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Dr. Connie Drisko Steps Down After 10 Years as Dental Dean: Challenges, Accomplishments, and Goals on the Horizon As Dean and Merritt Professor of the College of Dental Medicine at Georgia Regents University (AKA the Medical College of Georgia, then Georgia Health Sciences University), Dr. Connie L. Drisko oversaw an increase in student enrollment from 60 to 80 individuals per class and directed the funding, design, and construction of a $112 million, 5-story, 269,000-square-foot clinical facility that opened in 2011. She is leaving her role as dean on July 1, although she will remain with the school and pursue multiple special projects. Dr. Drisko spoke with GDA Editor Dr. David Bradberry in March about the challenges faced by dental schools nationwide, how GRU and the Augusta community have built bridges, and the special characteristic that identifies GRU dental graduates.
GDA: What challenges face dental schools that desire to thrive in today’s climate? Dr. Drisko: Schools faced a huge challenge a few years ago with recruiting and retaining faculty, but over the last 10 years, I believe the primary challenge for most dental schools has been balancing increasing costs against decreasing resources and support, and running dental schools more like businesses. For instance, state financial support for Georgia Regents University (GRU) has decreased, so the university must constantly identify new resources and be much more innovative and discriminating in the way we use the money we do have. The GRU College of Dental Medicine (CDM), for instance, has only seen a minimal increase in state support over 10 years, but our operating costs have almost tripled. So the College has been forced to make up almost $20 million by bringing in money from clinics, tuition, and research. This financial pressure is requiring all deans and all dental schools, whether they’re public or private, to be extraordinarily good at managing money.
Another challenge facing already cash-strapped schools is how to handle infrastructure and equipment improvements. Since the economy’s been depressed for so many years, universities have not been able to replace or renovate their dental schools. There are a lot of dental facilities, like our old school was, that were built in the 1960s and have had very little done to them. Many schools are being forced to patch up buildings with semi-satisfactory renovations because they don’t have the money to build or replace older facilities. Dental schools are particularly concentrating on creating simulation labs. If you don’t have a simulation lab in today’s world, students won’t come to your dental school. So many students scrutinize facilities now before they commit, and they’re not as likely to go to beat-up, worn-down schools. They want something that looks clean, neat, and cool.
GDA: Has the competition to recruit dental students changed during your tenure? How successful has GRU been in recruiting dental students? Dr. Drisko: I think students primarily make their schooling decision based on reputation and cost. We have some issues to overcome with our school reputationwise because we’re on our third name in 10 years and we have to re-identify ourselves to people outside of Georgia who don’t realize that we’re the old MCG. We only had the GHSU name for a couple of years. We have to re-brand ourselves again. We’re still the fantastic school we’ve always been, but people may not recognize us. GRU was asked recently to open up our dental school to non-state residents. This is a dilemma because we still have four-and-a-half to five students within the state for every slot we offer, so we send 80something students out of Georgia to go to
Dr. Connie L. Drisko will step down as dean of the College of Dental Medicine within Georgia Regents University on July 1. During her 10 years as dean, Dr. Drisko oversaw major expansions in student enrollment and directed the funding, design, and construction of a $112 million, 5-story, 269,000-squarefoot clinical facility that opened in 2011.
dental school because we cannot accept all qualified students into our school. We will get up to 100 slots eventually, probably by 2017, to help address that. I am seeing more and more competition to recruit under-represented students because some wealthy private schools are able to offer under-represented students four-year scholarships. We accept many highly qualified under-represented students, but they get lured away with scholarships. The most urgent need I see at the CDM is for scholarship money. We need endowed scholarship funds and that’s going to be a focus of our fundraising in the future. Who is going to take on $150,000 to $200,000 in debt when they can attend another dental school for free?
DRISKO Continued on page 14
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GDA ACTION JUNE 2013