Court Decision on Plainfield's Access to Care

MI - Court Report Cover and FQHC Services

Federal Health Centers Are No Substitute for Hospitals

Federal Health Centers A Factor In Hospital Closings

Plainfield Mayor Leighton Calkins - Golf Innovator

Leighton Calkins

1868-1955

Leighton Calkins was the Mayor of Plainfield from  1915-1920,  and was instrumental in the completion of the  City Hall building.  A plaque in City Hall describes  the story of the building of Plainfield's City Hall.  Leighton Calkins' only son, Wolcott, is listed on Plainfield City Hall's World War I memorial as a casualty.

According to Plainfield Country Club's The First Hundred Years, "The origin of the modern handicap system comes from the one devised for Plainfield Country Club by Leighton Calkins in 1904."  This book also states that "Calkins coined the word "par" to describe the standard best score, borrowing from the financial phrase "the par value of stocks."

Leighton Calkins died in 1955, and his will was probated in Union County, New Jersey.

In the Third Paragraph of Will, there is beguest:  "to Muhlenberg Hospital, a corporation under the laws of the State of New Jersey and located in Plainfield, New Jersey, the sum of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000) on condition that in consideration of this gift a room in the private pavilion be named as a memorial to my dear wife, Nella Bond Calkins, - marked by an appropriate tablet."

Questions:   What is by law the remedy for the loss of this

                     endowed room to the Plainfield community?

                     What happens to the inscribed memorial tablet?  

http://www.usga.org/news/2011/October/History-Of-Handicapping--Part-III/

Link to Smithsonian sculpture of Muhlenberg Architect Evarts Tracy

"As Major of Engineers Pioneer Camouflage Officer United States Army"

SI Collections Search Center: Evarts Tracy [sculpture] / (photographed by Louis H. Dreyer)

The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion

Plainfield's Forgotten Gem

by Nancy A. Piwowar

Hidden behind a stockade fence, set far off Randolph Road, on the Muhlenberg property is a red brick building with a large arched window and a scrolled keystone. The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion dates to 1903, and is Plainfield's forgotten gem.

A notice in the local newspaper, Plainfield Courier-News, in 1900, related the possibility of a new hospital building, and the response by the local residents was immediate. Public subscriptions were received. Then the decision was made by the Muhlenberg Board of Governors, to build a "new" Muhlenberg Hospital at a new site, and many distinguished men offered land. James E. Martine offered a lot on Thorton Avenue. Former Mayor of North Plainfield, John F. Wilson, offered a lot in North Plainfield, but this could not be accepted because it was in a different county. Finally the Muhlenberg Board of Governors took an option on farm land at the edge of the City on Park Avenue and Randolph Road.

Within four months of the discussions of a "new" Muhlenberg in the local newspaper, it was reported that J. Howard Wright in April, 1901, gave the largest and most generous donation of $10,000 for an operating pavilion for the "new" Muhlenberg in memory of his two grandsons. Howard Wright Corlies died at the age of 23 from pneumonia in 1899. Parker Wright Mason died at the age of 19 from typhoid fever in 1900. J. Howard Wright was a wealthy Standard Oil businessman from New York City, and his two daughters and families resided in Plainfield, for many years.

The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion also contained a sterilizing room, an etherizing room, a room for the X-ray instrument and a recovery room, which were all considered essential for a modern hospital.

The 1903 Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion retains many of its original exterior elements including inscription, large arched, scrolled keystone, and northern window. The only evident change is the removal of the roof line skylight. The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion was designed by Tracy and Swartwout, a New York architectural firm, and Evarts Tracy, one of the architects, grew up in Plainfield on West Eighth Street in the Van Wyck Brooks Historic District, and he later resided with his wife on Hillside Avenue, in the Hillside Avenue Historic District within sight of the "new" Muhlenberg and the Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion.

