Letter to the Editor: Remembering student success

September 8, 2015

498 1 minute read

Dear Students,
As I began my retirement on July 31, after 12 years as president, I shared a letter with the Rider community in which I expressed my strong feelings for the university and its people. A special focus was on the centrality of students.
You see, my life and career have centered on the profound belief that a quality education can transform the lives of young people in lasting ways. And over my years at Rider, our terrific faculty, staff and administrators have helped foster that transformation for many Rider graduates.
While I feel a sense of pride and fulfillment in our various achievements and shared successes, I am most proud of the success of our students. And I have often measured that success by the number of students who graduated at Rider during my years as president. I am delighted to say that the number of graduates exceeded 13,000 students on both our campuses, and I’m doubly proud to say that I shook the hands of most of them.
I am confident that you, who are either a new or continuing student, will acquire an outstanding education at Rider and enjoy a similar success to those 13,000 because of the high quality of our academic programs and the dedication of our excellent faculty, staff and administrators.
Let me conclude by stating that I believe that the most important value shaping Rider’s progress over the last 150 years has been our community’s passionate commitment to the success of our students. And there can be no stronger foundation for Rider’s future. The university is fortunate to have such a superb academic leader as Dr. Greg Dell’Omo, who shares that commitment, succeed me as president. Under President Dell’Omo’s leadership, Rider will thrive and advance to its well-deserved next level of excellence.
I thank the Rider community for allowing me to play a part in its progress and wish everyone, particularly our students, great success.