its world-renowned brand and enrich the value of the arts to the student experience. Steps like these and more can help us capitalize on Rider’s strengths, serve students with even greater success and foreground the qualities of the Rider experience that have grown increasingly valuable to those questioning the value of higher education as never before.

With these priorities in mind, I am appointing two cross-functional working groups, one to explore opportunities in our academic programs, including to build on the Westminster brand; and the other to help define our new approach to marketing Rider. Each task force will involve faculty, staff and students. Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Kelly Bidle will chair the academic and Westminster working group, and Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff for Student Experience Mary-Alice Ozechoski will chair the marketing group. They will be inviting participants in the coming weeks.

To initiate these efforts, we will be hosting campus forums and alumni webinars designed to gather insights and ideas from across our community. Please look for an announcement on the details about those forums soon. I highly encourage everyone’s participation.

These steps are only the beginning of the initiatives we will be establishing to strengthen Rider and reassert its value as the home of life-changing educational opportunity. This new year brings a time of change and promise for our University, and I know that together we can build a new and exciting Rider future. I look forward to meeting this challenge with you.

Sincerely,

John R. Loyack, CPA, MBA

President