The 1903 Tracy and Swartwout Muhlenberg complex of buildings were not built squarely to face either Park Avenue or Randolph Road, but were "built squarely with the points of the compass." The purpose of this was "to have the operating room face North, so that it would have the full benefit of the North light." [Plainfield Courier-News, July 19, 1902, page one article.]

Plainfield's forgotten gem has survived over one hundred and seven years, and is passed by daily on the way to the satellite emergency department without nearly a second glance because it is behind a stockade fence. The wall inscription is obscured by the fence, and according to newspaper articles, behind the cornerstone of operating pavilion is a copper box that contains various items including: local and New York newspapers, Muhlenberg Hospital annual reports, photographs of J. Howard Wright's grandsons, photographs of doctors, nurses, employees, and of the old hospital buildings, names of the contractors, to name a few items.

The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion serves as a grand monument to Mr. Wright's Plainfield family, and the Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion is one of the only known surviving separate, stand alone operating room buildings extant in New Jersey and most likely in the United States. It is important to preserve The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion because it is a monument to the Wright family, Muhlenberg heritage and medical culture, and Muhlenberg's doctors, nurses and staff.

Albert C. Stebbins

Albert C. Stebbins was born in Massachusetts on September 19, 1845, and he came to Plainfield in 1887, and located the site for the Pond Machine Tool Company.  He was vice-president of the Niles-Bement-Pond Company which was a division of Pond Machine Tool Company.  He was also vice-president of the Plainfield Savings Bank for fifteen years.  He was interested in civic affairs, and served two years on the City Common Council.  He died February 28, 1917, and is buried in a Plainfield area cemetery.

Mr. Stebbins left the bulk of his estate to Muhlenberg Hospital.  In the Eighth Paragraph:  "All the rest residue and remainder of my estate..., I give, devise, and bequeath to Muhlenberg Hospital, ..., to be held forever as a permanent endowment fund to be invested and kept safely and securely invested by it, the net income only to be used by it as it may see fit, in carrying on its work."

As reported in the Sixty-Ninth Annual Report for the year ending December 31, 1946, of Muhlenberg Hospital, on the inside back cover, the Albert C. Stebbins bequest was the largest gift yet received, total amount as reported was $226,000. 

Almost 30 years after the receipt of this Stebbins permanent endowment fund it was still being talked about in writing and was being used as an example to encourage others to leave bequests through wills.

Questions:  What happened to the money appropriated for the Stebbins' permanent 

                    endowment?

                    What is by law the remedy for the loss of this funded endowment to the 

                     Plainfield community?

                 

The Muhlenberg Independents

New Jersey hospital closings have exposed a mergers and acquisitions strategy, popularized by rogue nonprofits, who remove social services and endowments accumulated over decades, while robbing all levels of government of tax revenue, as they enrich themselves personally. Muhlenberg was started 131 years ago after a train accident, beginning a tradition of bequests and endowments long before government was expected to provide for charity care. Residents upheld a long tradition of leaving bequests and endowments they expected to compensate for charity care.

The Muhlenberg Independents are researchers that believe the salvation of Muhlenberg lies in the protection of those assets that include an astonishing amount of real estate outside of Plainfield. Muhlenberg exposes a fatal flaw in the protection given to endowments, after the benefactor’s death. Wall Street tactics of mergers and acquisitions have spread and redefined the practices of a new generation of profiteers. Utilizing the barely scrutinized and rarely regulated structures of nonprofit corporations, the plundering of old richly endowed facilities, like Muhlenberg Hospital, is turning into a tragic loss of history and multiple generations of philanthropy. We must honor the sacrifice of people who made provisions to care for the poor and disenfranchised or return those assets to the appropriate heirs.

The Muhlenberg Independents are in possession of a small mountain of financial documents that prove the violation of donor intent and the failure of the State of New Jersey to protect the substantial donated assets of old hospitals that the state is closing. Muhlenberg remains an asset even in its current state. It does not matter if the hospital has been gutted and the cost of keeping such an old building functional are high. The only thing that cannot be replaced is the land.

