New administrative appointments
Admissions and International Affairs
In looking over our administrative structure, there were two areas I felt we needed to emphasize. The first was international affairs and the second was faculty administrative affairs. The School of Dentistry has a long standing program with the Kuwaiti governement for student training and recently the school initiated a program for foreign trained dentists to obtain a DDS degree in the International Dental Program (IDP). The school also plans to explore further training opportunities for international students. VCU has established many international partnerships and the School of Dentistry has been a participant in such programs. As you may know, VCU has a campus in Qatar at the Qatar Foundation’s Education City (www.qf.org.qa) along with Cornell University, Northwestern University, Carnegie Melon, Georgetown University and Texas A & M University. I was recently asked to submit information to Qatar about the School of Dentistry as the Qatar Foundation is exploring starting a dental program. With all of this international exposure, it was important to assign this work to one office. Thus, I am pleased to announce that Dr. Michael Healy has been promoted to Associate Dean for Admission and International Affairs and will now oversee all international programs and related work for the school. This will include supervision of the faculty director of the IDP, Dr. Riki Gottlieb. Dr. Gottlieb has recently moved her office to the Admissions Office and we are in the process of renaming that office suite.
Student and Administrative Faculty Affairs
I am also pleased announce the Dr. Carolyn Booker will now be the Associate Dean for Student and Administrative Faculty Affairs. Dr. Booker is currently the Associate Dean for Student Services and will continue in that role. Her position is being expanded to now include administration of faculty workplan and evaluation processes, dean’s office support for the promotion and tenure process, development and coordination of a faculty award and recognition programs, and coordination with faculty development offices. Dr. Booker has begun preliminary work with the School of Medicine to setup the dental faculty in the Faculty Activity Reporting and Evaluation System (FARES). FARES (http://www.medschool.vcu.edu/facultyaffairs/policies/performance.html) was created by the School of Medicine is now under review for expansion the entire university. It is well suited for all health sciences faculty and will be customized as needed for the dental faculty. This will provide a standardize platform for faculty, chairs and deans to establish work plans and record evaluations. This will be a major project for the school. I expect that Dr.Booker will be obtaining input from committees and departments to tailor the system for our needs.
Pediatric Dentistry & Children’s Hospital
As I recently announced, Dr. Teg Brickhouse is now our permanent Chair of Pediatric Dentistry. I want to thank Dr. Steve Lindauer, Chair of Orthodontics for chairing this search committee. I have great confidence in Dr.Brickhouse’s leadership. As of July 1, you likely have heard that the Children’s Hospital of Richmond is now under the corporate umbrella of the VCU Health System. The Department of Pediatric Dentistry has a long-standing relationship with Children’s Hospital and we anticipate expanding that relationship in the future. Beginning this year, we now have pediatric dentistry residents at Children’s Hospital as part of their training.
Categories Deans blog