On November 19, 2021, hundreds of faculty, students, staff, and others rallied against layoffs at William Paterson University. Faculty members also met with members of the Board of Trustees and the following statements were among those read to the Board.
Statement by Dr. David Fuentes, Dr. Carrie Hong and Dr. Ellen Pozzi:
To our William Paterson University Board of Trustees, faculty colleagues, campus partners and peers, I thank you for your commitment to our institution and to the academic mission we all carry out together for our students. It is my honor to address you today, as it has been in the past, in support of our university and its community.
Today, we find ourselves as an institution at a crossroads. Many of us have faced the impending possibility that we, or our colleagues, may not be here next year. While that concern is of great significance to us, personally, there are even greater stakes at play in this crossroad.
While, for my peers and I, being in potential peril represents a catastrophe of the highest personal magnitude, the prospect of our university not getting ‘this right’ and further underserving those who rely upon us the most, represents an even bigger threat to our nation, our commonwealth, and the region of Northern New Jersey, –and, most importantly to our students.
As an education researcher and a representative from a college tasked with knowing, understanding, and implementing research-based best practices in education, I regret to say that there are none that support that what is happening here and now at WP will be beneficial for students, for their lives, their families, and their communities, nor their social mobility. The problem that looms here at WP has the potential to be far more detrimental to our students than we all may anticipate. Put simply, we are experimenting with the lives of children that have been among the most marginalized.
The children we hope to welcome into our WP community are the same children the NJDOE and the federal government have allocated millions of dollars to address learning gaps created by Covid-19. So, how will we support them next year? It is my fear that a new generation of children could be left behind just as our commonwealth left their parents and grandparents behind. In 2021, we have an obligation to do better than the failures of our past generations. We can’t afford reducing the imperative of education for those who need it most.
Folks, we have the greatest of all responsibilities, working with underserved and historically marginalized students. For their sake more than ours, we have an obligation to be as just and equitable as we can be and that includes keeping ourselves capable of delivering on our mission and vision to transform lives, locally, regionally, and nationally by delivering the highest quality of education.
Stop Layoffs, Protect our students, Save WP!
Solidarity Caucus 