23rd Annual University Day Speech

William F. Owen, Jr., MD
President, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

9/19/07—I too welcome all of you to our 23rd University Day. It is a sincere pleasure to speak with you at the start of a new academic year.

I extend my gratitude to our hosts, Interim Dean Amenta and Professor Bertino for their kind hospitality.

First, I would like to acknowledge and congratulate the newest members of our Master Educators’ Guild. UMDNJ’s support of the Guild is a powerful statement of our commitment to one of our four missions – specifically it is a resounding endorsement that the education and training of the next generation of health providers and health scientists is a critical and valued core activity for our faculty.

Being in front of you today -- celebrating greatness in the execution of our educational mission, I am reminded of a quiet, but well known matter of confidence from the contemporary history of academic health centers. When many of us trained as health care providers, far too many of us received a subtle message that the best and the brightest in health care were expected to pursue a career in academics. And of the holy trinity of missions in academics -- research, clinical care, and teaching -- research was paramount -- perhaps even more important than caring for those to whom the research was directed.

To be a great academician was to be a great scientist --first and foremost. And in this hierarchy of missions and activities, teaching was of the least importance. So, I’ve described a virtual caste system in academics in which the scientist was more valued and venerated than the clinician, who in turn was held in higher esteem than the seemingly lowly “teacher”.

Thankfully, as academic health centers matured, so has the recognition that the role of the great teacher is no less or no more important than that of the great scientist or the great clinician. And so in coming together to celebrate our master educators, we are celebrating in a deliberately public manner that we have shed a cultural norm in academic health -- one that was woefully inappropriate. Today’s induction of a new class of Guild members reminds each of us, and proclaims loudly to the residents of New Jersey, that UMDNJ places a high value on the educators who train tomorrow’s health care practitioners, scientists, and policy makers.

As part of us, the individuals seated before me define us, since the suffix school is prevalent in our educational lexicon.

Master Educators, we are proud of you and again express our gratitude. Can I have another well-deserved round of applause?

I would also like to thank Dr. Lee for his outstanding leadership as President of the Guild this previous year, and Dean Gibson for his steady hand in expanding and guiding the Guild each year. Of course, President Cook is called out, thanked, and congratulated for his visionary aspirations that culminated in the development of the Guild.

Next, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Mr. Robert Campbell -- recipient of this year’s University Medal. It is especially fitting that the venue for University Day and Mr. Campbell’s recognition is New Brunswick. Not only does the choice of locale offer validation that UMDNJ is a state-wide asset with positive impact throughout NJ, but it aligns with the virtual epicenter of much of Mr. Campbell’s tremendous outreach. His support for UMDNJ, for Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey is well-known and appreciated by so many. Mr. Campbell offers a unique balance of thoughtfulness, compassion, and humility.

Again, Bob, heartiest congratulations – we are honored and deeply grateful to count you as one of our own!

I am told that University Day is the opportunity for UMDNJ’s President to offer a “state of the union” address for the system. In this capacity and with this expectation in mind, please permit me to exercise a bit of executive fiat. I intend to modestly redirect the focus of my remarks.

The timing of my remarks aligns well with the phasing of my environmental scan of UMDNJ. For example, some of you may have heard that I became so enthusiastic in my pursuit of the environmental scan that I had myself hospitalized at one of our fine health care facilities. Well, I want to reassure you that I was not feigning an illness to covertly monitor our caregivers. My doctors will attest that I was really sick.

First, I want to personally express my gratitude to those of you, who were so kind in reaching out to my wife and me to share your kind well-wishes. I am much improved and delighted to back with you! Your prayers were appreciated and still welcome even when I’m healthy. Some still tell me that I may need them.

As a physician, it was sobering, humbling and educational to be on the other side of the bed. I was given the unique experience for executive leadership of viewing and experiencing the tremendous commitment, compassion, and skill demonstrated by our UMDNJ caregivers.

Early during my hospitalization, I routinely asked, “Does everyone get treated this well? I don’t want anything special.” And I was routinely reassured and even admonished that my experiences were the norm. My exemplary care was not an exception. The entire event of becoming a grateful patient has made me even more energized, focused, and honored to lead this extraordinary organization. More than ever, I want our senior management team and me to facilitate accelerating your success as a state-wide asset for the people of New Jersey and as one of the premier health sciences universities for the nation.

