Welcome to the 2019- 2020 Academic Year

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students:

I am pleased to welcome you to the 2019-2020 academic year at the UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry! The beginning of the term is an exciting time on any campus, but it’s a particularly special year for us. We have over 300 dental students returning to campus this fall. Out of 1433 applicants and 363 interviewees, we welcome 106 first year DDS students. An outstanding 59 women and 47 men make up this year’s freshmen class which also consists of 28 underrepresented minorities in the profession of dentistry. Speaking of our DS1s, we are thrilled to be awarding over $156,000 in scholarships to eligible students this year!

We also welcome a strong group of Dental Hygiene students, who began their fall session at the start of July. Out of 97 applicants, this new cohort includes 19 women and 3 men with an average GPA of 3.6. The Dental Hygiene program is pleased to report that their students come from all over Texas, the U.S., Mexico, Nepal, Iran, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan.

Our Advanced Education programs continue to enroll the top applicants from across the nation. Our 9 competitive programs received a total of 1037 applications in the last application cycle. As a result, we are joined by 46 first year residents across all programs for a total of 113 residents receiving their advanced education training with the School of Dentistry.

I would like to thank every member of our faculty and staff for the preparation that has gone into organizing the year ahead. Because of your commitment to excellence, our students can look forward to a rich and rewarding education and the oral health of their current (and future) patients will be significantly impacted.

It is my privilege to serve you as Dean and a top priority of mine is to make myself available to you throughout the year. I plan to have regular Town Hall meetings with our staff and students to update you on items of interest and have open discussions on matters that concern us all. For faculty, I plan to continue the quarterly General Faculty meetings where we can facilitate powerful ideas that lead to action planning and positive outcomes. I have also spoken to our Chairmen about having me attend departmental meetings as another forum for discussion.

As we embark on the new term, we have a collective mission to improve oral health through excellence in education, research, patient care, and community engagement. I look forward to working with, and learning from, each of you to advance this undertaking.

Kindest regards,

Peter M. Loomer, BSc, DDS, PhD, MRCD(C), FACD

Professor and Dean

School of Dentistry