Dentistry says so long to old haunt

Cheryl Deslaurier

The School of Dentistry is currently making a historic move out of the Dentistry/Pharmacy Centre, a stately building in the heart of the University of Alberta campus that has been its home for more than 90 years.

The U of A dentistry program began in 1917, when dental education was first instituted as a department of dentistry under the aegis of the Faculty of Medicine. The dental school’s first dean, H.E. Bulyea, came here from Harvard University in 1917 and patterned the curriculum after that of Harvard.

The first full degree program was offered in 1923 and the first class graduated in 1927. The U of A housed the only dental school in Western Canada until the founding of the dental school at the University of Manitoba in 1957.

In 1961, a new dental auxiliary program was initiated and the year after that, the program became the School of Dental Hygiene and a graduate studies program was added. It is now one of the top dental hygiene programs in Canada.

The move to the Edmonton Clinic is scheduled for the end of July.

“We will operate differently in the future, but our fundamentals of providing the best education and learning experience for our students, while providing exceptional patient care, will never change,” said Paul Major, lead of the School of Dentistry.

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