Important announcement regarding the College of Dentistry Dean

David S. Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Health Affairs

After serving for 10 years as the Dean of the University of Florida College of Dentistry, Teresa A Dolan, D.D.S., M.P.H., has announced her intention to step down at the conclusion of the 2012-13 academic year. Boyd Robinson, D.D.S., M.Ed., Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs and Interim Chair of the Department of Restorative Dental Sciences, will serve as interim dean. A national search for a successor to Dr. Dolan will begin shortly.

Under her leadership, the past decade has been a period of great growth for the College of Dentistry despite the challenging economic conditions facing our state and nation. An established national leader in oral health research, the college also is well-recognized for the quality of its Doctor of Dental Medicine, graduate and dental specialty academic programs, and for its strong commitment to improving oral health and access to dental care in Alachua County and throughout Florida.

Dolan has served on the College of Dentistry faculty since 1989. She previously served as an associate director of a joint medicine and dentistry Geriatric Fellowship Program, and as the associate dean for education. She was appointed interim dean in 2002 and dean in 2003.

Dolan credits the commitment of the college’s outstanding faculty, staff and students and her strong administrative team as playing a critical role in all of the college’s accomplishments. She is appreciative of the strong support from the university administration, including President Machen, Provost Glover and Senior Vice President Guzick, as well as her talented and collaborative deans from across the UF campus. She also recognizes the important support of the college’s loyal and generous alumni and friends as well as the many corporations and foundations that support the mission of the college.

During the past decade, the college has remained in the top 10 of all U.S. dental schools for NIH/NIDCR support and is an internationally recognized leader in basic, translational and clinical oral health research. With the assistance of an NIH Research Infrastructure Enhancement Award in 2004, campus support and strong leadership from Dr. Bob Burne, the college greatly diversified and expanded its research programs, creating teams of basic and clinical scientists to bolster its capacity to conduct translational science. The college currently receives funding from a variety of NIH institutes as well as national organizations, such as the American Diabetes Association, the American Pain Society and the Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program.

In addition, the college’s academic programs remain in high demand, with more than 1,500 applications for the 83 positions in the Doctor of Dental Medicine program. With the implementation of holistic assessment of candidates, the college increased the diversity of its faculty and students. The college’s academic programs were successfully reaccredited in 2008 and will begin preparation for the 2015 site visit during the fall of this year.

Recognized as a strong advocate for dental education, Dolan is proud that UF is the third largest “feeder school” for dental candidates to all universities in the U.S. This reflects the strong positive collaboration between the College of Dentistry, the campus pre-professional advisors and the various pre-professional organizations on the UF campus. The college is also engaged in dental student recruitment and outreach throughout the southeastern United States, and developed a Summer of Learning program to assist in the recruitment of disadvantaged students to the dental profession.

Dolan is especially proud of the successful completion of the Florida Tomorrow campaign, which took place from 2005 to 2012. The College of Dentistry set a goal of $15 million in support of our teaching, research and service missions. The college’s component of the Florida Tomorrow campaign envisioned a future when dental caries is no longer the leading infectious childhood disease, where all Floridians have equal access to dental care, and a belief that excellence in dental care grows from excellence in dental education, scientific discovery and care delivery. By the campaign close, the college exceeded the goal by 22 percent ($3.45 million), raising a total of $18,351,270.

The largest gift in the history of the college, $5.6 million from the Naples Children and Education Foundation, supported the construction of the NCEF Pediatric Dental Center and the establishment of a nationally recognized satellite pediatric dentistry residency program in Naples, Florida. This program received the ADEA William J. Gies Award recognizing outstanding vision in support of dental education, and the Safety Net Solutions Center of Excellence award, both in 2012. Other significant gifts supported the relocation of the college’s Advanced Education in General Dentistry program to a new state-of-the-art clinical and educational facility on the St. Petersburg College Seminole campus, the renovation of the Robert E. Primosch Clinical Education Center, and the Center for Advanced Periodontology and Prosthodontics.

Dolan also set the stage for the transformation of the College of Dentistry Gainesville facility through the completion of a visioning and master planning exercise as the first step in the transformation of the facility into one that will better support the mission of the college. She especially appreciates the university funding of the master planning project as well as the significant renovation of the college lobby.

After spending a month with her family on a long-anticipated trip to Austria to visit her mother’s birthplace, Dolan will transition into a new professional opportunity as DENTSPLY’s vice president and chief clinical officer. In her new role, Dolan will provide strategic direction for global DENTSPLY professional education activities and will be actively engaging with businesses to support their clinical initiatives and strategies. She and her husband, Stan Given, plan to relocate to York, Pennsylvania, and her daughter Tori will attend college in the fall.