William Paterson Fall Semester Plans Announced

WAYNE, NJ — Students will be on campus at William Paterson University this fall semester, but there will be changes.

In a letter addressed to faculty and staff, William Paterson President Richard Helldobler announced that the fall semester would begin a week earlier than usual — Aug. 24 — and the semester would end at Thanksgiving.

In addition to this change, three Saturday days will be added to the course schedule for students, which will allow the semester to end early.

Residence halls will be open during the fall semester, but at a "reduced capacity," according to the William Paterson website.

Classes will be a mix of online, in-person and hybrid, according to the university website. Faculty has been asked to submit their request for accommodation by Monday if their courses fall into the "high-risk" category.

As they do so, Helldobler announced that the university and the American Federation of Teachers has approved an agreement for 12 furlough days during the 2020-2021 school year.

Employees who are not represented by the collective bargaining agreement will also take 12 furlough days, said Helldobler.

"I know this shared sacrifice is not a small one, but these furlough programs will allow us to stabilize our finances and preserve jobs down the road," he said.

This comes as a second hit to faculty, as on July 2 Helldobler announced that faculty sabbaticals were cancelled for this academic year. It's not clear yet whether sabbaticals will be affected next year, Helldobler said.

Though this agreement and others have helped the school financially according to Helldobler, they aren't out of the weeds yet.

"While these agreements help ease our financial situation, we are far from having a balanced budget. More budget cuts will be needed to bring the budget to an acceptable place that will allow the Board of Trustees to approve it in August," he said.

It was also made clear in the President's letter that the AFT expressed opposition of the academic plan for the coming year, in which that "advocated" for more faculty choice in how courses were taught.

Helldobler wrote that the decision to institute in-person learning for the coming semester was made by Provost Joshua Powers, and that he himself agrees with the decision.