DATE:  January 28, 2011
RE:      MAC response to questions concerning the Student Ambassador Program

Dear Dean Polverini and Senior Associate Dean Lopatin,

Thank you very much for your visit with the MAC in November. Your feedback to the recommendations we submitted in October 2010 to you was very helpful. Today we can send you the answers to the questions that were raised concerning establishing a University of Michigan Dental Student Ambassador Program at our school that supports outreach efforts to recruit students from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds into our pre-doctoral dental program. We attach the revised recommendations FYI - which also have the proposed budget as Appendix 2.

During your discussion of this recommendation with us, you raised several questions that we hopefully address in the following responses.

Question: Who makes the decision which students will be ambassadors?

The student groups SNDA and HDA discuss with their members who would be interested and suggests University of Michigan Dental Student Ambassadors. If Dr. Woolfolk agrees that the suggested students are in good academic standing, they can be trained as student ambassadors.

Question: Who trains the student ambassadors and how?

Pattie Katcher agreed to work with Dr. May on training the student ambassadors. She is very happy about having student ambassadors accompany her on her recruitment trips.

Question: Given that this program is a substantial time commitment for the students, a person in academic affairs should approve the students based on their academic standing. Who would have this role?

Dr. Woolfolk agreed to be this person.

Question: Which outcome will ultimately be used to evaluate the success of the program?

While the participation in the Pipeline and PFS Programs might not be the only outcomes the student ambassadors would seek, it can be part of the outcome evaluations. In addition, our director of admission, Pattie Katcher considers it possible to compare the names of students that were reached in these student ambassador program efforts with the names of the students who seek admission into our program to see how many students will actually apply to our dental school program.

Question: The Dean made it clear that a female faculty / staff member will accompany female student ambassadors and a male faculty member the male student ambassadors. How will this be accomplished?

Given that some students would accompany Pattie Katcher on recruitment trips and some would accompany Dr. May, or Dr. Inglehart to the ADEA meeting, it should not be a problem to assure gender consistent outreach teams whenever over night trips are planned. However, for day trips this should not be a major concern.

Question: How can the program be piloted at our own institution before it is brought to schools in the state or even out of state?

Following the dean’s suggestion, the student ambassadors will practice with Pattie Katcher at a dental school predental club presentation and then in colleges nearby such as at Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan Dearborn before traveling to colleges further away.

In addition to these responses, we also want to inform you about two additional suggestions that were proposed by Kamille Brown, a D3 student, who attended the national ADA Student Ambassador Program at the Fall Meeting of the ADA in 2010. Kamille Brown suggested that information about this University of Michigan Dental Student Ambassador Program should be shared both inside our own institution as well as on a national level with other student groups who engage in recruitment activities. She therefore recommended that one pre doctoral dental student should be appointed by the SNDA and HDA members and then be charged with the task to assure that all student groups in the dental school are informed about these Dental School Student Ambassador recruitment activities. This student group liaison person would also report back from the other groups to the SNDA and HDA student groups about any ongoing student driven recruitment activities.

Kamille’s second recommendation is to assure that at least one University of Michigan Dental School Student Ambassador should attend the yearly ADA Student Ambassador Meeting to (a) share our activities with the ADA program and (b) report back from this meeting to assure that our school's program is in line with the national program.

We hope that these responses answer your questions and that you appreciate Kamille Brown’s input and look forward to hearing from you. It would be wonderful if we could start this program in February.

Marita Inglehart & Cheryl Quiney, MAC co-chairs
Evelyn Lucas-Perry & Ricardo Lug, Student MAC members