Summary of Questions Raised by Academic and Administrative Units
at Rutgers Augmented by Questions Raised at the Senate
Structure
1.What structure is envisioned – agency of state, essentially autonomous units?
2.Is the state large enough to sustain multiple research universities?
3.Will separation into three geographically distinct universities allow pursuit of unique missions and service to different communities?
4.What value is added with the creation of a system administration, with a chancellor and board of regents?
5.What academic administrative structure is most effective in bringing excellence to all of the units?For example, does each university need a vice president for health, a dean of the graduate school, a vice president for research?
6.Is the recommended formal division between health sciences and the rest of the academic enterprise (coequal vice presidencies for health affairs and academic affairs) the best structure for developing excellence in academic pursuits at each of the universities?
7.What will be the impact of the reorganization on university mission, identity and visibility?
8.How will the new structure affect the ongoing support, growth, and achievement of excellence for all of its existing units/schools, including those that are now multi-campus?
9.Can the relatively small academic units at Newark and particularly Camden effectively fulfill their research, instruction, and service functions without ties to the larger units in New Brunswick?
10.How will the New Jersey Agricultural Extension Service faculty (who are located throughout the state) fit in the new structure?
11.What will happen to professional schools now operating on two or three campuses?If these schools are pulled back to a single campus, what are the implications for the campus that would no longer have that professional school?
12.What effect will reorganization have on alumni organizations?
Funding
13.Is there a substantial commitment for stable, sustained, and augmented funding to cover the institutional missions of research, instruction, and service for each of the institutions?
14.What is the likely impact on existing commitments, including those that have been postponed?
15.What is the likely impact on resources for undergraduate education?
16.Recovery from shortfalls in state support have led to severe challenges to existing academic programs, serious overtaxing of support services and infrastructure, large amounts of deferred maintenance, and deterioration of many classrooms and other physical facilities; how will these issues be addressed?
17.Resources will be needed for new infrastructure and necessary replications of university resources at each university (e.g. library, networking infrastructure, payroll services); what is the source of the needed funding?
18.Administrative costs at UMDNJ and RU are very different; will these costs be equalized?
19.Three independent research universities, each with its own local advocates in the state legislature, could result in more politicized funding decisions; how will this be avoided?
Governance
20.Rutgers is now governed by a Board comprised of public members and trustee-selected members, a delicate balance that has served the state for almost 50 years. Will the new governing structure similarly ensure responsiveness to the state’s vision for the university while limiting the potential for partisan decision-making and allocation of funding?
21.Will faculty play a role in governance?In implementation of reorganization?
22.Will alumni and students have a role in governance? In implementing the reorganization?
23.How will the new structure guarantee that the universities and their faculty and students are free to express controversial views without political interference?
24.What criteria will be used to select the chancellor and the members of the board of regents?How will these individuals be chosen?
Institutional Priorities
25.What will be the impact on master planning, especially with respect to overcrowding and deferred maintenance?
26.What
will be the impact on planning and implementation of institutional priorities?Will
attention be deflected from existing priorities?
Undergraduate Education
27.How will the change affect higher education capacity and access issues?
28.What will be the impact on financial aid?
29.What is the likely impact on humanities and social sciences programs?
30.How will the change affect undergraduate education in general?
31.What mechanisms are needed to increase opportunities for undergraduate research?
32.Will the institutional reward structure be modified to encourage health sciences faculty to address the importance of undergraduate teaching and research?
33.Will programs to support curriculum development be expanded to medical school faculty?
34.Will change result in elimination of duplicate programs in biomedical fields, such as biochemistry and microbiology?
35.Will
reorganization in New Brunswick facilitate clinical teaching or increase
clinical sites, e.g., for pharmacy students?
36.Will there be adequate staff and program support for enhanced opportunities in research and course offerings?
37.How will restructuring affect student services?
38.How will the centralized bureaucracy interact with localized student services?
39.What is the anticipated impact on co-curricular offerings, especially athletic programs?
Graduate Education
40.Different administrative structures at Rutgers, UMDNJ, and NJIT now lead to confusion in student records, course scheduling, computing services, student transfers, database entry and management, and student grades in joint programs; will policies and procedures be developed to make administrative responsibilities clearer?
41.Will housing be developed to accommodate GSBS graduate students and medical students who are not now eligible?
42.University policies for RU and UMD are inconsistent – e.g. supplements to graduate training grant stipends, health care coverage.With the merger will these be made consistent?How will this be achieved?
43.There are a number of existing RU units and programs that currently operate on more than one campus, including College of Nursing, School of Social Work, Business School – Newark and New Brunswick.What will become of their graduate programs?
