The alumni association of the Rutgers School of Law-Newark is now on record against the proposed merger of Rutgers-Camden and Rowan universities.
The association, which represents several thousand alumni, made public a letter to Rutgers' governing boards today. It questions the provenance of the original proposal -- widely and rightly criticized as ill-conceived -- as well as the rather fuzzy alterna-merger plan now making the political and media rounds.
"(T) he structure of Rutgers should not be decided behind closed doors by a small group that represents neither the University as a whole nor the public it serves," the association writes (amen to that).
"Neither the economic consequences of the original merger proposal nor the potential costs of some yet-to-be-announced 'compromise' have received any public examination," the letter continues (amen, again).
Association president Scott Walker notes his organization will host a reception with its Rutgers-Camden counterparts at the N.J. State Bar Association meeting in Atlantic City today.
"We have been following this issue for quite some time very closely, and we felt things had developed to the point where we needed to have our voice heard," he says. "We felt now was an appopriate time."