Rowan University/Rutgers-Camden Board of Governors to Hold Inaugural Meeting

Camden, NJ – The Rowan University/Rutgers-Camden Board of Governors will hold its first meeting on Monday, April 7, beginning at 9:00 am in Room 522 of the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University on the City’s Health Sciences Campus.

Created by the New Jersey Medical and Health Sciences Education Restructuring Act, the Board will encourage the development of curricula and programs at each university in the area of health sciences and partnerships between the institutions. The Board’s mission reflects an extension of Camden’s significant “eds and meds” presence and is expected to leverage the educational and research assets of the universities to support the growth of the area’s health care capacity and lead to regional economic growth and civic engagement.

The legislation is anticipated to spur an innovative dual-university College of Health Sciences in Camden as a component of this effort. The College will address the region’s critical educational and health care needs by educating professionals and fostering research in a variety of health disciplines.

The initial phases are expected to include Rowan Master’s and Ph.D. degree programs in the allied health fields and population and public health studies. Rutgers-Camden will leverage its programs in the sciences and in nursing with the Rutgers Center for Computational and Integrative Biology – which is home to a unique Ph.D. program in that cutting-edge field – and with the Rutgers School of Nursing-Camden, which will expand with the opening of the state-of-the-art Rutgers Nursing and Science Building at Federal and Fifth Sts., proximate to the Cooper Health campus, in 2016. Both Universities anticipate collaboration to help prepare a new generation of health care providers for southern New Jersey and the Delaware Valley.

The members of the Rowan University/Rutgers-Camden Governing Board, comprised of two representatives from each institution and three individuals appointed by Gov. Christie, are:

• Louis S. Bezich – Cooper University Health Care, Chief of Staff to the President and Executive Director, Population Health Management
• Chad M. Bruner – Gloucester County Administrator
• Jack Collins, Esq. – former New Jersey Speaker of the General Assembly
• Michellene Davis, Esq. – Barnabas Health, Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs
• Fred Graziano – TD Bank Group, Head of Regional Commercial Banking and Executive Vice President
• Robert Mortensen – R.E. Mortensen Associates; Rutgers University Trustee and Member of the Board of Overseers at Rutgers University Foundation
• Dana L. Redd – Mayor of Camden

The Cooper Medical School of Rowan University is located at 401 South Broadway, Camden.