New scholarships for minority students
|
Posted Sept. 14, 2006 |
By Stacie Crozier In a collaborative effort between the ADA Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 10 minority dental students at five dental schools will receive scholarships through a new $175,000 fund established by the ADA Foundation.
 Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry, Nashville, Tenn.; University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry, San Francisco; University of Illinois at Chicago School of Dentistry; University of California at San Francisco School of Dentistry; and Howard University College of Dentistry, Washington, D.C., will award two four-year scholarships through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pipeline, Profession and Practice: Community-Based Dental Education program. Individual schools will administer their scholarship awards.
"We are excited about our role in helping to increase the number of underrepresented minority students in dental schools," said Dr. Arthur A. Dugoni, president of the ADA Foundation and dean emeritus, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. "We believe our scholarship fund will help encourage more African-American, Hispanic and American Indian students to pursue a career as a dentist and ultimately impact the delivery of oral health care services in their chosen communities."
The goals of the RWJF dental education project are to expand dental schools' capacity for recruiting and retaining more low-income and minority students, revise dental school curricula to include more public health and behavioral health course work, and better prepare students to serve vulnerable populations by providing up to 60 days of experience in communities of greatest need.
"We are thrilled that the ADA Foundation has honored this program with such a generous contribution," said Judy Stavisky, senior program director at the RWJF. "We are confident these awards will expand opportunities for many minority students to seek a career in dentistry. Many minority students have attended schools where the emphasis on math, science and presentation skills is uneven. The RWJF Summer Medical and Dental Education Program is a rigorous reinforcement of those skills and we know of several students who would not have been able to participate without the scholarship funds."
The criteria that the National Program Office of the Dental Pipeline Project used to select dental school grantees, Ms. Stavisky added, includes those dental pipeline schools that have demonstrated significant improvement in the recruitment of underrepresented students, within the context of a fair geographic distribution of those schools.
"The ADA is extremely pleased to collaborate with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in helping to open more dental educational opportunities for minority college students," said Dr. James B. Bramson, ADA executive director. "In addition to the inherent value of promoting greater diversity within the dental profession, these scholarships will serve as building blocks in helping broaden the access to oral health care services."
Dr. Darryl Pendleton, associate dean for Student and Diversity Affairs at UIC College of Dentistry, says the new scholarships are something his institution "is really excited about.
"These scholarships will be beneficial to both the college and the students who receive them," Dr. Pendleton said. "Increasing cost is something we are really concerned about and this will enable students to plan financially for their education and their future and to help reduce their debt after dental school."
|
