VISION STATEMENT
The vision of IUSD encompasses the pursuit of excellence in oral health education, research, patient care and service to the community and the profession, guided by shared values and mission, and carried out in an environment of collaboration, mutual respect, and continual growth and development of faculty, staff and students.
The educational programs at IUSD will feature curricula which not only provide for the learning of specific information, but promote critical thinking, problem solving and responsibility for learning by the student. These curricula (including those for dental, advanced dental and allied dental programs) will integrate the biological, clinical and behavioral sciences in such a way as to give clear relevance to them all. They will translate the knowledge, training and ethical values learned in the institution to the real capability to restore and promote the health of our patients more effectively than any previous generation of dentists. Utilizing information technology to record and update curriculum data bases, our faculty will be able to relate content and delivery of the curricula to desired program outcomes and accreditation standards. Accordingly, curricular adjustments will be possible in a timely and efficient manner. Finally, the curricula will inculcate in the students the principles and imperatives of lifelong learning. As both a natural extension and a professional obligation, IUSD will engage in educational research to measure, refine and document the success of these cutting edge curricula.
Our school will continue to build on its tradition of having the finest advanced education programs in dentistry in the world. Each of these programs will attract the finest students and provide the most stringent educational standards as well as the best clinical training and experience available anywhere. Each program will represent the leading edge of its discipline, and will include a research component consistent with our institutional goals.
The imperative for lifelong learning will be served by a visionary program in continuing education which focuses on providing world-class continuing education programs in subject areas of greatest demand in such as way as to be maximally user-friendly and time-efficient. This continuing education program will operate both on-site and through distributed educational opportunities as well as interactive computer-assisted experiences.
Research, the generation of new knowledge, will remain a mainstay of our program and priorities. Our research activities will take the form of a coordinated, focused major research program, involving all faculty in various ways and led by the finest investigators and clinicians in the world. This program will maximize not only the strengths of the faculty, but those of the university and state as well. It will be of such quality and stature as to maintain us as valued members of both the academic and professional communities. This research program will also be carefully designed and guided to position our institution to be ready and competitive for major external research funding, especially from the Federal government. This will require a very careful overarching research plan which includes 1) the dean in the role of spokesperson for the school, resource identifier and facilitator for the faculty, and chief executive officer through the faculty development and reward system; 2) the department chairs in their roles as mentors and developers of their departments and individual faculty and those who articulate the future of their fields as well as who design the distribution of the time and energies of their faculty; 3) individual faculty as each becomes involved in some way in the overall research program of the institution.
Patient care in our institution will feature predoctoral clinical educational experiences in a truly integrated care general dentistry setting, supported by specialty programs as appropriate, and incorporating all aspects of contemporary dental practice, including a solid grounding in practice management and the practice of quality dentistry in a complex and challenging practice environment. The center of effort for this predoctoral clinical education will be our comprehensive care clinics, each directed by a team of master-clinician general dentists, complemented by the appropriate discipline-based specialists. The quality of care and patient-friendliness of our clinics will be widely recognized in the community and will be appreciated as an indispensable referral resource by the practicing community. Student assessment will be achieved through competency based measures which are constantly reviewed for stringency and relevance.
Service to the public will incorporate, in addition to the dental school clinics, programs in public education and direct public service locally, statewide and, when appropriate, nationally and internationally. Through this service the School of Dentistry will constitute an extremely important arm and manifestation of university citizenship, particularly in concert with our urban setting and mission. Additionally, it will enhance care to our citizens who fall in the gap between those eligible for public assistance and those possessing the resources for private oral health care. Moreover, each program of public service will contain the potential for service-learning on the part of the students. Service to the profession will be realized through enhancing the status of the School of Dentistry as the center of education and the principal source of new practitioners in the state. As part of maintaining this vital role continuous involvement of the faculty, staff and students with the practicing profession and organized dentistry will be promoted and encouraged; and the input of the profession to the vital strategic and operational decisions of the school will be solicited.
All of our activity will be carefully monitored through a comprehensive, understandable and relevant program of institutional outcomes assessment leading to continuous improvement. All of this activity will also be carried out in a fiscally sound manner within the university concept of the School of Dentistry as a responsibility center. Resources will be carefully developed and assigned to ensure that students, faculty and staff have contemporary, user-friendly and environmentally sound facilities and working conditions.
The students, alumni and other friends of IUSD will appreciate the need to continue to give back to their school as not only the source of their education and livelihood, but as a critically important component of the future of their profession. Through all the communities of interest, the School of Dentistry will become more financially independent and prepared for the inevitable decrease in the ability of the state to fund professional education.
Of critical importance to the achievement of this vision is the establishment of exactly the right environment, what we refer to as an Environment for Excellence. Our faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends must all join us in helping to establish this environment. This Environment for Excellence is characterized by opportunity and accountability, resources and responsibility, professional development and expectation, guidelines and reward, expectation and appreciation, and seriousness and collegiality. This environment will be fostered through the administration's commitment to meaningful programs in faculty and staff development and though the institutional commitment to the treatment of students as respected professionals by faculty, staff and administration. In establishing and supporting this environment, all the finest faculty and staff will want to come to IUSD to do their lives' work and establish the ideal setting for the education and training of the finest oral health practitioners ever. We will continue to be able to say and mean, WE ARE INDIANA, ALWAYS STRIVING FOR SIMPLY THE BEST.
Endorsed by IUSD Faculty Council