Open Letter to Alumni Details Rider’s Response to Economy Dear Rider Alumni, As we continue to read about the state of the nation’s economy, colleges and universities throughout the country are making plans to deal with the potential negative impacts on their campuses. Rider University remains financially strong due to cautious budgeting, solid enrollment and retention and generous donations from so many of our alumni, parents and friends. Still, Rider is taking prudent and responsible action to prepare for whatever challenges may lie ahead in the 2009-10 academic year. As an important member of the Rider community, we thought you would like to know what steps the University is taking to address these matters.
The good news is that we are a remarkably resourceful community, and we will face these challenges from a position of strength, both in terms of academic quality and financial stability. We have asked faculty, staff and administration to work in partnership to provide the University with the financial flexibility to respond to any government funding or enrollment challenges that the economy may bring, while still maintaining our high standards of service to students.
The current economic downturn has prompted us to adjust our budgetary priorities to conserve our economic resources as much as possible by postponing major expenditures where feasible, and, particularly, to focus on position vacancies. To this end, we have postponed filling as many open and anticipated administrative, staff and faculty positions as is reasonable and possible until we have sufficient information to reassess our situation for next fall. Early enrollment indicators, such as attendance at our open houses and campus tours, suggest that prospective student interest in Rider remains robust. This reflects the quality of our people, academic programs and services. Rather than implement an indiscriminate budgetary freeze, we believe that a disciplined and focused approach will permit continued strategic investments in 2009-10, including increased financial aid for students in recognition of the pressure on many families today. In terms of our current capital investments, we will complete all the construction projects now under way. We will also review the timing and pace of future planned projects.
One of our priorities that will continue to move forward is the capital campaign, which is currently in its planning phase. We strongly believe now is the very time that we must rededicate ourselves to asking generous donors to invest with us in our ongoing renewal as conditions improve. We are extremely grateful for the tremendous outpouring of support we have already received from our alumni, particularly in the last few years. The relationship that we build and maintain together will be one of the keys to Rider’s great success. We urge you to stay in touch and stay involved with Rider. If you have not yet done so, please sign up for MyRider, the interactive online social networking community for Rider alumni.
As we have said many times before, Rider is a wonderfully resilient community. Together we will face our challenging environment with sensitivity, determination and the confidence to continue to move forward.
Thank you for your continued support of Rider University. Sincerely,
Mordechai Rozanski
President Return to News@RIDER
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