44.Many collaborations exist between units on different campuses, e.g. joint Master’s in Public Affairs and Politics/JD offered by the Bloustein School in New Brunswick and the Law School in Camden and Master’s in City and Regional Planning/JD offered by the Bloustein School and the Law School in Newark.What provisions will be made regarding these joint programs?
45.Can collegial interactions between campuses, such as in the Graduate Program in History, involving faculty in Newark, Camden and New Brunswick and in the Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering, involving New Brunswick engineering faculty and UMDNJ-Newark faculty be maintained?How will these relationships be affected by the reorganization?
46.What impact will restructuring have on teaching assistant positions and fellowship resources in all fields?UMDNJ does not have TA lines, so students transfer to RU for this experience.After restructuring how will TA positions be allocated?
47.What impact will restructuring have on student services, such as health benefits, parking fees, etc. that are now handled differently by the three universities?
48.What is the anticipated impact on sponsored research?Would the reorganization provide benefits for joint funding opportunities (with NIH, National Institute of Aging, etc.), for federal training grants?
49.What is the anticipated impact on nationally recognized minority recruitment efforts?
50.How would merger affect national rankings in research funding for each new university?
51.What are the anticipated effects on graduate student recruitment?
Faculty
52.In cases in which faculty have work and lines in one university and tenure in another, how would tenure be determined (especially important for Rutgers Business School – Newark and New Brunswick and College of Nursing)?
53.What are the benefits/costs of coordination in recruiting?
54.What is involved in coordinating faculty compensation policies and practices?
55.What is involved in coordinating faculty promotion and review policies and practices?
56.Will the new structure have a continuing commitment to affirmative action?
57.Will the new structure call for regular evaluation of all departments, major programs, and centers by means of self-studies, external reviews?Will there be uniform standards?Will these functions be the responsibility of each new university or will there be a single standing committee of distinguished faculty? standards?
58.Will there be a unified appointment, tenure and promotion process with a uniform set of standards that is applied across all campuses?Will this function be the responsibility of each university or will it be handled by a single, select committee of high-level faculty and administrators?
59.Under the new structure, will there be identification of potential areas of growth, targeted infrastructure investments, and university funding for departments and centers that have or can soon have national impact and that, where appropriate, may be able to attract substantial external funding?Will these decisions be made centrally or by each university?
60.Will standards for promotion and tenure recognize market differences across the disciplines?
61.Will faculty play a strong role in the development of the new structure and in policy development and implementation?
62.What mechanisms will ensure that the university system will seek to bring each reorganized department to the level of its strongest partner?
63.Will
evaluation of Deans and other administrators be incorporated in the restructured
institution(s)?
Research
65.What is the potential for increased visibility nationally and internationally?
66.Will the merger lead to enhanced competitiveness for center-grant and training-grant support?
67.Will there be more opportunity for joint research programs?
68.Will grant and research funding management become simpler because faculty and degree programs are based in one institution?
69.How will the proposed reorganization expand opportunities for new institutional collaborations involving RU, UMDNJ, and NJIT?
70.Will restructuring provide new opportunities to integrate social science research on health and health policy at Rutgers with clinical and biological research at UMDNJ?
71.What are the benefits for undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate training in health and health research?
72.How can cooperation be ensured to avoid detrimental competition if two units go after the same state funding or if a funding agency requires a regional or a statewide proposal?
73.What will happen to existing and potential collaborations among faculty on two or three campuses who find themselves at different universities?
74.How will research priorities be identified and implemented?To what extent will academic planning be centralized?
75.What are the implications on external support overhead rate?
Service
76.How will the university’s historic and legislatively mandated land-grant mission be affected?
77.How will the new structure incorporate Cook College, the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, and Rutgers Cooperative Extension?
78.Should the statewide infrastructure associated with NJAES be maintained?Should it be centralized at the system office?Should it remain associated with the university in New Brunswick?
79.Should the land-grant mission of the university be preserved and enhanced?
80.How will the new structure affect the university’s continuous education programs, especially service programs for professionals?What are the implications for competition among the three regional universities?
81.How would reorganization affect the university’s mission to serve the community?What impact is anticipated on urban education, health care service, cultural programs, etc.?
Centers, Bureaus, and Institutes
82.What benefits of merging are anticipated?For example, would the Institute for Health, Healthcare Policy, and Aging Research be expanded with more involvement of School of Medicine and School of Public Health faculty?
83.What will be the relationship between centers and departments (which, after restructuring, may be part of different universities)?
84.Will centers, bureaus, and institutes with statewide missions, such as the Agricultural Experiment Station, need to be reorganized?
