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Students, Alumni Mobilize To Keep Westminster From Being Relocated
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News that Westminster Choir College (WCC) of Rider University may be moved to Rider’s Lawrenceville campus is not sitting well with students and alumni of the prestigious music school, who want to keep it in downtown Princeton. Informed by a letter from Rider president Gregory Dell’Omo and Rider Board chair Michael Kennedy that selling the campus is being considered to avoid a projected $13.1 million deficit by 2019, devotees of the school have taken to social media and circulated petitions to urge the administration otherwise. As of Tuesday, there were nearly 2,500 signatures on the change.org petition and 887 on another petition. A Facebook group called Keep Westminster Choir College in Princeton listed 2,347 members. Live interviews with students, alumni, and parents are in the works for national television morning shows, according to one of the petitions. An interview with students and alumni already appeared on the Philadelphia program Action News. “I want to show President Dell’Omo that we at Westminster really do care about our family and traditions here,” said Christina Han, the freshman vocal performance major who started one of the petitions. “Westminster is such a family. We are such a small campus, where everyone is a musician and everyone understands you no matter what. We all come here and enjoy the thing we love the most, which is music.” The possible closing of the Westminster campus is part of a comprehensive study to determine the feasibility of a one-campus model, according to Kristine Brown, a Rider spokesperson. “Like many other higher education institutions, we must continue to evaluate the way we operate and explore all avenues and options to ensure a sustainable future for Rider University,” she said in an official statement on Tuesday. “… We understand the sensitivity of this undertaking, particularly given the strong traditions and history associated with our Princeton campus. Please know we are taking the time and necessary steps required to do a full and thorough analysis of the varied and complex elements related to the concept of a one-campus model. It’s also important to reiterate that this process is being guided by the overarching goal of Continued on Page 4
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Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Civil War Trust and IAS Reach Accord
A 21st-century battle of Princeton, which has raged on at least since 2003 when the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) first announced its plans to build faculty housing on land adjacent to the Princeton Battlefield State Park, seems to be finally drawing to a close, with Monday’s announcement of an agreement between the IAS and the Civil War Trust (CWT), through its Campaign 1776 initiative to protect Revolutionary War battlefields. The Institute has agreed to sell 14.85 acres of land to the Trust for $4 million. That land will eventually be transferred to the State of New Jersey for incorporation into the existing Battlefield Park. IAS will condense and reconfigure its faculty housing project, with eight townhouses replacing seven single family home lots, for a total of 16 residences, all located east of Godel Lane on Maxwell’s Field. The Civil War Trust purchase includes approximately 2/3 of Maxwell’s Field, along with an additional 1.12 acre parcel north of the property that has been identified as part of the battlefield. The new Institute building plan includes no development within the Princeton Battlefield National Historic Landmark boundary, which was designated by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1961. The new plan requires review and a vote by the Princeton Planning Board and
the Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission, which most recently reviewed and approved the original Institute housing proposal about two years ago. The official transfer of property to the Trust is scheduled for the end of June 2017, but the agreement will not go into effect until all necessary project approvals have been received. In a joint statement, Robbert Dijkgraaf, IAS director, and James Lighthizer, CWT
president, said, “We are delighted to reach this agreement, which both meets the needs of the Institute and ensures the preservation of this site through an enlarged and revitalized Princeton Battlefield State Park.” The Princeton Battlefield Society (PBS), which has fought against the IAS project over the years with court injunctions, law suits under the Clean Water Act, Continued on Page 26
Charter School Expansion Proposal: Opportunity for Creative Collaboration? Princeton Charter School’s (PCS) December 1 proposal to add 76 students next year has reignited a battle with Princeton Public Schools (PPS) over limited available resources, but it’s not a simple conflict. Each side has expressed sincere respect for the other side, along with a strong sense of shared concerns and goals and a desire to work positively together. As both sides have pointed out, however, the state’s school funding formula may inevitably pit the two entities against each other. “They’re all our children. We live in a town that cares deeply about education and about all of our children whether they
attend any one of the district schools or the Charter School,” stated PPS superintendent Steve Cochrane in a draft of comments he planned to present at last night’s School Board meeting (which took place after Town Topics went to press). He continued, “On paper, the district schools and the Charter School may be separate, but in reality the relationships are deeply intertwined. We have families in Princeton with one child at Charter and another in a district school. We have staff from one institution with children at the other. And of course nearly all of the students who attend the Charter School eventually spend four years proudly Continued on Page 26
FEAST OF FABRIC: That’s Gabriella Milley of Feltsu (Artesanía en fieltro) at last weekend’s Sauce for the Goose Holiday Market at the Arts Council of Princeton’s Paul Robeson Center for the Arts. People who were at the show discuss their favorite things in this week’s Town Talk. (Photo by Charles R. Plohn)
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