From: Alan Sadovnik, Chair Newark Faculty Council

Re: Senate Report, March 23, 2007
 

The NFC met on Monday, February 5, 2007.  The agenda was devoted to a discussion of the proposed merger/restructuring of Rutgers with UMDNJ and possibly NJIT.

The NFC discussed the potential benefits and challenges of restructuring and considered the statement made by the PFAC to the President. Although the NFC agreed with most of the PFAC’s statement, there were a number of items that members want to add to its own statement, including the need to preserve Rutgers-Newark’s historical commitment to undergraduate education, to the humanities and social sciences and to diversity.

Based on this discussion, the NFC is currently considering a formal statement on merger/restructuring. This statement will consider the question of whether a restructuring should result in a separate and autonomous research university in Newark.

Based on our meeting, NFC supports the PFAC position that,

• In the short term, Rutgers University should not be split into several comprehensive research universities.  Although faculty support the general principle of strengthening each of the three campuses so that each campus might eventually be able to stand alone as a major research university, there does not appear to be faculty consensus on any campus at this time whether multiple free standing universities should be a long-term goal.

• Given these potential problems (of separating the Rutgers system), the creation of a separate research university in Newark should not be implemented unless and until these problems are addressed satisfactorily. If they were satisfactorily addressed, the potential benefits of a merger or restructuring could be significant. In such a case, the NFC appears to favor a separate research university in Newark (with its own President or Chancellor), which remains part of the Rutgers system, as is the case with the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and University of Illinois-Chicago, rather than a separate and autonomous University of Newark, with no connection to Rutgers.