This essay appeared in today’s Currents section of the Inquirer. I am posting it here because it was not linked electronically on the Inquirer’s web site. A companion essay on the site by Cooper Hospital board chairman George Norcross is posted and can be accessed here.

 

Howard Gillette is Professor Emeritus of History at Rutgers-Camden, author of the prize-winning book Camden After the Fall, and co-editor of the on-line Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, which is based at Rutgers-Camden.

                     

Camden doesn’t need another blow to its always fragile efforts to recover from decades of  decline.  The proposed merger of Rutgers-Camden into Rowan is being touted by its supporters as a move that could help reverse that pattern by creating an outstanding research institution. Unfortunately, under the current plan, such a move would almost certainly have just the opposite effect.

                One of the few tangible successes of the municipal recovery legislation that put Camden under state control for some seven years are the results of investments in the city’s “eds” and “meds.”   Rutgers and Cooper Hospital were beneficiaries, and both have capitalized by expanding their presence in the city. Moreover, with additional resources, they can deepen the unequalled services they provide the region.

                The strategy of investing in “anchor institutions,” so-called because they are rooted to the places they are located in, has been embraced by the Annie E. Casey and Knight foundations, both of which have made significant investments in recent years in Rutgers-Camden.  If this plan helps Rutgers-Camden and Cooper, those investments, and those from the state, certainly will be aggregated.

                But what is likely under the current plan, starting with the elimination of the Rutgers name? 

The number of students who chose to come into Camden to study will surely decline, given the choice of only one degree, from Rowan. Declining enrollment in Camden will reverse a pattern of growth, which when combined with investments still to be realized as part of the municipal recovery legislation in the form of market-rate housing on the waterfront, have promised downtown revitalization.

                The Rutgers future scholars program which prepares children for college in each of the university’s host cities would be another casualty of consolidation.  Other examples of the commitment of Rutgers personnel from all levels to improve the city as scholars, students, and volunteers might continue, but without the core commitment that Rutgers-Camden has made to civic investment.

                There is no doubting the desirability of forming a partnership between Rutgers-Camden and Cooper Hospital.  Many universities do this in other cities through consortium arrangements.  Together these two particular eds and meds could generate additional grant money, most notably from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.  Rutgers faculty members have an admirable  record of accomplishment in this regard, and they would not have to rebuild the infrastructure of a great university to remain competitive, as they would have to do at Rowan.

                Imagine if Cooper decided in the next few years that because Rowan was the administrative center for a new university, it had to leave Camden for Glassboro.  Pulling up that anchor would have terrible repercussions.  It would be just as bad if the government dictated that Cooper fold into one of the suburban hospitals.  So why Rutgers-Camden?

                There’s a chance to be constructive here. Camden’s continued high level of distress adversely  affects the whole region. We have a chance to invest in the core part of the city and make it stronger.  Let’s do it in a way that has a chance of working, not by undercutting  Rutgers-Camden and all that it contributes but by finding a more effective way to tap those resources in the goal of improving both the quality of care and the quality of education in this once mighty city.