Rx for a Very Sick Health Institution

NJBIZ, Jan 8, 2007

Our Point of View

IF THE UNIVERSITY of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) wens a patient, the scandals that have shattered its reputation would have put it on the critical list. Two state task forces are now pondering emergency measures for UMDNJ, an eight-school institution that styles itself the country's largest public health-sciences university.

Off the table for now is a full-scale merger of UMDNJ with Rutgers University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJTT)-a proposal first made and rejected in 2003 and briefly revisited last fall. But some forms of consolidation remain under consideration and look worthwhile.

For example, combining UMDNJ's Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick with Rutgers would eliminate bureaucratic barriers to joint research at the neighboring schools. A similar case could be made for bringing together UMDNJ's Newark campuses with Rutgers-Newark and NITT.

Back in 2003, the idea behind a full-fledged merger of New Jersey's three research universities was to create a world-class institution that could compete more effectively with the likes of Harvard, MIT and the University of California system for federal funds.

While that idea collapsed under the weight of its billion-dollar cost and the political resistance it aroused, the need for such an institution has not gone away. No state has lost more high-tech jobs in the past 10 years than New Jersey-a trend that an increased flow of research dollars into the state could help to reverse. UMDNJ may be a gravely ill patient, but the resources the sprawling school commands must still be put to good use.