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President-elect’s Address

Thank you for creating the opportunity for me to work with you throughout the next year as your president. It’s very humbling to have the honor to serve such an accomplished group of professionals.

As I thought about the upcoming year, it became quickly obvious that most of us are doing the things we love because of opportunities created for us by others. Thus, I chose the theme for next year’s meeting: "Creating Opportunities."

To illustrate this theme, I’d like to tell a story—a true story—that I feel puts it into perspective.

Bob and Grace grew up in large farm families in the Midwest. Each of their grandparents had emigrated from Western Europe, and English was a second language for their parents. Bob and Grace were each the first to graduate from high school in their respective families. Those graduations took place just as this country was entering into the Great Depression.

College was not an option for them: their parents had many other children to raise, and their farms were becoming dust bowls. The couple’s high school romance soon led to marriage, and they found jobs working on a dairy farm.

The hours were long and the work was hard, but the pay, while modest, was consistent. The job also offered the use of a house. Using their income that wasn’t required for food or clothing, they slowly furnished that house. Over several years the house became their home. They had no money to speak of, but they had each other and their home.

Unfortunately, an accidental fire in a nearby structure spread to their home, resulting in the total loss of it and all their belongings. Insurance was not held on the property. Everything was lost.

The owner of the dairy farm temporarily moved them into an outbuilding, and after a short time, an opportunity to become tenants on a small sharecrop farm became available.

Within a few years, a son was born. That son grew up surrounded by hard work and dedication. There was excitement when it rained and the crops were plentiful, and disappointment when drought led to crop failure.

Most of all, the son grew up in a totally supportive environment. There wasn’t running water in the house until he was in high school, but that house was full of love.

From the time the son could remember, the importance of education was stressed to him. There was no sense for him to complain about school or a teacher. In his parents’ eyes, the teachers were always right; after all, they had graduated from college.

The son was expected to go to college, but the choice of college was never in doubt. The state land grant institution was the only affordable option.

While in college, the son decided that dentistry might be a career removed from the threat of drought. The day of his interview for dental school soon came, and it proved to be very interesting. When he was eight years old, a traumatic accident had caused the loss of an eye. He really didn’t think about it much, but the health history in his application had caught the attention of the Admissions Committee.

The interview soon turned into a blur of dissertations about the importance of visual acuity, depth perception, and color recognition and concerns about burning down a building with a casting torch. At the conclusion of the process, the son left the room, deflated. In the hallway, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the admissions director. "They were pretty tough on you in there," he said. "But, to be truthful, not one of us has any idea what impact your condition may have on the ability to practice dentistry." He jotted down the name of his personal ophthalmologist and suggested the son seek a consultation and have the opinion sent to him.

That consultation led to a letter discussing visual accommodation, an ultimate acceptance from the Admissions Committee, and the beginning of a new career as a dentist.

The son’s career direction shifted slightly during dental school when a departmental chair not only encouraged him to pursue his own discipline, but also spent a considerable amount of time showing him the positive aspects of an academic career. That chair later offered the son his first job and proved to be the perfect academic mentor. He encouraged and supported the son in trying new and different directions, let him wander out on a branch until it was ready to break, then reeled him back in for a discussion of what had worked—and what needed additional work. He let the son take the credit for any success that came from his work, but stepped forward immediately to share responsibility and help create a new direction if something went astray.

Later in his academic career, a senior faculty member took the son under his wing, showing him the excitement that came from answering clinical questions by discovering new information.

By now you’ve probably guessed that I’m the son in this story.

The opportunities created for me by my now deceased parents, Bob and Grace, by Ray Steinacher as the admissions director, by Gerry Tussing as the department chair, and by Bob Krejci as the senior faculty member are what allow me to be with you today. I stand on their shoulders, and the shoulders of many others, just as each of you do. We get to do the things we love because of the opportunities others created for us.

I’ve had the fortune to serve four deans: Dick Bradley, Bill Brown, Henry Cherrick, and Dom DePaola, all icons in dental education. Each created an opportunity for me to learn through his mentoring. Dick showed me the importance of statesmanship, Bill stimulated innovative approaches, Henry’s energy and excitement created motivation in all who surrounded him, and Dom demonstrated the power of vision.

I’ve also had a wonderful opportunity over the past year to work with the leadership of ADEA and learn from Rick’s big picture inclusiveness, Frank’s passion and persistence, and Eric’s stalwartness and uplifting spirit. I hope that no one in this audience ever has to go through a situation anywhere close to what Eric and his colleagues at LSU have faced during the past seven months. However, if we ever do, the LSU team has shown us how it should be managed. Eric, our hats are off to you and your colleagues. ADEA looks forwarding to joining you in New Orleans next March for the Annual Session and a celebration of the rebirth of your city.

