FY2006-2007
STATE OF THE SCHOOL

A REPORT BY
DEAN HAROLD C. SLAVKIN

“If one wishes to distinguish leadership from management or administration, one can argue that leaders create and change cultures, while managers and administrators live within them.”

Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1997.

Dear Colleagues:

It is again time to take stock and reflect on what was, what is and what could be on behalf of the School of Dentistry. I wish to start by highlighting our shared accomplishments (2006-2007), and then to explore where we hope to go over the next five years.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

I.   Improvements/enhancements over the past year in the area of undergraduate education

• A new minor to prepare bioengineering, predental, premedical and biological sciences undergraduates to enter the dental biotechnology industry as well as to introduce them to recent innovations in craniofacial sciences and therapies. The minor requires a minimum of 20 units. To begin in Fall 2007.

• A new minor in Occupational Science that has been designed to complement and enhance majors in Anthropology, Theater Arts, Engineering, Architecture, Gerontology and English and Communications. The minor requires 20 units. It started in 2006-2007. See http://www.usc.edu/schools/ihp/ot/programs/minor/.

• A new Progressive “Masters in Public Health” Degree for dental hygiene/public health has been approved and this will start in Fall 2007.

• Retention and graduation rates for the B.S. Dental Hygiene degree are 95%. Success on National Board Examination is 100%. Success on licensure examinations is >94% on first attempt. Employment is essentially 100% of those seeking employment as dental hygienists. These successes reflect admission selections and favorable faculty/student ratio, close mentoring, and effective ongoing assessments and evaluations.

II.   Improvements/enhancements in the area of graduate (both professional masters and Ph.D. programs) education

• Improvement exemplars include student applicant pool (e.g. 3,121 applicants for 144 freshman positions in the DDS Program)
  
  
• Student performance on National Boards (top quintile on Part 1, National Dental Board;
  
  
• 89.5% OT students pass National Boards versus 87% national average)

• DDS student success on licensure examinations (>94% on first attempt of WREB, Western Regional Dental Board)
  
  
• Increased student participation in biomedical research (Student Research Day)
  
  
• Increased student participation in national leadership positions (i.e., 3 DDS students recently elected to ADEA Council of Students) and student volunteerism for local and international community outreach efforts “beyond” what is required within the DDS, PT and OT curriculum.

III.   Improvements/enhancements in attracting, retaining, and developing outstanding faculty

• We successfully recruited Francisco Valero-Cuevas as a joint appointment with the Viterbi School of Engineering; Francisco formally begins in September 2007. He is a world-class “star” in the field of hand motion from molecular to rehabilitation. He is also an exemplary role model for cultural diversity.

• Another exemplar is our recruitment efforts to increase underrepresented minority faculty appointments. For example, from 2004-2006, six out of seven new hires in one of our seven Divisions (Health Promotion, Risk Assessment, Disease Prevention and Epidemiology) have been African American and Hispanic American faculty.

• Less than 1 year ago, we recruited Songtao Shi to join our faculty and since then he has submitted and received two NIH grant awards (R01 and R21) that reflect his talent and the superb mentoring from his colleagues at the Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology (especially Professor Yang Chai).

• Several tenure-track/tenured faculty have been promoted by the University including Yang Chai (Professor), Ilan Rotstein (Professor), Michael Paine (Associate Professor) and Janet Oldak (Associate Professor)

• Exemplars of outstanding faculty who have been mentored and retained at USC include Malcolm Snead (nanotechnology strategies for growth of bones and teeth), Yang Chai/Michael Melnick/Tina Jaskoll (signal transduction networks and facial birth defects), Anh Le (chemoprevention for oral cancers), Casey Chen/Homa Zadeh/Bill Costerton/Steve Goodman (chronic microbial infections and host immunity), Michael Paine/Janet Oldak (protein-protein interactions mediate biomineralization).

