Note: This is the third and final part of RN's special report "Sunshine State Smiles: The Case for a FAMU College of Dental Medicine."A FAMU College of Dental Medicine would boost the State University System of Florida’s abysmal number of black dental students. From 1998 to 2008 the black student population at the state’s lone public dental school, run by the University of Florida, has remained below five percent. This includes students in the professional, graduate, and postbaccalaureate programs.
According to U.S. Bureau of the Census estimates, blacks make up 15.9 percent of Florida’s population. In 2008, black students comprised 4.9 percent of the total UF dental school student body.
The 2008 “State of Florida’s Oral Health” report by the Florida Department of Health noted that blacks are severely underrepresented in the nation’s dental and dental hygiene schools, with a total percentage of 5.41.
The report called for the state to do to a better job of recruiting minority dental students and providing loan forgiveness options for them. It added that better specialty care for the “culturally and ethnically disadvantaged” is essential to improving Florida’s overall oral health.
The proposed FAMU College of Dental Medicine would address these issues through its mission of producing dentists “from underrepresented populations to serve underserved populations.”
Click on the image above for a larger view of the table.
It is funny to note that UF has had the highest enrollment of African Americans in their Dental school over the past two years...the same time FAMU begun talking about a COD.....Now what is even more important and data that wasnt shown was how many have actually completed the program and gone on to become dentist...
ReplyDeleteThat's a good observation. Ammons publicly announced his intention to seek a dental school when he interviewed for FAMU's presidency in Spring 2007. And then look what happened in Fall 2007. UF magically "found" a bunch more qualified black applicants to let in its own dental school.
ReplyDeleteBoth of ya'll are on point. Once we get our Dental School, I'm sure they(UF) will pull more tricks out of the ass like how they are offering free tuition for Masters degrees from the Department of Education for anyone willing to work in underserved schools for X amount of years.
ReplyDeleteYep. UF's going to keep on kicking up its black enrollment as long as FAMU keeps talking about adding a dental school.
ReplyDeleteAnd then you know exactly what will happen to their black enrollment if and when they no longer think FAMU has a chance getting into the dental school game...