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:
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The University working groups on each campus include faculty students and
alumni in addition to administrators from each campus
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The Issue working groups, both local and system-wide similarly include
faculty, students and alumni as well as administrators
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The Issue working groups include specific committees or subcommittee in
areas where we feel there will be a particular impact as described below
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President McCormick immediately establish a Rutgers University-wide Advisory
Committee with representation of these stakeholders to assist in establishing
and staffing the working groups. This advisory committee should have
equal representation from each of the three current campuses.
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:
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Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
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Arts and Humanities
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Biological Sciences
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Physical and Mathematical Sciences
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Social and Behavioral Sciences
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Interdisciplinary Programs
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Professional Schools
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Undergraduate Education (Discipline Independent)
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Graduate Education (Discipline Independent)
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Inter-institutional graduate programs
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:
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Undergraduate professional programs
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Post-baccalaureate professional health science programs
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Inter-Institutional professional programs
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:
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Personnel issues
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Faculty recruitment and development
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Governance
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:
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Admissions and Recruitment
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Financial Aid
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Student Support Services and Facilities
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.
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Information Technology and Communication
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Libraries
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.
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Operations
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Finances and accounting
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Accreditation
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Human Resources
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Physical Plant
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University/industry partnerships
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Alumni Affairs
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:
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Accreditation
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University/industry partnerships
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Academic mission coordination
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Legal Affairs
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Budget and Finance
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System-wide governance
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Faculty
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Human Resources
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Intercampus and statewide programs
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System wide operations and services
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Libraries and Information Technology
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.