• Faculty scholarship continues to increase. Exemplars during 2006-2007 include:
  
  Yang Chai (6 major publications); Winston Chee (10 publications); Songtao Shi (11 major publications); Bill Costerton (4 publications and 1 book —“The Biofilm Primer”); Jane Forrest and Jacqueline Dylla (design and creation of a pod cast “Fit to Sit” delivered via USC iTunes U Website related to physical therapy and dental hygiene coupled with 6 peer-reviewed publications and foundation grant support). More publications were submitted and published by faculty last year than in any previous year for Dentistry per se as well as for the Divisions of OT and PT. Exemplars for Occupational Science; for example, include 22 articles and 18 book chapters.

• Major research grant and contract activity for the School of Dentistry (including PT and OT) has been sustained at just under $14 million per year with sustainable strength around the themes of craniofacial molecular biology/human genetics, chronic microbial infection and multiple areas within biokinesiology & physical therapy (e.g. infant feeding disorders, stroke and rehabilitation, athletic injuries to female athletes) and occupational science (e.g. occupational therapy for stroke patients, gerontology, and lifestyle design or re-design).

• Faculty from the School of Dentistry continue to engage in interdisciplinary research with engaged faculty from Education, Medicine, CHLA, Engineering, Gerontology and LAS. Educational research around learner-centered education, biofilms and chronic microbial infections related to pulmonary diseases/disorders and ear infections, head and neck cancer, head and neck birth defects, ergonomics, sleep apnea (Engineering, Dentistry and Medicine) and “game theory” applied to learner-centered education/PBL (Dentistry, Engineering and Cinema). Many of these innovative collaborations are aligned with Provost Initiatives around Nanobiotechnology, Clinical and Translational Research, Distant Learning, and University/Industry or Foundation Partnerships.

IV.    Financial performance and operational efficiency and effectiveness

• Since 2004 the revenues from Continuing Dental Education have essentially tripled under the leadership and guidance of Professor Ilan Rotstein. This current year (2006-2007), CE revenues increased 60% over last year ($2.2 million) and reflected 3,000 “learners” enrolled from USA and 20 countries taking 75 courses (e.g. lectures, symposia, “hands-on” courses). One of these courses “Leadership and Management Executive Certificate Program for the Dental Professional” is a seven month course and is offered in collaboration with the Marshall School of Business. We also have offered 7 new “On-Line” Courses made possible by collaborations with Suh-Pyng, Lynn Goodnight and their team at TEL-DL. This is a growing revenue source.

• We also have focused on increasing revenues from the Redmond Imaging Center and this year Redmond will generate 42% more revenues than last year due to the leadership of Dr. Sig Abelson. The Redmond along with the Oral Health Center and the Center for Dental Technology were all created to become revenue centers.

• We also continue multiple strategies to improve student/resident dental clinics at USC. These clinics serve both educational and patient care benefits. Since 2004 these revenues have increased by more than 44% despite a number of IT problems.

• IT infrastructure under the leadership of Mike Melo and recent subvention financial assistance from Provost Nikias have enabled major improvements for security and business continuity that will significantly enhance clinic revenue management and increases throughout all clinic venues related to the School of Dentistry.

• We have just completed a Feasibility Study to build a new building adjacent to the Norris Dental Science Building that will serve Continuing Professional Education (two floors), faculty offices, seminar rooms, student lockers, and community lounge area. In addition, we have also planned a complete renovation of the 4th floor of the Norris Dental Science Building to be dedicated to biomedical research. We have designed a fundraising campaign to raise $52.2 million ($32.1 million for new building and $20 million for research infrastructure) and seek official University approvals. This is a major goal for 2007-2008 and beyond. These renovations are critical to the future of the School of Dentistry in that they translate into significant return on investment from fulltime CE courses offered throughout the week and sponsored biomedical research for many decades to come.

