January 2010

Happy New Year to Everyone!

My wish to you is a prosperous and successfully 2010.

I would like to share a few “Dean’s Kudos” related to members of our Faculty.

Congratulations to:

• Dr. Cynthia Andrews and her IPHE Team of faculty and students in promoting the Interprofessional Experience.  A session for DDS1 & DH1 was held on October 14, 2009 with facilitators from DDS 4 and BDH students “high functioning and poor functioning team experiences”.  A session on November 12 with DH2 and DDS2 was entitled “Collaborative Dental Practice Among Dentists and Dental Hygienists”.  There are plans for two more sessions in 2010.  This is truly amazing and will definitely add to the educational experience for our students, as well as provide an excellent platform for launching into other health professions to learn “with, from and about” one another.  Well done!

• Our multi-participating research team in a CIHR Grant application for the Labrador Aboriginal Oral Health Intervention Project.  The team members are Martha Brillant, Debora Matthews, John Graham, Mary McNally, Barry Maze, Joanne Clovis, Darlene Wall, Peter Hornett, Ferne Kraglund, Greg Jones, Kathleen Benuen, J. Penashue and Debbie Martin. 

• Professor Terry Mitchell in her successful Alternative Practice Settings BDH 4003.03.  These endeavors will most certainly further our outreach profile and the spirit of community involvement. 
  i) Cancer Care Team – through Terry’s efforts with this endeavor, two free dental chairs were made available.
  ii) The chairs were used for Mount Hope and North End Community Health Center.
  iii) The Halifax Infirmary acute stroke unit, working with patients in the “post stroke” aspects of oral health care.
  

• The dental issues that arise and are identified by our oral health care team of Terry and the BDH students, along with Drs. Chris Lee, Ferne Kraglund and Cynthia Andrews have allowed solutions to happen.  This type of “Outreach” will continue to play a large part of the Faculty’s future mission.

• Dr. Michael Lee on his appointment as Acting Associate Dean for the Faculty of Graduate Studies, for one year – January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010.

• Ms. Kathy McInnis as our new Coordinator of Patient and Information Services.  Kathy will assume responsibility for Dental Stores operations, including student auxiliary fees systems; the expansion and implementation of the clinic electronic patient information system; and the establishment of a new accounting team.  We wish her well in her new position and look forward to her contributions to the clinic management team.

• Drs. Bannerman, Cleghorn and Mr. Bruce Moxley for their management of the entire H1N1 issues and making our lives stress free through this rather chaotic time.  Special thanks to Drs. Goodday and Anderson for ensuring our students doing rotations in the hospitals were accommodated with the scarce vaccines allowing their educational experiences to continue uninterrupted.

• Dr. Jack Gerrow for promotion of the non-patient based licensure examination at the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry and in being recognized by ADEA as the 2010 Gies Foundation Award Winner for “Outstanding Visions at an Academic Dental Institution”.  Dr. Gerrow will join Dr. Patrick Lloyd at the Annual ADEA Meeting and ADEA Gies Foundation Banquet to celebrate this great accomplishment.

• Dr. Reg Goodday for having his article “Diagnosis, Treating Planning and Surgical Correction of Obstructive Sleep Apnea” selected as Editor’s Choice for the September Journal of the American Association for Respiratory Care.

• Drs. Precious, Goodday, Morrison and Davis for receiving national press coverage in Viet Nam on their charity cleft lip and palate surgery program.  For the most recent update visit our website.

• Drs. Goodday and Gregoire for their involvement in November with an outreach mission in Newfoundland where they saw more than 50 patients requiring jaw reconstruction procedures.

• Dr. Ghiabi for receiving his Canadian citizenship last week.

• Dr. Burton Conrod, an outstanding alumnus and the first recipient of the Canadian Dental Association Medal of Honor.  This honor is considered to be the pinnacle award of the association and is conferred on an individual who has given extraordinary service to the profession and to the association resulting in significant change.  The award recognizes outstanding service, leadership and humanitarianism at the local, provincial, national and international level. 

• Drs. Precious, Goodday, Davis and Robertson, who will be taking part in a charity cleft lip and palate surgical mission in Tunisia during the week of February 15th.

It is anticipated that the Dalhousie Edition of the JCDA will be launched in April 2010.

I received a note from Dr. Alan Shaver, Vice President, Academic & Provost congratulating the Faculty on a job well done for the excellent achievement in our accreditation report and his best wishes for continued success.

These are the items I have been made aware and I am sure there are many, many, more activities and good news stories that I would be happy to share.  Please send them along to me and share them with Marilyn Klein our Communications Officer and Greta Rasmussen, Editor of the Newsletter and Alumni Anchor.

Updates on University Activities

Senate Academic Priorities and Budget Committee
- approved the development and renewal of Academic Programs
- moved to be approved by Senate a three tier process for Senate approval of academic programs
Tier I – Senate Review and Approval:   New Programs
Tier II – SAPBC Review and Approval:  Program Modifications and Terminations
Tier III – Faculty Review and Approval:  Minor Program Changes

This should streamline the process and for the most part save time and energy on the part of both parties.  An interesting part of the New Program Proposal will encourage alignment of Faculty and University strategies and academic plans.  The Concept Paper would allow Faculties to present a two page proposal for a new program to SAPBC for discussion and feedback.  Following receipt of the Concept Paper, SAPBC would meet with the Dean and program proponents to discuss the proposed program.

Soon the University will be exploring best practices and a template for annual reports.  I will keep you abreast of this development.  Our annual report should be available in the next few weeks with a new splash of color and activities to support the written report.

The Senate Unit Review (External Reviewer) Dr. Daniel Haas, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto was here on January 14th and 15th.  I want to thank everyone who participated.  I know this has been a long process.  On Friday I was given an oral report and all indications are that the report should be very favorable.

The most recent BAC Report for 2010-2011 budget model will be released next month.

The new MOU will not occur until 2011-2012 academic year.  The impact of pension shortfall from the market crash will be most likely have an impact at that time if actions aren’t taken.  Therefore the 2011-2012 academic year has the potential for a “Perfect Storm” scenario.  The university senior administration is working hard to avoid this scenario by speaking with unions re:  pension issues; and speaking with government re:  MOU and tuition increases and exploring how to reduce the impact of the Pension Fund Shortfall.  I’ve been working with all the Deans and Managers, in particular, Dr. Cleghorn, Bruce Moxley and Mike Conrad reviewing all of our options to ensure we maximize all areas to protect our bottom line.  Where there is room to maneuver we will take steps to help reduce the impact of any potential budget cuts.

The university is in the process of standardizing a Student Ratings of Instruction Instrument and our Faculty will probably be the “test” or pilot Faculty to test the new system.

President Traves has encouraged Deans to create a Honorary Degree Committee to ensure there are more submissions to the Senate Honorary Degrees Committee. Dr. John Lovas has agreed to chair the newly formed Dentistry Committee; and will be sending requests for submissions for our Centennial Year 2012.  I encourage you to make a submission to the committee.  Help make our 100th Anniversary a huge success.

The Campus Master Plan is available for your review at www.campusplan.dal.ca and you are encouraged to review this plan.

Starting in the 2010-2011 academic year a new Fall “Study Day” will be implemented.  It would be scheduled on the day following November 11th.  However Faculties such as ours who run a Dental Hospital will be able to ask for special consideration in order to prevent a disruption in delivery of oral health care to our patients.

I would like to inform you about our Alumni activities.  In November we had a New Brunswick blitz.  Jen Laurette, our Development Officer and Kelly Maher, our Manager of Alumni Affairs and Continuing Education and I hosted Alumni Receptions in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton.  In all we had over 60 alumni in attendance.  It was delightful to share news, stories and revisit days gone by as well as bring the message of our successes, accomplishments and future plans such as the 100th Anniversary and the Capital Campaign.
 
As well, since our last meeting we held a Christmas/Holiday Family Alumni Reception here at the Faculty in early December.

This has been a tremendous year of events and activities with faculty, alumni  and friends.  In total we have over 26 different events which have allowed us opportunities to highlight various activities and accomplishments as they relate to our Faculty Mission.

It has been a pleasure to represent this Faculty and we are continuing to plan for 2010.

The Capital Campaign is still in the leadership or quiet phase.  The intent is to raise $160 of the $240 million before we go public and at this stage we are at $140 million.

Having said that we will begin our Faculty phase soon.  All of the senior administration and the Deans have made their commitment and honored our pledges.  Jen Laurette and I will soon work with faculty and staff to create the Faculty Capital Campaign Strategy.

I look forward to this adventure and maintain we will be very successful.

I will close with some inspiration that sets the tone for us.  A Kennedy quote:

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.  Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one which we intend to win.”

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