From Departmental Mergers to School Closings: Lessons in Organizational Change in Dental Education

The available information on the closing of dental schools offers only a partial explanation for those decisions. As consultants to parts and pieces of closings and major restructuring efforts of dental schools, Triangle Associates had the unique opportunity to listen first hand to the dynamics that accompanied closing decisions. This article offers three lessons derived from a case analysis of the closing of six dental schools and significant organizational change in five other dental schools. They are: 1) perceptions of “cost-benefit ratio” of dental education; 2) barriers to developing alternatives; and 3) leadership roles of faculty, chairs, and deans. As reasons for closing go beyond the easily quantifiable financial conditions of the school, trustees and university administrators should ask “Why the dental school?” (or any other program) in comparison to other schools and programs. In that schools closed when budget overexpenditures were only 5 to 10 percent of the total budget, the “cost-benefit ratio” must have to do with the perceptions of the social benefit of dentistry. Except for the differences in clothing and hair styles in the photographs, the news stories of Emory University dental students protesting the 1985 closing of their school and the 1998 photos of Northwestern University dental students after the announcement of the closure of their school appear amazingly similar. Some of the quotes, separated by a decade, appear both in support and in opposition to the closing but hauntingly echo each other: “changes in the mission” “contract to educate”