West Virginia University Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center Development

Support the School of Dentistry

Message from David (Dave) A. Felton, DDS, MS

As the new Dean of the School of Dentistry, I am honored to have been selected to lead WVU into the next decade of growth and evolution. Sue and I arrived in Morgantown on Sunday, August 14, and I began this journey as your new dean August 16. It has been, unquestionably, the best time in my academic career! I thank Chancellor Chris Colenda, President Jim Clements, and the Search Committee for placing their trust in me to lead the School into the future. I also thank Interim Dean, Louise Veselicky for her leadership over the past four years.

On September 8, I addressed the School of Dentistry in my first “State of the School” address. Given my very brief time at WVU (less than 4 weeks at that time), I took the opportunity to outline my vision for the School. I’d like to take this opportunity to share that vision with you at this time.

After a lengthy interview process, after attending the West Virginia Dental Association annual meeting at the Greenbrier, and after several weeks of intense meetings with the administrative Deans, Department Chairs, faculty, staff, and alumni, I was able to identify many of the issues that the School of Dentistry will face over the next few years. I heard reports of the School of Dentistry having an excellent group of students, a great group of clinical faculty who are highly dedicated to the students, a dedicated group of staff, and highly supportive alumni. I also found an inadequate infrastructure, inadequate space for growth and program development, antiquated facilities (in particular, the preclinical “simulation” lab), overworked and understaffed departments in both faculty and staff areas, and a lack of research and scholarship. I look at WVU as both a “diamond in the rough”, and as one of the “best kept secrets” in academic dentistry. While the alumni, faculty, staff, and students understand the level of the quality education WVU provides, outside of West Virginia, we’re basically not on anyone’s ‘radar’ in any arena. As such, I outlined ten (10) areas that I believe we must focus on over the next few years. Here they are:

1. Strategic Planning: The School of Dentistry has been challenged to re–structure its strategic plan, to be more in tune with the new Strategic Plans of both WVU and the Health Sciences Center. We have appointed a Strategic Planning committee, and will involve several alumni in this process–they begin the process anew on October 6.

2. Development: fund raising will be a key component of our growth at WVU, and I am asking each of you consider your role in this process. Since the State government is not filling our coffers as in previous years, we must think outside the box for fund raising initiatives. Since arriving, we have pledges of nearly $500,000 (some with matching funds from the WV Brain Trust), and others contemplating significant gifts.

3. Research/Scholarship: WVU currently ranks near the bottom of all dental schools in the amount of NIH/NIDCR funding. We even rank behind the Schools of Nursing and Pharmacy here in the Health Sciences Center. My favorite quote is that “if you’re not involved in research and scholarship, you’re teaching the history of your discipline”. We are directing our next wave of recruit efforts toward identifying clinician / scientists (DDS/PhD types) who can come to WVU and lead us into successful research initiatives. The Health Sciences Chancellor has allocated funding for six clinician/scientists over the next five years—this is in addition to the current faculty contingent we have. We will begin our recruitment efforts within the next month. Additionally, I am charging each new faculty hire with the prospect of raising the level of scholarship within the faculty ranks at the School of Dentistry. We must change the culture about the importance of both research and scholarship in order to lead, rather than follow, other schools of dentistry in the US.

4. Recruitment and retention, and development of both faculty and staff. We have several open full–time faculty and staff positions within the School, and are moving to fill those positions. Given the local area of Morgantown and all it has to offer, we feel confident that we can identity individuals who will help us move our initiatives forward. Key positions to be recruited for include a Graduate Director of Endodontics, and faculty position in Restorative Dentistry and Pediatric Dentistry. Future growth potential for the School demands that we recruit, and retain, the highest caliber of faculty available.

5. We must manage the School of Dentistry as a business, more so than merely as an academic institution. We must employ improved business models for the School to be successful. There are a number of ways in which to increase revenues, and we must begin to utilize them. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

a. Adopting best business practices for the SOD—raising revenues, and reducing costs

b. Raising tuition for both in–state and out–of–state students

c. Changing the in–state and out–of–state ratio for entering students

d. Increasing clinic fees

e. Lowering our operations costs

f. Producing more work in the clinics—being more efficient with clinic time, faculty deployment, student/faculty ratios in teaching areas, raising the benchmarks (requirements) for students, and others

g. Obtaining more funding (direct and indirect costs) from contracts and research grants

h. Increasing revenues with more robust Continuing Dental Education

i. “Growing” the foundation accounts in multiple areas, including increasing the number of endowed professorships and endowed chairs to enable us to be more competitive with faculty recruitment.

6. Facilities and infrastructure: this is perhaps the most pressing issue we currently face. We need an updated computer network, we need to fully implement Axium (Electronic Patient Record) over the next six months, and we need to renovate the pre–clinical dental simulation laboratory. We have revised our space plan for the School of Dentistry to look at future growth and development, and have determined that we need a new School of Dentistry building. Plans are moving forward for this to become a reality.

7. Alumni relations: our Alumni are key to our overall success, and we must improve the relationship and communication between the School and our alumni. I have contacted all Component Dental Society presidents and offered to meet with their groups to “share the vision, and the enthusiasm” that we have for our future with them. I’ve heard from six groups thus far, but plan on visiting all of them over the next 12 months.

8. Growth: With West Virginia leading the nation in childhood caries, periodontal disease, complete edentulism, use of smokeless tobacco by teens, and health care disparities, we need to “grow” the School of Dentistry to begin to address these issues. Right now, we are “land locked” in the current facility, with no hope of expansion—some programs have to use the facilities at night to have access to them. We desperately need to consider not only growth in our current specialty programs, but in developing programs in Pediatric Dentistry and in Periodontics. This cannot happen without a new facility. We have started the planning for a new dental school building, and I will keep you posted on our progress.

9. Inter–professional education and research—this is one of the key components of Strategic Plans for WVU in general, and of the Health Sciences Center. The opportunities are there, and it is up to us to address them. I envision dual degree programs between Dentistry and Education, Business, Public Health (in progress right now), and a DDS/PhD training program. There is more to come later on these exciting new initiatives that will give our graduates more opportunities than our competitors!

10. “Branding” WVU as Extraordinary! I firmly believe the WVU can be better than good, better than great, it can be Extra–ordinary! However, we must “brand” ourselves as a School of Dentistry that is unique among schools. I believe we can provide (with the facilities piece in order)

a. The highest level of clinical training for our students and residents, based on the best available evidence

b. Contemporary and cutting–edge skill sets (including digital imaging, CAD/CAM training, and other forms of digital dentistry instruction) for our students

c. The highest level of diagnostic skill training for our students

d. Competency based training and assessment for all aspects of our educational process

e. Training on the newest techniques, on the newest equipment, in a new facility

This will enable us to attract the “best and brightest” faculty, students, graduate residents, and staff to move WVU ahead over the next decade.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my vision with you, if even through this written format. I look forward to seeing each of you as I travel to you constituent dental societies, at the local tailgate parties, at the upcoming ADA meeting, at the annual session of the WV Dental Association, and elsewhere.

David (Dave) A. Felton, DDS, MS
Dean, WVU School of Dentistry

West Virginia University