Teresa Dolan stands tall as new dean of dentistry

Don’t let her 5-foot stature fool you. College of Dentistry Dean Teresa A. Dolan, D.D.S., M.P.H., has a big personality with a broad vision for the college.

She also has a knack for finding the right answers to the important questions of life in academic and public service.

“One of my favorite faculty mentors during my fellowship with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health services research program would write ‘So what?’ in big red letters at the top of my research idea submissions,” Dolan laughed. “His point was, if you can’t answer the ‘so what’ question, there’s no point in doing the research.”

Since joining the college in 1989 as an assistant professor, she’s demonstrated her ability to answer the ‘so what’ questions to build collaboration through consensus. As dean, Dolan will now have the chance to put those skills to the test as she works with different constituencies to bring her vision for the college’s future into reality.

“I think the reality is that the state is not going to increase support for dental schools, so we have to be entrepreneurial, creative, hardworking and productive,” said Dolan, who envisions a five-year goal of fully implementing the college’s strategic plan to assure the college stays on track to success. “We’ve already come a long way, especially in terms of physical plant,” she said.

Dolan believes expansion and renovation of physical plant will facilitate growth in research and expand educational opportunities.

More than $9 million has been spent over the past seven years on classroom, clinic and laboratory renovations. But the college’s desire to expand classrooms and student clinics for a larger Doctor of Dental Medicine (D.M.D.) class and increase lab space to accommodate its burgeoning research enterprise is stymied by space constraints.

As a professor and former associate dean for education, Dolan is dedicated to continuing the college’s pursuit of excellence in education. In her role as the college’s associate dean for education, Dolan helped enact curriculum revisions through a process of self-examination and renewal for the college that, while at times painful, has greatly improved the quality of UF’s D.M.D. educational program.

Dolan is proud of the continuing work of the college’s curriculum committee to enhance academic programs and curriculum to achieve a sustained level of national excellence. She points to the high caliber of the college’s entering and graduating students as indicators that progress is real.

Every member of the class of 2003 passed the National Dental Board Part II exam this spring. This year 82 students were selected from 650 applications for admission into the college’s D.M.D. program.

They are among the top predental students in the nation, and admissions increasingly reflect the multicultural diversity representative of Florida’s population — 38 of the college’s 2003 entering D.M.D. students are women, and more than one-third of the class lists themselves as ethnic minorities, Dolan said.

Dolan feels the key to growth in research is to recruit outstanding faculty to focus on core research initiatives, such as infectious diseases in dentistry, bone biology, pain and neurosciences, and translational research to improve approaches to clinical dentistry.

Her challenge will be to find creative strategies to house new faculty and their labs. With the college ranked No. 7 in National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research funding in 2001 and 2002 and continued growth in research predicted, it seems likely finding new lab space will be a priority.

Service to Florida through care for indigent, underserved and medically compromised residents remains an important part of the college’s strategic plan. One of the top providers of low-cost dental care to indigent residents through its Statewide Network for Community Oral Health, the college owns three clinics (in Jacksonville, St. Petersburg and Hialeah) and partners with 12 others to provide affordable dental care to 2.2 million indigent residents. The newest additions to the network are the Hillsborough Community College and St. Petersburg College dental clinics, which will provide dental care to low-income residents of the Tampa Bay area.

Dolan’s career has focused on dental care for the elderly. Dolan earned diplomate status from the American Board of Dental Public Health in 1994 and is nationally known for her research in geriatric dentistry. She is also active in lobbying efforts on elder dental-care issues, most recently testifying as a representative of the American Association of Public Health Dentistry before the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging. She spoke about ageism in health care and the specific dental needs and issues facing the nation’s elderly.

Advocacy for dental care and education is a big part of Dolan’s professional ethic and a responsibility she feels very comfortable fulfilling at both the national and state levels.

“It’s part of my job, helping people understand the ‘so-what’ questions. Really, it’s being a teacher, educating people on why your issue is important and why they should invest their scarce resources in addressing the issue and why that will make a difference,” Dolan said. “I view advocacy as a service, helping legislators make good decisions about how they allocate resources. As a taxpayer, I don’t want them wasting money. I want them to make good investments.”

With high hopes and a willingness to place her nose to the grindstone, Dolan acknowledges the fact that the college faces significant forces that will shape its future. These include coping with the national shortage of faculty, diminishing state funding and evolving educational technology. Focusing on the future with characteristic optimism, Dolan looks at change as a door to opportunity.

“There are so many opportunities we have yet to explore,” Dolan said. “I think we’ve just touched on the surface of research and education collaborations with different schools, both here in the Health Science Center and elsewhere.”

Opening doors to opportunities has been a way of life for Dolan, who, as a girl growing up in Jersey City, N.J., during the ’60s and early ’70s, never thought of herself as a future dentist, much less the dean of a dental college.

“At the Catholic high school I attended, you (as a woman) were either going to go on after graduation to become a nun, a teacher or a librarian. Those were the expectations,” Dolan said. “It wasn’t like I had a school career counselor to help direct me.”

Fortunately, math and science always came easily for Dolan, and she had an inborn sense of her own potential coupled with a desire to do something with her life that would make a difference in the lives of others.

“I know this probably sounds cliché, but I’ve always been attracted by the helping aspects of medicine and health professions,” she said. By her third year as an undergraduate, Dolan’s career path decision came down to choosing between medicine and dentistry, but the illnesses of her paternal grandfather and her mother’s stepfather tipped the scales.

“Two of my grandfathers had oral cancer, and that made a big impact on me. It really placed dentistry in the forefront of why oral health is so important,” Dolan said. “Once I made my decision, I moved forward and have never regretted it.”

Dolan earned her doctorate in dental surgery from the University of Texas and a master’s degree in public health from the University of California at Los Angeles. She continued her education by earning certificates in general dentistry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, in geriatric dentistry at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Sepulveda, Calif., and in dental public health at UF.

While in California, Dolan met her husband, Stan Given. “Stan and I met at UCLA while I was a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program and Stan was finishing his M.B.A.,” Dolan said.

They met in March of 1986 and were married the following December. Of their whirlwind courtship, Dolan said with a beaming smile, “Well, when you meet the right guy, you know it!”

They became parents to daughter Victoria in April of 1995.

Family is important to Dolan, and she credits her professional success with the support she receives from her family. “Without the strong support of my husband and daughter, I simply would not be able to do this job,” Dolan said.

“Stan and I work a lot, but we make an effort to find time away that’s not work. One of the best things we’ve done was to buy a house four years ago on Longboat Key,” she said. “Whenever we need quiet family time, we pack up the car and we go down there. It’s such a peaceful environment, and the rule is we don’t take work with us.”

Boating, beaching and kayaking are the agenda items during weekends at the family’s retreat, but they also enjoy snow skiing every February in Utah with friends.

Dolan keeps a busy schedule. As dean, she is the figurehead and fountainhead for nearly every college initiative, and her presence and attention are in great demand. She manages her schedule like a military strategist, yet always takes time to genuinely listen, no matter how pressed she may be.

Dolan’s long-time colleague and friend, Marc Gale, D.M.D., director of student affairs, believes Dolan is a “woman for all seasons.” “Terri has the vision and understands the college’s research, curriculum and clinical missions,” Gale said. “She is approachable, decisive and as gentle as she can be tough. She solves problems by getting people to work together, and when she says something, she says it from the heart.”