The community deserves a fair price and an uncompromised sale with Solaris relinquishing all control over the assets of Muhlenberg. Solaris was voted control of Muhlenberg’s substantial assets without payment or promises to continue to serve the community. Is their refusal to participate in a good faith effort to find a buyer indicative of their alternative agenda or the legal lack of standing to sell a facility that they control, but do not own? Did Solaris even have the legal standing to apply for a certificate of need to close Muhlenberg?

Grade Inflation Revisited

Grade inflation equals consumer fraud

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 20:38

LETTER TO THE EDITOR                                                                       NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Education reform can begin with a policy that prohibits the granting of honor roll grades to students who are not doing work that is on grade level. Grades are deceptive and few parents know what children are expected to know at various stages of their development. Accepted practices of grade inflation need to be banned as a destructive form of consumer fraud.

Honor rolls can create a deceptive sense of satisfaction for everyone involved. It would produce a higher level of advocacy and effort from parents and students if they were aware that they were achieving excellence in work below the core content standards for their grade.

In every school system, there are students who will do whatever it takes to master all of the work required of them. It is not fair for them to never be presented the full scope of academic instruction that is given to other students that they will have to compete with in college. Valedictorians from one school district are placed at a disadvantage next to "C" students from another.

Many college freshmen are surprised and discouraged to learn that they have to take loans and acquire debt for non-credit courses. This often includes the additional cost of room and board for instruction they should have obtained while living at home attending public schools where they excelled. Without proper support, many of these gifted students are lost to higher education, forever.

All positive change does not require money. A public policy that requires "truth in grading" can go a long way towards preventing schools from languishing, unchallenged in entrenched failure.

DEBORAH DOWE

PLAINFIELD, N.J.

 

Comments (10)

Lived It

10 Thursday, 08 April 2010 08:04

Renata Hernandez

What a compelling piece and the commentary equally so! As a product of PPS and an honor roll student since the 6th grade I lived the angst of going to college only to be faced with remediated NON-DEGREE contributing mandatory coursework in English and MATH! It was depressing but by grace I pressed forward and continued on until I achieved my MBA. TODAY I continue to advocate for the PARENTS and Children of this district. As the former President of Parents Empowering Parents (PEP) and now as a BOE Candidate -- It is my DUTY as a citizen and as a human being to change the course of our current educational system!

Grade inflation equals student failures

9 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 22:20

N. Webb

Having a child that came out of a public school and is now struggling to get a passing grade in math in a private school this hits home. Deborah is on point. If my daughter could not do the required work a poor grade would have alerted us sooner. It’s much easier to get the extra help the children need in the lower grades than later when it may be too late.

Grade inflation equals consumer fraud

8 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 14:29

Rev. Alphonso and Carol Washington

Some years ago, my brother retired from teaching in the MD school system because they had begun the process of 'dumbing down' the Math department of which he was head. It truly upset him because the students would be the ones to suffer in the end. You see, ironically, grade inflation is ultimately a disservice to students. In the real world, where people have to work hard, pay taxes and learn that life has a habit of throwing nasty surprises at you, an ability to think critically is worth a lot more than a piece of paper showing you got lots of As and Bs in the Leaving Cert. Without the capacity for independent thought, today’s students will flounder in the future and this will only be exacerbated by the false sense of entitlement they have from being handed a raft of ill-deserved high grades.

It will be sorely disappointing for them to discover that, as adults, things won’t always be handed to them on a plate. They will fail sometimes. Life won’t always go their way and no one will ever ask them how they got on in the Leaving Cert.

Quoting from an article I read a couple years ago..."Grade inflation has wider implications too. Without high standards in education, how will the bottle-fed brats of the Bebo generation develop intellectually to the point where they might contribute to technological advancement, make scientific breakthroughs or add to the canon of Irish literature?

