ADEA Awarded Grant to Increase Diversity Among Dental Faculty

ADEA Awarded Grant to Increase Diversity Among Dental Faculty

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A new $200,000 grant has

been awarded to the American Dental Education Association Minority

Dental Faculty Development (ADEA MDFD) program, to expand the program’s

existing critical efforts to improve diversity among populations of

dental students and faculty.

The new grant, awarded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, follows a $2.4

million grant to initially fund the ADEA MDFD program from 2004 to

2010. During the initial program phase, the grant embraced the “Grow

Our Own” concept, as previously recommended by the dental deans,

creating a partnership network of eleven universities and organizations

with the goal of increasing diversity in all student and faculty

populations, while developing leadership in new dental faculty.

“We must work together at a systems level to address the oral health

inequities among vulnerable children and families, and to do this, it’s

critical to increase the diversity of the pipeline of all allied oral

health professions,” says Dr. Alice Warner, program officer with the

W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “We are pleased to support the second phase of

the program to expand the program’s reach and include mid-level dental

providers in addition to dentists.”

Supporting the second phase of the ADEA initiative, this year’s funding

will extend additional support to two dental hygiene programs, one at

the University of Detroit Mercy and the other at Howard University. In

addition to the scope of the initial grant, ADEA will now support

recruitment and leadership training programs within dental hygiene at

these two schools, with the hope of sharing best practices, within the

context of team-based care, in partnering communities following the

term of the grant.

“There is a critical need to increase diversity in the dental team,”

says Jeanne C. Sinkford, D.D.S., Ph.D., Senior Scholar in Residence at

ADEA. “The beauty of this program lies not only in its impact upon

individuals, but also in its promotion of the kind of institutional

growth that fosters a sustained commitment to faculty diversity. We

hope that the models developed as a result will be replicated at other

schools on an international scale.”

The ADEA MDFD program’s mission grows from surrounding research showing

that minority patients are more likely to seek care from minority

dentists, and similarly, that practitioners from underserved areas

often return to those areas to practice. Just last year, those findings

inspired Growing Our Own: The ADEA Minority Faculty Development

Program: A Manual for Institutional Leadership in Diversity, a 126-page

publication identifying best practices to recruit and retain

underrepresented minority faculty.

“The ADEA MDFD program is a decidedly different part of the

multipronged approach ADEA has taken to alleviate the faculty

population crisis facing dental education,” says ADEA Executive

Director, Richard W. Valachovic, D.M.D., M.P.H. “The additional funds

for the second phase of the project will not only support ADEA in

addressing the severe shortage of underrepresented minorities within

the dental school faculty population, but also allow for key

partnerships with dental schools and allied health programs to improve

the lives of vulnerable children and communities.”

 

 

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