TRENTON, N.J. (AP) The New Jersey Legislature approved a bill overhauling the public university system on Thursday, capping weeks of intense behind-the-scenes negotiations and making numerous changes to the legislation to bring aboard hesitant lawmakers, labor leaders and academics by the governor's self-imposed June 30 deadline.

The bill disbands the University of Medicine and Dentistry and redistributes it to Rutgers and Rowan universities. Rowan, which was already preparing to open a medical school this year, would be given research-university status by the state and expected to start more intense health/science collaborations with Rutgers-Camden.

The measure now heads to Gov. Chris Christie, who proposed a version of the reorganization in January. Christie said he still supports the bill through its many revisions.

"I absolutely believe it should be done," he said on Townsquare Media's "Ask the Governor" radio program Thursday night. "It will be an enormous step forward for the state and the potential for Rutgers to get from good to great."

Rutgers' main governing body conditionally backed the revised plan earlier Thursday, after receiving assurances that it would retain authority over all of its campuses. Earlier versions of the bill diluted the board's academic and financial authority over its campuses in Camden and Newark; the new bill has only health sciences curriculum and projects at Camden and Rowan falling under oversight of a new board.

The board's backing helped ease passage of the consolidation bill.

The university's trustee board, which is mainly advisory, remains divided and did not take action Thursday. It has retained a lawyer and is threatening to sue.

Sen. Donald Norcross, a Democrat from Camden and one of the architects of the compromise plan, said he expects the trustees to agree once they know the details.

He said Rutgers will now stop treating its campuses in Newark and Camden as money-making operations and start funding them more fully. He said the Camden campus could take up three times as much space in a decade as a result of more state funding and better access to outside grants.

His brother Democratic powerbroker George Norcross III is also a supporter. George Norcross is chairman of the board of Cooper University Hospital, which has partnered with Rowan on the new medical school. The bill gives UMDNJ's osteopathic school to Rowan.

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Legislature passes NJ university overhaul