Posted: Monday, January 30, 2012 5:27 pm | Updated: 8:13 pm, Mon Jan 30, 2012.

CAMDEN — The proposal to merge Rutgers University in Camden with Rowan University under Rowan's name has been met with skepticism, bordering on disbelief, by alumni, faculty members and students at the Rutgers campus.

"They have never seen anything like this in the history of the United States," said Rutgers historian Jacob Soll, an award-winning author and MacArthur Fellow who is leaving the college for a professorship at the University of Southern California.

"I don't know one person in the entire system — student or faculty — who thinks this is a good idea," Soll said.

Rutgers School of Law-Camden Dean Rayman Solomon told about 300 concerned law students that he was not interviewed by the Barer Commission of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey as it made its proposals to revamp the higher education system in the state. The commission's plan was endorsed by Gov. Chris Christie last week.

"I was never called to talk to the commission," Solomon said, adding that "the specificity" of the report "comes as a surprise, at least to me."

The report suggests that a combined Rowan-Rutgers University in Camden — with Rowan's medical school and Rutgers' law school — would attract research funds, allow the combined school to offer more graduate degrees, and form better partnerships with businesses, Rowan spokesman Joe Cardona said last week.

Solomon told the law students that upgrading the research stature of the South Jersey institutions has some validity, but that Camden should not sever its ties to the Rutgers system.

The law school dean has received 400 emails regarding the proposed merger.

"This is not a done deal," he said. "People who are making decisions — the (Rutgers) board of governors, board of trustees — need to hear from you."

Rutgers students have collected 3,200 signatures on a website, r2rmerge.com, to be used in a petition drive against the merger. Rutgers' members of the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers have developed an action plan to fight the proposal, also on the r2r website.

Forums about the proposed merger are being held on the Camden campus Thursday and Monday. A meeting with the board of governors is planned for Feb. 15.

Solomon listened as student after student questioned how valuable their law degrees will be if the institution that issues them changes to one that does not now have a law school. They questioned increases in tuition, effects on scholarships, accreditation of a newly named law school, whether students or faculty who may have been attracted to Rutgers because of its prestige would attend a newly established law school, and how they would be perceived when they graduate and want to apply to firms around the country that may not have heard of Rowan University.

Charles Prescott, a first-year law student from Columbia, S.C., said he came to Rutgers for its name recognition.

"Assuming the worst case and this becomes Rowan School of Law, what happens to me? Are we in University of North Dakota land? Where are we?" Prescott asked.

"If this were to happen, if you shop that degree in California or Colorado — I don't know," the dean responded.

He said that people would know the circumstances and that many local firms hire Rutgers law graduates.

Soll said Camden faculty members are devastated by the news. Although he did not want to take away from Rowan, he said the stature of the scholarship of tenured faculty members at the two institutions is not the same. Rutgers' faculty members are required to publish many more works before they get tenure, Soll said.

"They are world-class scholars," he said.

Soll said that it would take years for Rowan to reach the stature to receive federal funding on the level as nearby research institutions such as Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, and that Rowan would need to match many grants it wanted to pursue. Where that money would come from without a strong endowment or adequate state funding was questionable.

A faculty member who asked not to be identified said many nontenured staffers were seeking other positions.

"Almost all our junior faculty have been looking for other jobs," he said.

Alumni also voiced strong opposition to the plan.

Jeffrey Bisk, a commercial Realtor from Moorestown, called it "disastrous."

Internationally recognized artist Hugh Bastidas, who studied at Rutgers in Newark, said he and others who contribute money may be less willing to do so because of the plan.

"As an alumnus, I'm worried about bequeathing anything to my alma mater because any governor in the future could take it away," Bastidas said.

Peg Quann: 609-871-8057; email: pquann@phillyBurbs.com; Twitter: @pequann

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Rutgers law students protest merger plan