• The DDS, Dental Hygiene and Dental Residency Programs within the School will be reviewed for Accreditation by the Commission on Dental Education in April 2008. We are completing a major “self-study,” an updated Strategic Plan “Shaping the Future” (2007-2012), a major curriculum revision (content, sequence and external service-learning venues), and select operational changes or modifications. This is another major goal for 2007-2008.

V.      School of Dentistry participation in the new Provost initiatives

The School of Dentistry is aligned with the strategic plan of our parent University--learner-centered education, research of significance to the larger society, and globalization. We are also keen to align with Provost initiatives as appropriate and have pursued increasing cultural diversity among faculty and students, continuing professional education, distant learning, clinical and translational research (with Tom Buchanan’s  efforts), stem cell research, university/industry partnerships (e.g. USC and IDEA, Inc around the use of haptics in dental education and oral health), and continued support of the Urban Deans Council and opportunities related to immigration and health disparities.

The participation by members of our Trojan Dental Community has been remarkable and together we have made real progress. We now look to the future.

 LOOKING FORWARD - 2007-2012:

In order to achieve our shared goals, we must improve our physical infrastructure: 

• A “dental campus” at USC must be constructed that enables world-class education, innovation and discovery, patient and community health, and leadership.
  
  
• Additional physical space is needed to enable education spanning from undergraduate learning through professional school and continued over the entire career lifetime of health professionals.
  
  
• Additional physical space is needed to provide quality of life for learners.
  
  
• Additional physical space is needed to enable world-class translational and clinical research.
  
  
• We must protect and enhance the “USC Dentistry” brand name to always reflect academic and clinical excellence, integrity and professionalism.

           
To address some of these needs, the School has three critical capital project goals to be achieved over the next five years:

• Complete renovation of the DDS Clinics (Rex Ingraham Clinics) on the second floor of the Norris Dental Science Building.  This effort includes 152 new operatories and  physical infrastructure (i.e., electrical, compressed air, water, lighting) [our efforts started in late January 2007 and as of May 2007, we have raised  $1.5 million towards our $4.3 million target]

• A new four-story building to house The Pacific Rim Center for Continuing Health Professional Education, a 500-seat auditorium for learning, a surgical suite for live patient demonstrations, a simulation laboratory for “hands on” Continuing Education, space for faculty offices, space for a community lounge, and space for student storage and amenities (estimated at $32.1 million for 41,730 gross square feet)

• A major renovation of the entire fourth floor of the Norris Building to contain in part a Center for Chronic Infection and Biofilms (estimated at $20 million for 20,420 gross square feet).

In tandem, we have many opportunities to enhance our academic programs and the performance outcomes:

• We are revising the curriculum (content and sequencing) to better structure the first two years of the DDS Program with increased student preparations and assessments for clinical dentistry that will enable comprehensive patient care and competency-based dental education while we discard the often fragmented procedure-based model of the past.

• We are revising our programs and designing management processes that can enhance student completion of all of their competencies (competency-based dental education) and breadth and depth experiences (rotations) well before graduation so that they can engage in selective learning (e.g. surgery, orthodontics, endodontics, prosthodontics, periodontics, pediatric dentistry, public health dentistry, research, CAD-CAM restorative dentistry, patient management, international programs) before they graduate.

• We are strengthening our efforts to ensure performance-based evaluations for all faculty, staff and students.

• We are committed to quality assurance programs and improving information technology to optimize information management.

• We are working to increase our industry and foundation partnerships that will enhance translational and clinical research as well as our signature community outreach programs.

The next five years are filled with opportunities and we are positioned to continue to shape the future for the USC School of Dentistry. How can YOU as a member of our community (faculty, staff, and students) participate?

• Your continued counsel and guidance
  
  
• Your professional, emotional and financial support
  
  
• Your recruitment of prospects (friends, grateful clients or patients) who may consider investing in our future
  
  
• Your active participation as ambassador for our USC School of Dentistry
  
  
• Your continued willingness to help in select operations and academic programs
             
  Thank you for your continued support, guidance and friendship!

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