Our autumn issue comes amid a milestone year in the history of the Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. This year, we are officially celebrating the 125th anniversary of our founding. We began our story in 1896 as the College of Physicians and Surgeons, just a block and a half away from our current campus. Our school’s name and location have changed over the years, but our commitment to helping people lead healthy lives and graduating excellent practitioners remains as strong as ever. Stay tuned for our spring 2022 issue of Contact Point, which will feature a variety of content in keeping with our 125th anniversary theme, as will our Annual Alumni Meeting slated for March 4-5, 2022. We hope to see you then.

In this issue, we explore some of the lessons the Dugoni School family learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and how we may emerge from the pandemic even stronger than ever. Faculty, staff and student leaders recently gathered in August for an off-site retreat where we delved into some of these important topics.

We also spotlight the Tittle family—a remarkable story of two of our alumni who teach part time and whose three children are all currently enrolled in our dental school. We also look at the role new technology is playing in dentistry and what our school is doing to prepare our graduates for emerging technologies in practice.

As I write this, the pandemic remains far from over, though thankfully the lessons we learned are helping us move forward in patient care and as we educate our students in person, and we are excited to see what lies ahead. We hope you are finding the upside of this challenging era is that you too have learned invaluable lessons. Let’s keep moving forward together.

Nader A. Nadershahi ’94, DDS, MBA, EdD
Dean