Editorial | Rutgers and UMDNJ

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, November, 2006

Gov. Corzine can't be expected to wolf down everything put on his plate. But he should try to work up a bigger appetite for a proposal to merge Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Corzine says he's "agnostic" about the idea. Two new studies under way should make him a believer.

The merger needs to happen, but won't unless the governor pushes for it. Scandal-ridden UMDNJ needs to be euthanized. The time is ripe to reconfigure the two medical schools within UMDNJ as part of a state university system. That's a model already successfully employed in other states. It could work here. Ironically, UMDNJ, founded in 1970, is itself the offspring of a merger. The former Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry (founded in 1954) and...