VCU Breaks Ground for Third Dental School Building

By Pamela DiSalvo Lepley and Martha Bushong

Virginia Commonwealth University today broke ground on a new, $20 million addition to the VCU School of Dentistry, Virginia's only dental school. The new building is named in honor of alumnus W. Baxter Perkinson, Jr. 

The four-story building will house research laboratories, classrooms, conference facilities, dental clinics and faculty offices. The 55,000 square-foot structure connects the existing School of Dentistry Wood and Lyons buildings and faces north onto Leigh Street, between 11^th and 12^th streets.

The new building will increase the School of Dentistry's laboratory space, enabling faculty members to expand their research in oral cancer as part of a collaboration with the VCU Massey Cancer Center. In an entirely new venture, faculty from the School of Dentistry will collaborate with faculty from the School of Engineering to create a new focus of research in dental bioengineering.

"This cross-campus collaboration marks an important trend for research at Virginia Commonwealth University," said VCU President Eugene P. Trani. "The sharing of interdisciplinary knowledge results in translational research that quickly takes discoveries from the laboratory to patients in clinics and improves the health and well-being of Virginians."

The new facility also permits the School of Dentistry to expand enrollment in its dental and dental hygiene education programs. The Doctor of Dental Surgery program will expand from 90 to 100 students each year, focusing on recruiting the 10 additional students from the dentally underserved areas of Southwest and Southside Virginia. The Dental Hygiene program will increase its enrollment from 20 to 40 new students annually.

"The increased space, clinics and classrooms will allow the school to educate and graduate more dentists and dental hygienists and provide better access to dental care for Virginians," said Dean Ron Hunt. "The VCU School of Dentistry is the one educational institution in the Commonwealth with the ability to educate the next generation of dentists for our citizens, and we take this obligation seriously."

Completion of the W. Baxter Perkinson, Jr. Building is projected for summer 2009. The state has allocated $9.1 million toward the $20 million capital construction project.

VCU's School of Dentistry offers programs in dentistry and dental hygiene, as well as graduate programs in advanced general dentistry, endodontics, pediatric dentistry, periodontics, oral surgery and orthodontics.