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Prof Says There's 'Nothing Like It in The Country'
The new home for the Center for Advanced Dental Education, an impressively renovated facility at 3300 Rutger Street, should be ready for move-in in a few weeks.
A walk-through inspection of the new Dreiling-Marshall Building is scheduled to occur on April 1, and center officials expect it will take two to three weeks to move from their present facilities in the Caroline Building.
"This building is going to be a state-of-the-art facility," said Peter G. Sotiropoulos, D.D.S., director of the Center for Advanced Dental Education. "There will be nothing like it in the country or - for that matter - the world."
This new facility occupies 44,000 square feet, and compared with the center's present space of 12,000 square feet, it permits significant program development in orthodontics as well as other disciplines in graduate dental education such as endodontics and periodontics.
"Equally significant is the architectural imagination that has been transplanted to the physical plant," said Frank Sobkowski, D.D.S., professor and clinical director of the center. "It is incredible. Recent national and international visitors to the program just could not believe the tremendously impressive structure that is devoted to graduate dental education, research and oral health service to the public. One visitor remarked that in his experience, it is the finest facility of its kind in the world."
Facility highlights include patient treatment stations, multipurpose teaching laboratories, a two-story high-tech lecture auditorium equipped for institutional and eventually international distance learning programs, seminar rooms, a modern imaging facility, research laboratories, and contemporary business management and record-keeping facilities.
The newly renovated building, which formerly housed the Peterson Planing Mill, was purchased by the University in 1994 and is situated just east of the new School of Allied Health Professions building that is under construction. Close to $6 million was spent on renovating the existing structure to house the University's graduate programs in orthodontics, endodontics and periodontics. Future programs at the center, in conjunction with Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, could include dental hygiene, dental prosthetics, oral and maxillofacial surgery and pedodontics.
The first home for the University's graduate program in orthodontics was humble indeed. In 1947, the program was given a corner, approximately 20 feet by 20 feet, in the School of Dentistry in the Caroline Building. Kenneth C. Marshall, D.D.S., the program's founder and first chairman, squeezed four patient chairs and his desk into the tight quarters.
Despite the limited space, the program flourished, and within a few years it moved into a pre-Civil War flat located next to the Caroline Building. Sotiropoulos, a 1950 graduate, was one of the first two students.
In 1971, the graduate program in orthodontics moved back into the Caroline Building. The building's 12,000 square feet spread over one-and-a-half floors seemed spacious at the time. Patient chairs tripled to 30. Under the direction of Marshall and his successor, Lysle Johnston, D.D.S., faculty and students working in the research lab consistently won awards. The program became the largest in the world. By its 50th anniversary during the 1997 academic year, the program had more than 500 alumni practicing throughout the United States and 30 foreign countries.
Now the University is taking dental education to the next level by moving the program into a facility befitting its world-class reputation.
"We've been telling our alumni and friends about a move for several years, and now it's really happening," Sotiropoulos said. "It's so true that things work out for a reason because this new site is superior in every respect to those previously considered."
The building is named in part after Patrick M. Dreiling, D.D.S. Dreiling was the eighth person in his family to graduate from the University's School of Dentistry, but he was the first in his family to earn a degree from the University's graduate program in orthodontics. When Dreiling, class of 1969, pledged $1.3 million toward the renovation of the Peterson facility, he requested the building be named in honor of Marshall. At first, Marshall felt overwhelmed by the honor and declined. He relented only after Dreiling agreed to share the name.
After the School of Dentistry closed in 1971, Marshall convinced then University President Paul Reinert, SJ, to keep the graduate program in orthodontics alive, promising it would be a self-sustaining and internationally renowned operation in no time. He fulfilled his promise and then some. The program has educated more orthodontists than any other graduate program in the profession's history. Almost since its inception, the program has had a waiting list of prospective students.
Another instrumental leader in the development of the center is Peter C. Kesling, D.D.S, clinical professor at the center, who donated $1 million to the Dreiling-Marshall building campaign. Kesling's son is an alumnus from the class of 1984.
The new building, with its well-coordinated spaces, benefits everyone. For students, the organization of clinical laboratories and lecture areas will increase their efficiency and their ability to both learn and deliver quality treatment to their patients. Patients will be provided the necessary sense of well being and privacy that is such an important part of dental care.
"With this building, we now have the ability to meet today's requirements for a modern teaching facility that has outstanding advantages for patients, students and faculty," Sobkowski said. "We can continue our tradition of excellence and lay the foundation for other dental education programs."
A grand opening celebration for the center has been set for June 13.