More prosaically, can we trust those with diluted qualifications to do their jobs properly? If a patient dies because of a doctor’s misdiagnosis or a bridge falls down because an engineer made a basic mistake with a set-square, will we be able to trace those disasters back to the awarding of inflated grades when they were leaving school?

These are questions I was hoping to answer with the aid of a statistical model of my own devising, but the strange thing is, my mathematical abilities just don’t seem to be up to it. And I thought I was an A-grade student."

Deborah Dowe, you are spot on!

Empower the Parents

7 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 12:51

Norman Dowe

Most of the attention given to improving academic performance has focused on the schools. Teachers and administrators are increasingly being held accountable for student performance. However, they are only one third of the educational triumvirate that also includes the parents and students. Grade inflation disempowers the parents. This is especially true for those who are at the lower end of the educational ladder themselves.

Poorly educated parents, who do not know what their child should be learning, are disempowered as advocates for their children by grade inflation. They are lulled into a false belief that their children are doing well and on the route to a better future than they have had. After all their children are doing so well academically. They don't push their children to do better. They don't challenge the teachers to do better. They don't challenge the administration to do better. They believe that everything is OK when in truth it is not. Their interests and the interests of their children are not served at all. Only the interests of the under performing educators and school systems are served. These people don't have to weather the cacophony of complaints that face bad educators in districts where parents know what should be taught.

If you want to invest in a business the SEC makes public companies tell the truth in their form 10-k's and other filings. If you want to buy a franchise the Federal Trade Commission makes franchisers tell the truth in their franchise disclosure documents. Don't parents deserve the same kind of protection from the educational establishment? Should they not be required to tell the truth about how students are actually performing?

Grade Inflation

6 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 10:10

G Daniels

Deborah, I believe your comment is very accurate and necessary.

There are none more formidable to personal and societal destruction than those who care more for your comfort than your character and knowledge.

Grade Inflation

5 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 08:40

Hope T.

Finally...this is spot on. I believe there is not only grade inflation, but grade manipulation. And it only hurts the students. Imagine how they feel when they get to college and out in the real world and find that they are unable to compete. It's a vicious and criminal cycle destroying society's future!

Truth In Grading

4 Monday, 05 April 2010 21:58

Nini J.

Deborah has a very strong and valid point.. a vile dis-service to our "future".. Our children in "our" classrooms.. taking it a step futher can you imagine the devastaion that must cause to the students personally; once they realize they cannot compete properly in the next phase of their lives?
Wow.. Thanks for bringing this to our attention..

Grading

3 Monday, 05 April 2010 20:28

Michelle Cox

Agreed, there should be more truth in grading. School districts should understand that an ill prepared high school student might be more likely to be a college drop out. Spending money on remedial classes is damaging to the wallet and a students self esteem.

GPA v SAT Scores

2 Monday, 05 April 2010 17:42

Roger Stryeski

I'm always amazed at the Honor Rolls that newspapers put out. They have the leading student from each, usually public schools. Then, I find the disparity between the GPA and their SAT score. I have seen 4.0's with under 1000 for the SAT.

"thruth in grading"

1 Sunday, 04 April 2010 11:55

A. Robert "Bob" Johnson

Deborah is "right on the money". Having taught at Hubbard JHS with her dad and retired from teaching math at Kean U. in 2002, I have seen "it all". It's not just the Plainfields that submit to grade inflation and subject their graduates to retaking essential courses, at their own expense. I Found many students from the "priviliged" districts had failed their placement tests in college algebra. For several years I taught what turned out to be a remedial course for area college students from Princeton, Brown, Wagner, Rutgers, etc., who had great grades from Westfield,Cranford, etc. Why? Grade inflation and teaching for the test are the likely answers.
The nation must do better for our children and grandchildren.
Thank you Debbie!
Bob Johnson

Historic Muhlenberg Hospital

Operating Pavillion