Lot of misinformation. SOM researchers have no real contact with other campuses that is in last ten years I have been here. Rowan will have a complete research school and graduate school in the form GSBS-Stratford on July 1, 2013. It will be instantly a Research University complete with faculty, research laboratories, PhD students and everything.😍
I think you grossly underestimate the difficulty in such endeavors. In order to recruit PhD students (since you are starting from scratch), you need research faculty. In order to recruit research faculty, you need money, space, and equipment. You also need support structure in place to help with all the paperwork involved in research, especially people who know the intricacies of applying for R and K grants. You need resources, incentives, and time to recruit (ie steal) tenured faculty members from other research institutions. You need to provide opportunities to recruit the brightest PhD candidates and postdocs to become junior faculty at your institution (although with the current glut of PhDs, it might not be difficult to recruit someone, but you still want the best and brightest). And the biggest challenge - in order to do the above, you need money. That's why large research institutions, with active research, are able to draw more research money. And with the federal budget cuts, it is getting harder to win federal grants from NIH, NSF, NASA, or even DoD, etc.
Rowan only received $9 million in grants. SOM only received $1.3 million from the NIH (and $13 million total in research funding). In comparison, University of Pennsylvania (right across the river) received $457.5 million from NIH in 2012, CHOP received $125.6 million from NIH in 2012, Temple received $62 million, etc.
You also need time for the university (Rowan) to develop the governance structure to manage multiple schools in different locations (Glassboro, Camden, Stratford) along with dealing with inter-school and inter-department politics that comes from managing a large university
And not everyone at SOM or the AOA is happy with the merger. The AOA even release a statement expressing concern about ongoing accreditation issues.
AOA President Levine, in testimony to the NJ Senate Committee on June 14, 2012, said
"Combining UMDNJ-SOM with a school that lacks the same robust research programs and credibility will reduce funding and diminish research developments that are changing medicine and improving the delivery of care in New Jersey and around the country. Rowan has no infrastructure in place to support these nationally and internationally recognized programs that protect vulnerable populations. "
also
"Given the unlimited authority of this board, the lack of adequate infrastructure to provide clinical services and the uncertainty in funding for increased costs associated with maintaining quality of education and training, the AOA is concerned that this proposed move may jeopardize the School of Osteopathic Medicine's accreditation from the AOA Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA)."
http://www.osteopathic.org/inside-a...ogs/daily-report-blog/Documents/Testimony.pdf
And with the development of a new medical school (Cooper), there is concern that resources and attention will be paid to Cooper at the expense of SOM, which is one of the reason the Faculty Senate of SOM is against the merger, in their words, "can see no advantage for the faculty and students of SOM."
http://www.njbiz.com/article/201207...al-school-in-uncharted-territory&template=art
I think UMDNJ-SOM will survive the merger, and will continue to produce excellent physicians in both their undergraduate medical and graduate medical education program. Their accreditation (for both the DO program and their GME programs) will likely be unaffected. The research component though, will take decades to establish, not a few months as your post would suggest.
