Response to the Report of the
New Jersey Commission on Health Science, Education, and Training

Part I:  Review and Implementation

Rutgers Senate Committee on University Structure and Governance
December 13, 2002


The proposed restructuring of Rutgers University,  UMDNJ, and NJIT is a momentous undertaking with profound consequences for students faculty and New Jersey residents.  Comprehensive representation from all stakeholders is therefore imperative to obtain the best possible outcome.  We therefore recommend that:

We recognize the need for prompt action with respect to the proposed restructuring, but we believe that the time frame for review needs to be extended to permit constructive input from all stakeholders, including alumni, faculty and students, as well as administrators and Board members.  We understand that the recently-formed Review and Implementation Committee of University presidents, Chairs of Boards of Governors/Trustees, and other representatives, will guide the overall process and establish university committees for each location and system wide issue working groups, as well as expert advisory groups.  These university committees in turn will establish issue working groups on the local level.  The issue working groups at both levels will be critical in assessing the impact of the proposed merger and reorganization on the educational, research and service missions of the University, and in detailing the best way to accomplish any proposed restructuring.  Therefore we believe it is critical that representatives from each group of stakeholders be selected as soon as possible for each of the system-wide and campus working groups, as well as for each university committee.  We recommend that the Executive Committee of the Senate submit a list of appropriate candidates to President McCormick in the near future.

The report of the Commission suggests a number of possible issue working groups, some of which seem more appropriate at the local level and some at the system wide level; some issues should be considered at both levels.  We believe that each University committee must include faculty in non-administrative positions, students, alumni and administrative representatives from that campus to provide appropriate input for creation of the local Issue Working Groups.  The University Committees will be best able to identify areas of impact that should be examined by the Issue Working groups, but we believe that it is critical that these groups include areas outside the health professions that were not considered in detail in the Report.  Issue working groups targeting these areas should be added to the listing originally proposed in the Commission Report, either as additional groups or sub-committees of existing groups.  In line with these considerations, we suggest that as a minimum the following would be appropriate for each campus:

Academic Affairs with Subcommittees on:

Rationale:  Academic Affairs outside of the professional health Sciences is a broad area, and we do not believe that one committee of five or six individuals could include the expertise required for an adequate consideration of the impact of the proposed restructuring on all areas of the arts and sciences and professional programs and on all aspects of graduate and undergraduate education.  The separate graduate and undergraduate subcommittees are intended to consider broad issues that cut across disciplines and address the overall quality and excellence of the student experience.  The areas listed are those we feel fall under academic affairs and need to be examined in detail by individual subcommittees.  We particularly wish to point out the necessity for an examination of the undergraduate majors in the biological or life sciences.  Life and biological sciences are not synonymous with health sciences.  These majors serve hundreds of students who plan on entering a variety of fields, including but not limited to, health sciences.  Any proposed restructuring of life sciences could have a profound effect on these majors, especially if faculty teaching loads and assignments are reconfigured.  Thus it is critical that this area be examined in detail by a subcommittee with expertise in this area.  Similarly, there are many parallels and associations among the agricultural and environmental sciences, especially at Cook College, and the other life sciences.  It is critical that these be examined to ensure that programs are not negatively impacted.  In addition to graduate and undergraduate professional health science programs, there are a number of  programs which either are currently joint programs between UMDNJ and Rutgers/NJIT or might be candidates for joint programs after merger.  These "inter-institutional" programs should be separately examined for impacts.

Health-related affairs, with subcommittees on:

Rationale:  Health-related affairs includes a variety of issues which we feel can best be examined by carefully selected subcommittees.  Post-baccalaureate programs (e.g., nursing, medical, dental) involve very different issues from undergraduate programs in, for example, pharmacy, nursing.  Please note that we feel strongly that undergraduate liberal arts programs in the sciences are not professional health-related programs and should be considered with other undergraduate majors.

Faculty Affairs with subcommittees on:

Rationale: The proposed restructuring raises a number of critical issues that impact faculty; these areas are diverse and should each be considered by stakeholders, especially faculty, with expertise in each area.  Personnel issues related to tenure and terms of employment will be seriously impacted by the proposed merger of institutions with different teaching loads, salary structures and tenure requirements.  Any restructuring may have an impact on the resulting units’ ability to recruit faculty, and this area should be examined in detail by a separate committee.  Several of the units under consideration for merger have active faculty governance units (i.e., Newark and New Brunswick Faculty Councils, Camden Faculty Senate) which may no longer represent the entire faculty unit.  A separate subcommittee should examine ways to restructure and coordinate these units with any University wide representative governance system (i.e., a University Senate) that may be put in place.

Student Affairs, with subcommittees on:

Rationale:  The need for examination of the student experience is self-evident.  Education and training of students is the primary mission of the university and evaluation of how to improve the quality of student life is of paramount importance. Rationale: We believe that libraries and information technology are sufficiently distinct that they should be considered by separate committees with expertise in each of these areas. Some of the issues considered above at the local level should also be considered at the system-wide level.  There are additional issues that are appropriate only at the system-wide level.  Some of these concern operations or resources that are now held in common but would have to be divided among the three regional universities if the restructuring follows the proposed plan (Faculty, Human Resources, Legal Affairs).   Some of  these areas concern resources or operations that might continue to be held in common, or which would continue to be system-wide concerns (e.g. accreditation).  In some cases, decisions will need to be made about the degree to which centralization of operations will be optimal (e.g. Libraries, Information technology). As a minimum, we suggest that the following system-wide committees would be appropriate: While we recognize that additional working groups may need to be added as the review process continues, it is critical that the committees and working groups which will review and implement the recommendations of the Commission Report have members who are knowledgeable stakeholders and that they be designed to assess the impact on the entire academic mission, and not just the health professions.

Resolution:  Therefore be it resolved that the Senate endorses this report and recommends that President McCormick set up a Rutgers University-wide Advisory Committee and that the working groups be organized and members for these committees selected as recommended.