"There is no security on earth. Only opportunity." —Douglas MacArthur "Effective people are not problem-minded; they’re opportunity-minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems." —Stephen R. Covey "Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune or temporary defeat." —Napoleon Hill "Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along." —Hugh Allen "You can never win when you wear the ugly cloak of self-pity, and the sour sound of whining will certainly frighten away any opportunity for success." —Og Mandino "Opportunity is just success looking for a place to happen." —Greg Hickman "Within our dreams and our aspirations we find our opportunities." —Sue Atchley Ebaugh "Be thankful when you don’t know something, for it gives you the opportunity to learn." —Unknown "To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do conclusions." —Benjamin Franklin "A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities, and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties." —Harry Truman "Go around asking a lot of damn fool questions and taking chances. Only through curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only by gambling can we take advantage of them." —Unknown "Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." —Henry Ford "Enlarge the opportunity and the person will expand to fill it." —Eli Ginzberg "Subtract from the man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and he will often be seen to be a pygmy." —Charles Caleb Colton "Always be on the lookout for that spark of opportunity that could change your life or someone close to you forever." —Peter Simmons "When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity." —John F. Kennedy "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds." —Francis Bacon "Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so." —Doris Lessing "Ability is of little account without opportunity." —Napoleon "Change does not change tradition, it strengthens it. Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat." —Prince Phillip "The freedom to move forward to new opportunities and to produce results comes from living in the present, not the past." —Brian Koslow "Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together." —Robert Smith "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities—brilliantly disguised as insolvable problems." —John Gardner "There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier." —Charles Kettering "Welcome those big, sticky, complicated problems. In them are your most powerful opportunities." —Ralph Marston "Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises." —Demosthenes "Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity." —H. Jackson Brown "Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work." —Thomas Edison "If you view all things that happen to you, both good and bad, as opportunities, then you operate out of a higher level of consciousness." —Les Brown "Two people who belong together have the opportunity to make a world." —Hans Margolius "Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more." —Anthony Robbins "Opportunities multiply as they are seized." —Sun Tzu "Our opportunities to do good are our talents." —Cotton Mather

 

Everyone here today has a responsibility. Just as others have created opportunities for us, we must create opportunities for others. Sometimes it’s easy: an eager student, for instance, comes begging for a chance to try something new. Other times, it takes creativity and dedication.

Young faculty members must have opportunities to develop their academic aptitude. Mid-career faculty members must be given the opportunity to develop their leadership and management skills. All faculty members must have the opportunity to retool, refresh, and tackle activities that expand their horizons.

We must continue to create opportunities and develop innovative ways to attract and retain energetic, intellectually curious, and passionate individuals into careers in academic dentistry.

We must ensure that students have the opportunity to learn, the opportunity to master critical thinking and problem solving, and the opportunity to become lifelong learners.

We must accept the opportunity to develop ourselves as lifelong learners to ensure that we utilize the best educational methods available to accomplish our goals.

We must together create opportunities to improve our educational process so we can assure the public that every graduate is a competent lifelong learner capable of basing his or her decisions, and the delivery of care, upon the best available evidence, while adhering to the social contract that society expects of all health care providers.

We must create opportunities to enhance support and resources for our programs and institutions so they can continue their traditions of high quality education.

We must create opportunities to continue influencing the development of a fair and equitable process to assess the competency of our graduates as they apply for licensure. And, more importantly, we must create an opportunity for our profession to assure society that all holders of a dental license retain competency throughout their practice lives.

We must develop opportunities to continue our collaborations with other groups to advocate for oral health and educational issues, developing tools and processes to improve education, research, and clinical care.

We must create opportunities to work with others from across our profession to develop innovative health care delivery systems that fulfill the oral health care needs of our diverse society, while ensuring that the quality of delivered services meets appropriate standards of care.

ADEA has created the opportunity for more individuals from across the spectrum of academic dentistry to participate through Open Membership. They responded, pushed the button, and are now part of us. ADEA must not stop here. We must assess the wants and needs of all our members and continue to create opportunities for each of them to grow and flourish.

We must also recognize and know when to accept the challenge offered by an opportunity. Great opportunities usually call for the recipient to devote a lot of hard work to bring the project to fruition. The difference between an opportunity and a gift must be carefully delineated: every opportunity requires significant action by the recipient.

In closing, I want to thank all my colleagues at San Antonio: the students whose commitment to learning gives us a reason to exist; the faculty and staff for accepting the opportunities they have been offered to create a dynamic educational environment; and the chairs, directors, and deans on our administrative team for not only running an efficient and effective academic enterprise, but for creating new approaches to make us better on an ongoing basis.

I also want to acknowledge the individuals who provide me the greatest opportunities in life: the opportunity to love and be loved, and the opportunity to wake each morning knowing that no matter how bad, or how good, the day is, they will be there at its end to support me, build me back up, or bring back my humility. These are my wife, Sharon, and our sons, Kyle and Kevin. Sharon is with me today. I hope you get to meet her during the meeting.

Kyle, our older son, is a 2002 graduate of West Point and led an armor platoon during the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is now a Captain, is getting ready to redeploy to Iraq, and recently heard that he will be starting medical school next year. Kyle is also with us today.

Our younger son, Kevin, is finishing his last semester at West Point. He reports to Fort Rucker this summer to begin aviation training. Kevin’s commitments do not allow him to join us today, but those of us who know Kevin realize we never know when or where he might show up.

You can imagine the opportunities Sharon and I have experienced over the past few years watching these guys grow up.

I look forward to the next year and the opportunity to work with the ADEA Board of Directors and staff. I also look forward to serving the entire ADEA membership, the veteran members, and the ones joining us for the first time through open membership.

Together, we will mold the future of academic dentistry and dental education by Creating Opportunities. Thank you.

	Footnotes

 
This address by the President-elect of the American Dental Education Association was presented to the membership on March 8, 2006, in Orlando, Florida. Dr. Kalkwarf is Dean and Professor of Periodontology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Dental School.

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