Volume LXXVI, Number 24
Big Tent at Morven Showcases Princeton Festival’s Range . . . . . . 8 PPS Plans for Enhanced School Safety . . . . . . 10 Princeton Festival Presents The Seven Deadly Sins . . . . . . . 17 Opera Series Opens With Double Bill . . . . 18 PU Men’s Track Produces Historic Performance at NCAA Meet . . . . . . . 26 Princeton Rec Department Men’s Summer Hoops Tipping Off This Week . 30
Celebrating Sir Paul McCartney’s 80th Birthday . . . . . . . . . . 16 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 24 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . 35 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 15 New To Us . . . . . . . . . 25 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 33 Performing Arts . . . . . 19 Police Blotter . . . . . . . 10 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 35 Shop/Dine Princeton . . . 2 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
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Council Votes in Favor Of Rezoning Change For Hun School Sites Impressed with a suggested compromise crafted by residents of the neighborhood where the Hun School is requesting a rezoning of two sites, Princeton Council on Monday night voted to approve an ordinance allowing for the change. “I want to acknowledge both Hun and the neighborhood, who saw the benefit of we, we, we versus me, me me,” said Councilman Leighton Newlin. “It’s an attitude we could use more of in Princeton.” Other members of the governing body agreed with him. Earlier this month, the town’s Planning Board endorsed the request, which would rezone the school’s Mall and the Mason House lot from R-2 (residential) to E-4 (educational). The request was originally endorsed by the Planning Board last year, and referred to Council. But a tie vote defeated the ordinance at that time. It was brought back last month. The Mall is an open green space. The Mason House, formerly the headmaster’s home, was most recently used for academic support in order to increase space for the campus infirmary during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rezoning allows a greater floor area ratio (FAR), giving the school more space to meet local regulations for additions or improvements. Hun wants to build a visual arts center on the lot. Over the past few years, residents of the Edgerstoune neighborhood had expressed concerns about traffic, noise, and future building projects on the campus should the rezoning be approved. The recently created compromise requires that the school replace the Mason House with its new building on as much of the original footprint as possible, as close to the corner of Edgerstoune and Winant roads as zoning regulations allow. In exchange, the neighbors will not oppose a slightly larger structure on the lot, raising the maximum square footage from 9,000 to 10,000 square feet. Also, the school will agree to a deed restriction guaranteeing that nothing further be built on the lot, and that the remainder be preserved as open green space. A few changes having to do with how setbacks are measured in the E-4 zone were added to the ordinance a few hours before the meeting, which made one member of Council wary of voting on it Continued on Page 12
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Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Rider University to Cut Programs and Staff Rider University’s announcement last week that 25 academic programs will be eliminated or “archived,” and an undisclosed number of faculty members will be laid off — an effort to address its $20 million deficit — is the latest blow for Westminster Choir College, which has been affiliated with Rider since 1992. Among the undergraduate programs on the list are Theory/Composition, Organ Performance, and Sacred Music; graduate programs include American and Public Musicology, Piano Pedagogy and Performance, Piano Performance, and Organ Performance. “All that remains of WCC is really Voice Performance and Music Education,” wrote one alumnus on Facebook. “Rider really destroyed our school.” Rider President Gregory Dell’Omo emailed the university community June 7 the plan, which affects 25 academic programs. Along with the courses at Westminster, which was moved from its longtime Princeton campus to Rider’s Lawrence Township location in 2020, the list includes undergraduate majors in Economics, Global Studies, and Health Care Policy. Graduate programs include Homeland Security and Business Communication. The email also said Rider will be increasing its investment in seven
programs in an effort to help them grow. All current students whose programs are being eliminated or archived “will have a path toward graduation,” the email said. The cost savings will ease the deficit and position Rider so it can “begin to consistently generate annual net revenue reserves that can be invested back into the university’s future,” Dell’Omo said. Members of Rider’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) were quick to condemn
the administration’s announcement, issuing a statement saying the mention of layoffs violates the existing labor contract, and the unilateral restructuring “violates Rider’s system of shared governance and replaces it with top-down decision making.” The AAUP renewed its call to remove Dell’Omo “for his financial mismanagement of the university.” In 2016, Dell’Omo announced plans to seek a buyer for Westminster that would Continued on Page 14
Juneteenth Celebrations Scheduled in Princeton, Skillman, Trenton, and More
Juneteenth, Freedom Day, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States after the Civil War, will be celebrated throughout the Princeton area with a variety of events from Friday, June 17 to Monday, June 20. Celebrated by African Americans since the late 1800s, Juneteenth, officially June 19, became a New Jersey state holiday in 2020 and a federal holiday in 2021. “It’s one of those extraordinary stories,” said Donnetta Johnson, executive director of the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (SSAAM) in Skillman, where an action-packed observance will take
place on Saturday, June 18 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. “After people were emancipated it wasn’t until two years later that the word got to Galveston, Texas. A sergeant in the army saw that people were still enslaved and he couldn’t believe his eyes.” On June 19, 1865 a Union Army general finally proclaimed freedom from slavery in Texas. “It’s been a jubilant celebration of freedom,” Johnson continued. “Really America’s first celebration of freedom, because you can’t have freedom in a place that doesn’t have freedom. This is a great American holiday. Of course, the battle Continued on Page 14
RALLY AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE: The Rev. Lukata Mjumbe of Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church was one of the speakers at Saturday’s rally at Hinds Plaza, which drew more than 300 people. Organized by the Princetonbased Coalition for Peace Action, the event was part of a Day of Action in nearly 500 cities across the country coordinated by March for Our Lives, a youth-led gun violence prevention group. (Photo by Weronika A. Plohn)
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