During my town hall meetings in July, I shared one of the deliverables from my environmental scan: I want to better understand not only how we view one another but also to learn how we are perceived by external stakeholders -- whether they are historical detractors or supporters. For a service presidency, it is imperative that the senior management team and me understand how those we serve and those who choose not to let us serve them think of us.

Crossing the geographies of NJ, and having met with leaders from our partner institutions in higher education, our clinical affiliates, our community leaders, and many of our elected officials, I have been struck by the intensity of interest in UMDNJ. Despite conventional wisdom and urban myth, their interest has not been principally driven by: a cynical curiosity about the content of the next anticipated, troubling media story; nor in the expression of Judge Stern’s rightful concerns about the infractions committed by a small number of challenged individuals; or in a voyeuristic “what’s next” curiosity. Rather, they are genuinely concerned and a bit anxious about us as individuals. “How is UMDNJ functioning at the level of …” you fill in the blank…the research professor, the campus painter, the physical therapy student, the building plumber, the outpatient pharmacist, the housekeeper, the histology professor, the animal care technician, the master educator, and I can go on. It is fully apparent to me that these external stakeholders recognize that having a strong and fully functioning UMDNJ team is good for them, good for their neighbors, and good for the economic, physical, and mental health of the people of New Jersey.

In my opinion and unencumbered by any knowledge, what makes us so public is what also makes us most effective. First we’ve a great and talented organization of committed people. Second and the focus of my remarks is that we are a statewide resource, not just a University of New Brunswick, University of Piscataway, University of Stratford, University of Camden, University of Scotch Plains or University of Newark. We derive strength and opportunity from being statewide, and this is amplified many times over by your work in each of these regions.

However, an early observation from my environmental scan is that we’ve a great opportunity to do a better job engaging with ourselves. In referring to “engagement”, I am not merely speaking of communicating with other team members across the geography and professions of UMDNJ in an opportunisitic manner. Rather, I am urging more deliberate and inclusive cross campus, cross school, and cross profession planning and execution for our programs. Entrepreneurship, which is a core attribute of our aspirational peers, must be balanced with more collective and coordinated action. Although there are tremendous examples of such activity already occurring, in many instances it seems that we still operate as competing, autonomous functioning units across NJ.

Some of you have shared that this silo mentality arises from how UMDNJ has been funded and those monies in turn percolated into our organization. Competitiveness across units was seemingly valued over cooperation, and geographical realities of a multi-campus state system encouraged these behaviors.

I’ve also been told that such competition is an anticipated behavior in a young organization. With a focus on growth, attention and resources were directed in a manner to nurture a relatively few extraordinarily performing units. In this situation, identifying collaborative opportunities and rewarding them between stronger and weaker units seemed less critical.

Please, do not misunderstand my remarks to criticize the end result. However, to accelerate our success and to meet the expectation that UMDNJ will become a statewide asset of even greater value, we must better fill the clear space between us. UMDNJ can and should offer much more that what is within an individual team member’s immediate reach. We have a university replete with expertise across many domains that can and should be leveraged through collaborations and harmonizing resources across campuses and geographies.

I recently came across an example of the silo phenomenon quite unintentionally and on a very personal level. How many of you are aware that University Hospital is rightfully considered the Center for Stroke Care Excellence in the state of New Jersey? How many are aware that University Hospital is the only center in New Jersey, and one of six centers nationally with neuro-interventional neurology capabilities for acute stroke interventions in standing with other centers including UCLA, Harvard, Minnesota, Buffalo, and Wisconsin? How many other gems like this do we have hidden away; how many other great and talented teams do we have that would benefit one another and themselves by collaborative opportunities that unite us?

I recognize that the senior management team should take greater ownership of facilitating and rewarding behavior that allows us to better function as a statewide asset. And this means that my immediate team and me must enhance the infrastructure that allows greater collaboration. I promise and intend to do this. However, please accept that the implementation should lie with you. If we don’t take advantage of the resources in other parts of our organization, truly sustainable success as a tier 1 health university will be elusive.

Only in working together across NJ, executing on our shared missions of education, research, healthcare and community service, can we be the statewide asset that our name declares. I trust that this is not only my vision for UMDNJ, but I hope it is your vision for UMDNJ, too.

Thank you all. Its great being back!

William F. Owen, Jr., M.D.
President