I want to thank all of you for your hard work to make our recent Accreditation site visit an overwhelming success. The Accreditation team concluded its work on Thursday, April 14, and immediately thereafter Chancellor Bishop, Executive Vice Chancellor Eugene Washington, the School's administrators, and I were debriefed by the chair of the Accreditation committee, Dr. Bruce Graham. The School received 0 recommendations and a total of 17 commendations for the pre-doctoral program and the six post-doctoral programs that were reviewed. This is a singular accomplishment for this entire organization - faculty, staff, and students. These positive results are something that we can all be proud of, as they reflect well on all of us and the common mission that we hold.

There can be a tendency to view Accreditation as an event that happens once every seven years and that once the event is over, we don't have to think about it any more. However, I would rather look at Accreditation differently: I'd like to think of it as a process rather than an event; as the culmination of a long period of self-exploration and self-improvement that allows us to take stock of what we do and how we do it, and encourages us to examine ways to do things better. For this reason, Accreditation is a very positive experience that allows us to acknowledge our strengths and build on them by continually improving our teaching, our service and our research missions.

Thanks for Your Hard Work
Over the next few days and weeks I will be searching out individuals to thank personally; however, there is someone whose contributions I feel I must acknowledge here. Without the hard work and diligence of Dr. Dorothy Perry our outstanding results would not have been possible. Dr. Perry led the Accreditation effort, working tirelessly over the past two-and-a-half years, meeting with faculty, staff and students, preparing thousands of pages of documentation for review by the site team, mobilizing the School in preparation for the event, and keeping us all apprised of the process. She deserves hearty thanks and congratulations from all of us.

Our faculty and students were the central players in the Accreditation process. They gave generously of their time, writing and reviewing the self-study documents, clearing their schedules to meet with the site visitors and the Accreditation Steering Committee, and ensuring that we projected ourselves at our best. Equally important, students - led by an exceptionally gifted group of student leaders - made themselves available to the site visitors this past week, and worked with the faculty and staff to make the entire process go smoothly. Students voluntarily held an Accreditation Rally recently, showing their enthusiasm and school spirit despite a challenging workload.

The staff also went above and beyond the call of duty in preparing the School for Accreditation. Many worked evenings and weekends to ensure that the building was ready for the site team's visit, and I can't recall a time in my many years here that the entire School of Dentistry looked as good as it does now.

It would be impossible for me to thank everyone who helped in this gargantuan effort of readying us for Accreditation. Please know that the Administration greatly appreciates all of the extra work and effort that all of us made in this undertaking. Now that Accreditation is complete, I would like to build on the momentum and positivity that we generated together. Let's use this result as something to encourage ourselves to strive for even higher goals in all that we do. And, again, thanks to all of you for all that you did to make Accreditation such an unqualified success.

Best regards,

Charles N. Bertolami, DDS, DMedSc
Dean

Accreditation Town Hall

Faculty, staff and students await the results of the Accreditation visit in C-701 on Thursday, April 14 at a Town Hall Meeting.

Dr. Dorothy Perry, who headed up the Accreditation effort, with Dean Bertolami at the Town Hall Meeting.