As many of you are probably aware by now, on January 25, 2012, Governor Christie announced the release of a report on higher education resources, which contained the shocking recommendation to merge all of Rutgers University – Camden, including Rutgers School of Law, into Rowan University to form an expanded university under the Rowan name. The report came from the University of Medicine and Dentistry Advisory Committee, which originally was charged with studying the proposed integration of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and the School of Public Health within Rutgers University. As expected, the Committee recommended the merger of the medical school in New Brunswick, but the Camden merger proposal was hastily and haphazardly thrown to the committee and reported in the same fashion, so the recommendation came as quite a shock to the Rutgers community. In typical Christie fashion, he announced that unlike other proposals regarding higher education in New Jersey in the past, the mergers “will happen”.
For the past month since this announcement, our own Tim Farrow has been an extremely active leader in the fight against this proposed takeover of Rutgers Camden by Rowan University. Farrow is a 1999 graduate of the Rutgers University Law School in Camden, along with the rest of our firm, Ben Dash, class of 2002 and Mary Chatten, class of 1997. Farrow has been a very active alumni representative since graduation, serving as Chancellor of the Rutgers Camden Law Alumni Association from 2006-2008 and currently as Treasurer of the Rutgers University Alumni Association. Although he supports the efforts of South Jersey leaders to elevate the level of higher education available in this area, he believes that we can accomplish that through a close consortium relationship with Rowan University, while still maintaining the prestigious Rutgers brand and reputation as a highly-regarded research university.
See Farrow’s most recent quote in the link below:
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/12/0224/0349/
For more information about the Rutgers movement see:
