First Utah dental school breaks ground

Apr 14, 2010

The University of Southern Nevada (USN) broke ground April 14 on a 125,000-sq-ft five-story classroom, office, lab, and clinical building in South Jordan, UT, that will serve as the state's first dental school.

The university aims to enroll students in its doctor of dental medicine (D.M.D.) program in fall 2011. USN, a private, not-for-profit institution, already operates a pharmacy school at the site.

An anonymous donor pledged $30 million to build a dental school at the public University of Utah, but the university has held off starting the school because it wants the state to commit $2 million a year to fund it, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

USN expects to charge dental students about $50,000 a year and admit about 50 in the first class, increasing enrollment in subsequent classes to about 80, the Tribune reported.

Joined by Utah Lt. Gov. Greg Bell and South Jordan city officials at the groundbreaking ceremony, USN President Harry Rosenberg, Pharm.D., Ph.D., said the new school will offer an idiosyncratic curriculum modeled after an approach used in the university's other health schools.

"Rather than multiple courses and clinical experiences spread out over semesters or quarters, the curriculum is organized into blocks that allow students to focus on one subject at a time," Dr. Rosenberg stated in a press release. "Additionally, this system allows students to be taught by some of the world's most renowned experts."

The new school will be headed by Richard Buchanan, D.M.D., dean emeritus of the School of Dental Medicine at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Prior to joining the University at Buffalo, he served as dean and interim vice president at Baylor College of Dentistry at Texas A&M and held positions at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey Dental School and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

The USN College of Dental Medicine was established in 2007 at the university's Henderson, NV, campus. The college's first postdoctoral dental residency program, Advanced Education in Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics/Master of Business Administration, admitted its first residents in July 2008. The residency program is the first in the U.S. to require a master of business administration (MBA) degree, according to USN.