It's impossible to summarize 27 years of seven-day-a-week dedication to accomplishing an enormous task: creating a multi-campus health sciences university for New Jersey. Stanley S. Bergen, Jr. - a native son and a physician - recognized the state's need to educate its own physicians and dentists, researchers, nurses, behavioral health specialists and allied health professionals, as well as providing New Jerseyans direct access to the best health care. Why should residents be forced to trek to New York or Philadelphia for these services?

A vision such as this one does not materialize overnight. Painstaking dedication, enormous energy and single-mindedness went into building the largest free-standing public health sciences university in the US, with seven schools on five campuses, more than 5,000 students and 16,000 alumni, and an endowment of more than $100 million. There is no one in New Jersey - from one end of the state to the other - who has not been touched by UMDNJ, with its multiple missions of education, research, clinical care and community service.

Does your daughter want to be a surgeon or your son a cancer researcher? Does your father have Parkinson's disease or your neighbor multiple sclerosis? Do you want to participate in the newest drug trials for scleroderma or prostate cancer? Has a friend needed the life-saving services of a trauma center? Do you advocate research to improve the quality of our air and water? All of these are part of what the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey- among the 100 top-funded research universities in the country with more than $150 million in annual research support - does well.

When asked to describe Bergen's personality, co-workers have said: tireless, a workaholic, stubborn, strong, a master builder. It is precisely these qualities that have made his many achievements possible.

"For every problem there is a solution that is straightforward, simple and wrong," said H.L. Mencken.

Bergen knew that there was no simple solution to providing New Jerseyans with excellence in these many areas. His solutions have been multi-faceted and complex. He continues "building" by responding to the state's current needs. He was a prime mover in creating the Cancer Institute of New Jersey - one of only 15 clinical care centers designated by the National Cancer Institute. Another brainchild was the new Violence Institute of New Jersey - a university-wide effort to stem the tide of violence, which has become a disease of our current culture. He has also been a force behind the International Center for Public Health, a world-class infectious disease research and treatment complex which is being built in Newark. He persists in building collaborations with other colleges and universities in New Jersey. In fact, he is particularly proud of UMDNJ's reputation for fairness and opportunity in education - and employment. The nearly 12,000 university-related jobs are just part of an enormous economic impact on the state.

We present to you a scrapbook of a few of our first president's major moments at the University during the last 27 years. We know that the many programs and projects he has breathed life into will continue to flourish and thrive far into the twenty-first century.

Health fair for the legislature, 1979.

Addressing the state legislature, 1981. Legislation signed that year established CMDNJ as a university.

UMDNJ's first president, 1984.

Catching up on paperwork, mid-1980s.

Modeling menswear at the Champions' thrift shop fashion show, 1989.

Crossing the finish line at Stratford campus, 1992.

With Governor Jim Florio and Tipper Gore, wife of Vice President Al Gore, at health care reform hearing in Piscataway, 1993.

Meeting with President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington, DC to discuss health care reform, 1994.

 
Receiving a gift from students at Central High School in Newark, 1996 - one of many community accolades he received during his tenure.

Delivering the annual State of the University address in Piscataway, 1998.