College of Dentistry | University of Florida
Dean Teresa A. Dolan

Message from the Dean

Dean's Update

I will be writing and sending regular updates to the college to keep everyone apprised of good news, changes, challenges and events. I hope you’ll enjoy hearing from me and, if you have something you think needs to be shared, please send me an email and let me know.

Florida Dental Education Proposals

The State University System of Florida Board of Governors is currently considering proposals to expand dental education in the state of Florida. At the request of the Board of Governors, these proposals have undergone revisions which you can peruse below. The UF College of Dentistry is taking a collaborative role in the updated UCF and Florida A&M proposals.

Board of Governors Presentation

In the interest of providing the board with the College of Dentistry's perspective and experience, I spoke at the Board of Governors meeting on June 22–23, 2011. In my talk, I went over the college's history and current status, as well as statewide and national trends in dentistry and dental education. Some of the points I touched on:

  • The upward trend in student loan debt and dental school tuition in the U.S., as well as the increase in the college's operating budget;
  • The sources of our financial support, and how we increasingly rely on clinical revenues, contracts and grants to meet our needs;
  • The cyclical nature of the demand for dental education, as measured by numbers of dental school applicants;
  • The ways in which the college has improved access to dental care across the state of Florida, especially for low income and special needs patients;
  • How the college facilitates diversity in our dental education programs;
  • The opportunities and economies of scale offered by expansion of an existing dental program.

You can view the presentationOpens in a new window online.

College of Dentistry in Focus

The University of Florida College of Dentistry is one of six health science colleges that make up the J. Hillis Miller Health Science Center. The college is Florida's only public dental school and serves as the dental safety net for Florida's low-income residents, providing nearly 10 percent of all indigent dental care to Florida's residents through comprehensive, state-of-the-art clinical services.

We are particularly proud of the achievement of our students. In 2008, the college graduated its 33rd class of D.M.D. students; 97 percent of these new dental graduates passed the Florida Dental Licensure Exam on the first attempt, and more than 95 percent of them will remain in Florida to practice. In addition, the Class of 2008 proved the continuing quality and dedication of UF dental students by achieving a 100 percent pass rate on the National Boards Part II exam!

Since its first class of 24 D.M.D. students was admitted in 1972, the college has graduated 1,940 dentists. Advanced and graduate education at the college has produced more than 720 dental specialists, and has grown from six programs with an enrollment of 36 in 1979, to 16 accredited programs with an enrollment of 108 students in 2005. The approximately 83 dental students who will be enrolled as the Class of 2013 this August will be chosen from a pool of more than 1,400 top-notch applicants.

The college enjoys a growing national reputation for its oral health research enterprise, emphasizing infectious diseases in dentistry, bone biology, pain and neurosciences, and translational research, including practice-based studies to improve clinical dental care. Total sponsored research in the college more than $16 million in 2005, ranking the college No. 4 out of 56 dental schools in terms of federal funding for research.

The overall excellent reputation of the College of Dentistry places it among the top in the country and very competitive in attracting excellent faculty. Despite a nationwide shortage in dental faculty, 22 new faculty members were recruited to the college in 2005.

A diverse group of 135 oral health clinicians, researchers and educators make up the college's full-time faculty. About 62 percent are tenure track or accruing faculty, and non-tenured faculty consists of clinical professors dedicated to hands-on student education and patient care or research scientists exploring the limits in basic science research to advance translational and clinical dental science.

In addition, college faculty is enriched with the expertise of 26 part-time faculty members and a clinical courtesy faculty of 340 volunteer community dentists. The core of the college's successes is this combined faculty, which carries on the college's pursuit of excellence in patient care, research and education.

Best wishes,

Teresa A. Dolan, D.D.S., M.P.H.
Professor and Dean, College of Dentistry
University of Florida

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