A tenured Rowan University professor is suing the school, claiming administrators slashed her salary and stripped her of basic workplace accommodations after mentioning she was considering retirement. 

The lawsuit was filed on May 31, 2024, in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Camden County. In 2019, Dr. Rachel Pruchno mentioned to her supervisor, Dr. Thomas Cavalieri, that she should start considering a succession plan, as she was already 65 years of age, and her retirement was likely in the next few years. 

In response, the university rejected her suggestion, and she was allegedly met with a slew of retaliatory measures. The alleged backlash occurred at Rowan’s School of Osteopathic Medicine  campus in Stratford over the next five years, where Dr. Pruchno had worked for nearly two decades. 

Pruchno, now 70-years-old, alleges the university cut her pay by more than one-third, reassigned her to teach a clinical medical course outside of her expertise, demoted her to professor of basic science, stripped her of her title of director of research for the New Jersey Institute of Successful Aging , switched her office to a closet with a desk, and had her ergonomic chair removed. Additionally, she was locked out of her university email account, which had been assigned to her for life, in violation of New Jersey’s labor laws, and this amounts to blatant age-based discrimination. 

“When I was told in June of 2023 that my salary would be reduced by 30 percent, with no reason given for the demotion, age discrimination was not the first thing that came to mind,” said Dr. Pruchno. “Instead, I worried about how my husband and I would pay our bills. Then, after contemplating the situation, I realized that it smacked of age discrimination, and I felt gut-punched. How could I have not seen this for what it was?”

Dr. Pruchno only discovered her employment with Rowan had been terminated while attempting to log into her university email account. She wasn’t given a phone call or a letter, nor was there any meeting with her discussing her termination.

“She was principal investigator on several grants she secured, most of which were funded by the National Institutes of Health for over $6 million,” according to the court filing.

Additionally, she had over 150 peer-reviewed articles, was named one of the top five scholars at Rowan University, and served as the longest-running editor-in-chief of The Gerontologist, a major journal in her field.

“Other people are going to see what happened to her, and it’s going to have a chilling effect on other individuals,” said Edward Herban, Dr. Pruchno’s lawyer. “How likely, if you were that vice president’s coworker who is also a vice president in the C-suite, how likely are you going to complain about discrimination if you find out that your coworker was sent to the back office cubicle behind the mailroom?”

As director of research for the Institute for Successful Aging, she was a highly published gerontologist and, according to the suit, Dr. Pruchno brought in more federal research funding than anyone else in Rowan’s history. As her position was tenured, Dr. Pruchno could not be summarily dismissed without cause. 

“I guess they could have decided they didn’t want to have a director of research for the New Jersey Institute of Successful Aging, even though Rowan at that time, and probably still, was trying to—their goal was to become an R1 university, which is really a research intense, focused university,” said Dr. Pruchno.

According to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, Rowan University has been designated R2 since 2018. 

In 2023, American Association of University Professors (AAUP) union representative Roger Johansen met with then-Provost Dr. Anthony Lowman regarding the demotion and salary cut. Dr. Lowman, now chancellor of Rowan University, claims he was unaware of the situation and was surprised by the removal of her title, given her success in previous years.

Dr. Lowman said he would speak with Dr. Kevin Overbeck, of the Rowan-Virtua SOM, who has since been promoted to chair and director of NJISA, and then-interim Dean Richard Jermyn and promised to resolve the problem in a few weeks. Instead, at the end of October, Dr. Lowman sent Dr. Pruchno a letter, in effect offering her a six-month sabbatical, from June of 2023 through Dec. 2023, delaying her salary reduction until Jan. 2024.

Dr. Pruchno declined because she would have had to sign a waiver guaranteeing that she would not pursue legal action against the university. On Nov. 1, 2023, on behalf of Dr. Pruchno, the AAUP filed a grievance against the university for breach of contract. 

Dr. Pruchno filed a grievance with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by letter dated Nov. 20, 2023, knowing that the university’s administration had illegally discriminated against her on the basis of her age. After that meeting, Dr. Lowman authorized a one-time back payment for her lost wages from July 1 through Nov. 30.

“By retaliating incrementally, taking away my office and putting me in a utility closet office, requiring me to perform tasks that they knew I didn’t have the credentials to perform, suspending me, and then ultimately firing me for not performing the task they knew that I couldn’t perform, they know that others will think twice about complaining about discrimination,” said Dr. Pruchno.  “Rowan’s message is clear: If an employee complains about age discrimination, they will make life very difficult for you.”

Dr. Pruchno is not the only former Rowan employee currently suing the university. On Sept. 29, 2025, Dr. Michael Cioce, the president of Rowan College at Burlington County (RCBC), filed suit against Rowan for firing him for being a whistle-blower. According to the court filing, Cioce reported misdeeds by other board members and was subsequently fired. Dr. Cioce was later suspended by the RCBC Board of Trustees on Nov. 3, citing that his actions had breached the relationship between RCBC and Rowan University.

In a similar situation to Dr. Pruchno, Susan Bowman filed a lawsuit against the university back in 2018, claiming she was the victim of discrimination based on her gender. The university purports that she voted no against renewing another employee’s contract, and called it discrimination. Dr. Bowman alleges that she and another female employee were the only two to vote in favor of the employee, yet were reprimanded for it. Dr. Bowman’s long-agreed-upon sabbatical was suddenly denied, and she lost her position as the chair of Rowan’s Department of Art.

“I spent 20 years of my career at Rowan. One of the worst insults was when Rowan pulled the plug on my email, severing my professional lifeline,” said Dr. Pruchno. 

After Dec. 2024, professional colleagues were no longer able to reach Dr. Pruchno and received no forwarding information.

“Emails fell into a black hole, and senders were left wondering if I was even alive. Emotionally, this was devastating because I was far from finished with my professional career,” said Dr. Pruchno.

The Whit reached out to Rowan University officials, and Dr. Joe Cardona declined to comment on behalf of all parties due to ongoing litigation.

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