PRINCETON: Protests planned on decision day for Westminster Choir College

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The future of Rider University’s Westminster Choir College, whether the school stays in Princeton or moves to the main Rider campus in Lawrenceville, will be made Tuesday during a Rider trustee board meeting scheduled to start in the morning., Hundreds of Westminster students, faculty and others are planning to attend a protest ahead of the meeting, in front of North Hall on the Rider campus, beginning around 8:45 a.m. Mona Davids, the mother of a freshman and protest organizer, said Monday that she believes the Rider board is being rushed into a decision without having enough time to consider the matter., For its part, Rider has said a decision is expected at that meeting. The school is considering moving Westminster and selling the Princeton campus., For the municipality, one question will be what happens to the more than 20-acre-campus of Westminster should Rider sell. The town has said it has had conversations with the university., “They know how important that property is for the community. And I’m assured that Rider is going to be working with the community, no matter what the outcome of (Tuesday’s) decision will be,” Mayor Liz Lempert said at her press conference Monday., Westminster has been located in Princeton since the early 1930s, and been a part of Rider in 1992.