Updated June 29, 2012:
The state legislature approved the plan late Thursday that would change New Jersey’s university system, giving most of the state’s medical university to Rutgers University.
The stars seem to have aligned to meet Gov. Christie’s deadline of July 1 for university restructuring to take place. After days of uncertainty and constant amendments, both houses of the legislature appear ready to pass a bill tonight barring a last-minute hangup.
“This is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done before the implementation takes place,” said Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden).
The last piece to fall into place was the Rutgers Board of Governors voting 9 to 1 this morning to embrace the bill in concept, pending the outcome of a due diligence inquiry. The other Rutgers board, the Board of Trustees, has not signed on yet, but its concerns are basically being ignored for now.
“By bringing together all the elements of all those campuses,” Sen. Joe Vitale (D-19), “the medical school and university, including Rowan and Rutgers and UMDNJ together as one entity—this is going to really catapult New Jersey on a national stage.”
As envisioned now, Rowan University and Rutgers-Camden would be merged only in the area of health sciences. Otherwise, Rutgers retains control of its Camden campus.
According to Norcross, there is no merger. “There has been much said about a merger between Rutgers and Rowan,” he said. “That simply is not the case, and you’ll see that shortly when the legislation is introduced with the amendments.”
The bill puts most of UMDNJ into Rutgers, sets University Hospital in Newark apart with state support, and creates three new boards — one in Newark, one in Camden and a joint Rutgers-Rowan board in Camden to manage the health sciences. Rowan instantly becomes a research university. Proponents say it won’t even cost that much money.
“We believe that the cost to the state in the short term would be around $40 million, but then there are all the other costs that Rutgers is going to recoup,” said Vitale.
More than 25,000 faculty, staff and health care workers have been assured there will be no layoffs.
Jean Pierce, a union representative for health care workers, said “all of the unions have current contracts in place and the universities have to honor those contracts. At such time when they end, we’ll renegotiate as we would any other time.”
A Christie insider says, “While there is still some hedging on the part of Rutgers, the only way to force their hand is to pass the bill.” The governor is expected to sign it.
Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron files this report.
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