NEW BRUNSWICK —

The papers are signed. The contracts are finalized. The accreditations are lined up. Hundreds of new signs are hung.

If all goes as planned, at midnight Sunday New Jersey will pull off the largest higher education merger in U.S. history.

Before the sun comes up Monday morning, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey will be gone and seven of its eight schools will become part of a new, super-sized Rutgers University.

In an instant, Rutgers will become a 65,000-student school with a $3 billion budget. It will rank among the top 25 research universities in the nation, with more research spending than Harvard, Yale or Northwestern University.

"What we’ve done is to create a powerhouse," said Rutgers President Robert Barchi, who was overseeing the last-minute details. "Nothing of this complexity has ever been done. … And we have been able to accomplish bringing this to closing."

Whether Rutgers has pulled off the merger without any major problems remains to be seen. The state university has set up a command center in New Brunswick to deal with all of the large and small problems no one anticipated — from computer glitches to problems with employees getting into buildings and errors in student accounts.

The transformation at Rutgers is part of a statewide higher education restructuring that goes into effect tomorrow and is designed to build up New Jersey’s public universities and make the state more competitive in scoring research grants.

Among the other changes:

• University Hospital in Newark becomes a free-standing institution. The state-owned hospital, once part of UMDNJ, will have its own board and state funding. It will remain a teaching hospital for Rutgers’ newly acquired medical and dental schools.

• Rutgers’ governance structure and financial system has been revamped to give the university’s Newark and Camden campuses more autonomy from the New Brunswick administration. The Rutgers board of governors expands from 11 to 15 members and new boards were established to help oversee Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden.

• Rowan University also will be a larger institution. Rowan, based in Glassboro, took over UMDNJ’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Camden County and was elevated to one of the state’s three research universities. Rutgers-Camden and Rowan also formed a partnership to collaborate on projects in Camden.

Though the changes at Rowan have been largely overshadowed by the Rutgers-UMDNJ merger, the school is in the midst of a historic reinvention of its own, said Ali Houshmand, Rowan’s president.

The former Glassboro State College, which was founded in 1923 as a teacher training school, is poised to take on a more high-profile role in the state.

"We are a vastly different institution," said Ali Houshmand, Rowan’s president. "The Rowan of today is not the Rowan of 1923."

Rowan, which opened a medical school in Camden last year, is aiming to become one of the state’s largest universities. Within a decade, Rowan plans to expand to 25,000 students, nearly double last year’s enrollment.

"We need to do that because the region needs that," said Houshmand, noting the small number of colleges in South Jersey compared to North and Central Jersey.

Exactly how much this will all cost also is unknown. Rutgers estimates it will have to shell out as much as $75 million over several years to cover the one-time cost of merging with UMDNJ. Rowan officials estimate one-time merger costs of $12 million, plus it will need another $30 million in annual appropriations from the state to continue growing.

UMDNJ and University Hospital also spent millions on consultants to help with their transitions.

A COMPLEX SITUATION

It is difficult to articulate how complex it has been to break up and bring together major education institutions in less than a year, said Christopher Molloy, the interim chancellor of Rutgers’ new health sciences division who oversaw Rutgers’ planning.

At Rutgers alone, there was a checklist with more than 4,600 tasks that needed to get done, and hundreds of employees served on integration teams, Molloy said. More than 1,000 university policies and 3,000 vendor contracts had to be reviewed while decisions had to be made about everything from campus parking rates to the dimensions of diplomas.

"Things are happening so fast and furiously right now, I don’t know the scorecard," Molloy said last week, estimating about 90 percent of the 4,600 items on his checklist were done.

Molloy said he knew Rutgers would not get everything finished. Combining Rutgers and UMDNJ’s numerous computer systems and software proved to be too daunting. So the school will operate on dual systems until fixes can be implemented.

With most of the work done, Rutgers will mark tomorrow’s takeover of UMDNJ with the 9 a.m. ringing of the Old Queens bell in New Brunswick. The bell, which Col. Henry Rutgers gave the school in 1826, is only rung on historic occasions.

Rowan, University Hospital and Rutgers will also hold a series of ceremonies and celebrations throughout the day in Stratford, Piscataway and Newark.

Barchi, the Rutgers president, said it will take time for the schools to show the true impact of the reorganization.

"Come back to see us in six months or a year and we’ll show you what we can really do with this thing," Barchi said.

Workmen install Rutgers sign onto UMDNJ building in Newark 9 Gallery: Workmen install Rutgers sign onto UMDNJ building in Newark

RELATED COVERAGE

• Effort to eliminate Rutgers Board of Trustees runs into roadblock

• Rutgers-UMDNJ merger gets $12.5M boost from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

• UMDNJ President Denise Rodgers lands new job at Rutgers as schools prepare to merge

• UMDNJ holds final commencement as it prepares for Rutgers merger





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