Oral medicine and restorative dentistry faculty attend leadership institute
Two West Virginia University School of Dentistry faculty members are recent participants in a national program to enhance their skills and help elevate their impact in dentistry and dental education.
The American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Leadership Institute is a one-year program that goes beyond standard professional development.
Dr. Lauren Godwin, chair of the department of restorative dentistry, and Dr. Juan Bugueno, assistant professor and oral medicine specialist, became fellows of the Leadership Institute this Spring.
The year-long fellowship consisted of four sessions and the future fellows studied everything from conflict resolution skills to dental policy. They learned more about engagement within their own universities and with those from other institutions. Advocacy, policy and the economics of dental education are a focus. And, priority-setting, decision-making and implementation skills are included in the curriculum.
Participants work in cohorts with colleagues from across the country to write and ultimately publish a manuscript in the Journal of Dental Education.
Dr. Godwin and her team's manuscript was titled " Creating an Agile Curriculum: A Roadmap for Implementing Technology in Dental Education". The teammates discussed artificial reality/virtual reality and how a dental school can create a pilot program to start implementing these technologies in order to remain agile and current in an ever-changing environment.
“The Leadership Institute was truly an invaluable experience. Learning and growing from not only my colleagues and peers within the program but from national leaders and advisors in dental education was truly an experience that I will cherish for the rest of my career,” Godwin said.
Dr. Bugueno also found incredible value in the teamwork. Their project was titled "Dental Workforce Issues: Filling the Need for America's Oral Health Admidst a Declining Number of Dental School Applications." The team explained the issues surrounding the declining number of applicants through a discussion of how dental schools might utilize Deal's Four Frames model in order to better prepare for and address the challenges that could emerge wihtin a changing admissions environment.
“This program provides essential tools to collaborate actively and more competently with the education, preparation, and development of current and future oral health providers. In addition, I firmly believe that our communities, especially minority populations, need more well-prepared leaders, willing to collaborate and join alliances to benefit those who need more. Consequently, improving leadership skills is crucial, and through this program I was able to accomplish that,” Bugueno said.
Faculty members Dr. Foti Panagakos and Dr. Hiba Qari are ADEA Leadership Institute alumni.
The Institute’s first graduating class was in 2000.
Thank You
I am very grateful for the support and encouragement from Dr. Panagakos to apply for the fellowship and for Dr. Stephen Pachuta's support while I engaged in the program. I hope that this experience and all I have learned over the past year can be implemented to my role at WVU School of Dentistry and help make me a better educator and clinician for the students, staff, and patients I serve.
Dr. Lauren Godwin
It was an incredible educational experience to acquire, refine and enrich my leadership skills. Through all of the phases, I was able to learn further about management time abilities, improve my conflict resolution skills as well as administrative competencies; expand my knowledge about policy issues related with academic dentistry and enhance my professional networking. Definitely, I would like to thank the whole team of ADEA who makes possible this training, my colleagues and the Dean of the school who provided significant support to complete this program.
Dr. Juan Bugueno