85.Some centers depend on faculty from units now at Newark, Camden, and New Brunswick and serve constituencies throughout the state, such as the Center for Mathematics, Science, and Computer Education; will such units need to be reorganized?
86.Some centers operate independently of any one school, which allows them to function statewide, involving faculty from many units. Would these arrangements be maintained?What incentives will be needed to foster such cross-university work?
87.What incentives should be developed to foster cross-university collaborations within the Rutgers system to promote statewide service and/or maximize cooperation among faculty with expertise in diverse fields?
88.Would centers, bureaus, and institutes benefit from coordination by a high-ranking administrative person with responsibility for all of these units?
Administration
89.How can significantly different administrative systems for finance, telecommunications, human resources, grants administration, property management, energy, etc. be made compatible?What are the associated costs?
90.There are numerous administrative asymmetries affecting graduate education, including differences in rules, admissions processes, student fees, deadlines, benefits, access to licensed periodicals and databases, tuition remission, housing, parking, computing services, recreation.These differences now interfere with the smooth operation of joint graduate programs. How will these policies and procedures be meshed?
91.What are the costs associated with aligning disparate policies and procedures, such as fee structures, administrative procedures, and reporting relationships?
92.Faculty, teaching assistants, and staff are represented at Rutgers, UMDNJ, and NJIT under different collective bargaining agreements.What changes are anticipated in labor relations?
93.Would reorganization lead to elimination of financial transactions between schools?Would there be a need for financial transactions among the regional universities?
94.Can efficiencies be realized in centralized maintenance?
95.Can efficiencies be realized in coordinated construction of facilities?
96.Will economies of scale lead to reduction in utility costs?
97.Will decentralization of decision-making lead to greater efficiencies and more opportunities to develop specific focused programs?
98.Will the University Library system be decentralized?Will the UMDNJ and NJIT libraries be incorporated into a single, statewide system?
99.To what extent will computing services be centralized?What are the costs associated with making the NJIT and UMDNJ systems compatible with the Rutgers systems?
100.What computing technology is needed to coordinate student services across the new system?Will each campus have independent student services?Will there be uniform standards to ensure compatibility?
101.Will restructuring reduce institutional barriers and expand collaborative research opportunities?For example, can IRB processes be improved and would this lead to increased capacity to accommodate social and behavioral health research?
102.Should highly technical operations, e.g. those involving intellectual property, patent applications, and licensing, be centralized?What local structures would need to be put in place?
103.What mechanisms are needed at the system level to enable and facilitate existing and new multi-campus joint projects, programs, and grant submissions (such as consolidated IRB reviews for joint studies and compatible budgeting systems)?
104.Which planning functions should be centralized and which should remain at the local level? How should these functions be coordinated?
105.Which institutional research functions should be centralized?What mechanisms are needed to ensure consistency in data gathering and analyses at the local level? What administrative structures are needed for coordination?
106.Should reporting to state and federal agencies on students, faculty, research, and service be the responsibility of each university or should these responsibilities be centralized?
107.What changes are needed to coordinate tuition and fee structures, benefits, calendars, etc. to ensure administrative efficiency at each new university?
108.What will be the impact of reorganization on regional accreditation with the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools?What is the anticipated impact on specialized, professional accreditations?
Assets and Liabilities
109.What are the legal implications of ownership and use of university land?
110.How will ownership and maintenance of existing facilities – including some that are system-wide – be handled?
111.What is the impact on assets as security for Rutgers System/Facilities Revenue Bonds? Will some bonds have to be refunded?If so, what are the tax implications?
112.What will be the impact on bond rating?
113.What will happen with Campaign assets?
114.What will be the financial profile of new structure – one or three units, etc.?
115.What is the impact of hospital ownership?
116.How will financial assets, including endowment and property holdings, be protected?
117.Can there be safeguards put in place so that liabilities of any one institution do not devolve on the others?
Risk Management and Insurance Issues
118.RU, UMD, and NJIT engage in extensive risk management activities relating to property, safety, and business activities; how will these be affected?
119.Professional liability/malpractice exposure in university-owned hospital and physician’s practices are significant, highly variable, and difficult to accurately estimate; will malpractice coverage be reviewed?
120.Adequate coverage is needed for directors and administrators; insurance agents need to be kept informed during transition, and additional coverage for personnel actions is needed.Will these costs be covered in the implementation phase?
121.In restructuring, will there be an environmental assessment to evaluate exposure of hazardous waste and medical waste?
122.Will there be an identification and evaluation of product liability exposures and patent infringement liabilities?