A Message from the office of the dean
t will soon be a year since I joined Penn Dental Medicine as Dean, and it has been an enormously rewarding year for me. It is indeed an honor and a privilege to be part of such a preeminent institution with its wonderful history and outstanding faculty, students, staff, and alumni. I thank you all for your input, feedback, and support as I stepped into this role. I thank you all for your support as we undertake necessary change and look to new ways of advancing Penn Dental Medicine’s reputation of excellence in education, scholarship, and clinical care. Building on our strengths and meeting our challenges involves engaging the entire School community in an open exchange of ideas — listening and learning across academic disciplines, administrative departments, and internal and external audiences. All of you — Alumni, Overseers, Faculty, Students, Staff, Friends and Family — are a crucial part of that process as we examine where we are, set goals for where we want to be, and determine our path for achieving them. We want to hear your ideas — I can be reached at dean@dental.upenn.edu, and alumni, send us your input anytime at alumnifeedback@dental.upenn.edu. In this issue of the Journal, I hope you will also take a few minutes to complete the survey on alumni communications to help ensure we are providing interesting news from the School in the best format. While this year has involved a great deal of listening, learning, and planning, it has been an active academic year as well. In March, Penn Dental Medicine was part of a delegation to Beijing China, led by Penn President Amy Gutmann. We also went on to visit dental schools in Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan and hosted symposia in Taiwan and Korea as well, taking steps to advance the School’s global presence (see story, page 2). Within our School facilities, two projects — a new student admissions office and central patient registration center and a modern modular office area for faculty and staff — are scheduled for completion in July (see story, page 16). Work is proceeding also on the transition to electronic patient records and digital radiography in our teaching clinics, which will be in place over the summer. This year also brought a $3.2 million boost to our research activities through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (see story, page 10), and the final settlement of the historic estate gift of alumnus Louis Schoenleber (C’42,D’43) to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, totaling a record $17.3 million (see story, page 6). Finally, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Class of 2010. I wish you great success and happiness as you begin your dental careers, and I know your ties to Penn Dental Medicine will remain strong. As the first graduating class in my role as Dean, you are of special significance to me, and I look forward to hearing of your success. Stay in touch — my door is always open.
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Building on our strengths
Denis F. Kinane, BDS, PhD Morton Amsterdam Dean