F E AT U R E D
This is the first time that I have addressed you in the pages of this magazine as your dean ad interim – and I must say, it is an honor. I continue to be impressed not only by the caliber of our school’s alumni – I expected that, having observed your excellence as students and residents in my role as associate dean for academic affairs! – but also by the strength of the alumni community and your ongoing commitment to our school. Nowhere is that support more evident than in the recently completed three-year, $115 million Addition & Renovation Construction project. Before I dive into some of the details of this transformative project, let me just say that we could not have done this without you – without your support, your creative ideas, your philanthropic commitment. As alumni, you may not get the opportunity to use the new spaces and new technology on a day-to-day basis – but this project is just as much yours as it is our current students, residents, faculty, and staff’s. I think it’s safe to say that today our school is unrecognizable from its former self, in the best possible way. From the exterior – with a new modern façade that is finally aligned in look and feel to the innovative and cutting-edge work happening inside – to the state-of-the-art Patient Treatment Center and Simulation Learning Center, to the student-centered collaborative and learning spaces tucked throughout the building, our school has been transformed into a model facility for dental education and oral healthcare. As you know, we take great pride in the fact that GSDM was the first dental school in the country to implement a “fully digital” vision for providing oral healthcare to our patients and for educating our students. In part, that’s because we believe we must be ahead of the industry as a whole in order to ensure that we are educating students who will be leading practitioners in the digital dentistry era. It is not enough to educate our students on the techniques and technologies that are widely used in the industry today – we must educate them on the techniques and technologies of the future. Our newly renovated and expanded facility will support us in achieving this mission. In closing, thank you all so much for the support you have demonstrated for this project and for our school. The improvement and expansion of the school’s clinical facility ensures that we will be able to provide our patients – patients who often are among the most underserved populations in Boston – with the best oral healthcare possible while incorporating these advanced technologies into our clinical curriculum, maintaining the school’s position as a global leader in dental education. I am looking forward to welcoming you back to our school and to seeing your faces as you take in the remarkable changes. Cataldo W. Leone, DMD, DMedSc, FACD, FICD Dean ad interim
1